U.S. Must Get Tougher in Its War on Drugs, Gangs, Law Officers Say

At a congressional subcommittee hearing where one witness termed street gang membership “a religious-type” undertaking, top Los Angeles-based law enforcement officials Monday called for tougher federal policing efforts and alternatives such as a national job-training program to help combat gang violence and related drug trafficking.

“You have to get to the (youths) before they get into gangs and before they become killers,” Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner testified, citing the 387 gang-related homicides reported in Los Angeles County last year. “These gangs are not just killing themselves, they are killing others as well.”

Reiner, one of 23 speakers at the meeting of the House Judiciary Committee’s criminal justice subcommittee in Compton, urged the federal government to employ tough economic sanctions against nations such as Colombia and Bolivia to “choke off the supply of cocaine.”

U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner and Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent John M. Zienter called for more lawyers and agents to help prosecute gang members involved in cocaine sales in Los Angeles. The two officials said Los Angeles has become the nation’s cocaine distribution capital, with street gang members playing a major role in processing and retail sales.

Other witnesses asserted that youths in depressed neighborhoods will continue to join street gangs until the federal government provides such alternatives as job training and education that can lead to well-paying careers.

Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), who presided over the session, said afterward that the federal government must get more involved. The Reagan Administration’s policies have proved heavy on sloganeering but light on funding, he said. For example, he said, while President Reagan promotes a “Just say no” to drugs program, he has sharply reduced the budget of federal agencies such as the Coast Guard that are involved in day-to-day drug enforcement efforts.

Conyers said the subcommittee will likely hold further hearings in Chicago and New York before specific proposals are introduced in Congress.

Among the more chilling testimony at the session was that of Harvey Hartfield, 26, a Compton resident identified on the hearing program as a current gang member.

“Gangs is more of a religious type of thing, it’s something they believe in and it’s all they’ve ever had,” said Hartfield, who later told reporters that he is no longer a gang member “physically--but my heart is still in it.”

In many poor neighborhoods, Hartfield said, random drive-by shootings are such a fact of life that residents are forced to consider the possibility of dying each time they venture out to the grocery store.

Hartfield said community efforts are needed to convince gang members “to debate rather than shoot.”

Similar sentiments were echoed by two mothers whose children have been shot in random gang attacks during the last two years.

“If you don’t do something now, our nation will be in trouble,” said Donna Blackshear of Inglewood, whose 10-year-old daughter was hit in the head by a stray bullet in early 1987. “This is more than a black problem or a Hispanic problem, it’s a national problem.”