Promising Partnership

When Frances James, a member of the South-Central Organizing Committee, puts her 15-year-old son onto a school bus, she prays that she’ll see him again when school is out. She is not the only such mother. Street gangs are making many campuses, playgrounds and parks unsafe. A coalition of parents and city leaders vows not to give ground.

Parents who are members of SCOC, the United Neighborhoods Organization and the East Valleys Organization--community groups that represent 200,000 families on the Southside and Eastside and in the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys--have formed a promising partnership with city leaders, including the mayor, the district attorney, the superintendent of schools, recreation and park officials, police and youth-gang workers. They are determined to create safe harbors for children.

So far it is just an idea. The leaders will meet in two weeks to decide in detail how the partnership will work. They also will have to decide whether the program will cost money and, if so, just where the money will come from. Could the partnership draw on a $2.1-million fund, approved by the mayor and City Council for unspecified gang-prevention efforts? Could the Los Angeles Police Department schedule intensive preventive patrols around schools and parks without shortchanging other priorities? Will state legislators impose the same restrictions on rifles and automatic weapons that apply to the sale of handguns?

A lot depends on just how hard the parents are willing to work at stemming the violence and whether, for example, they are willing to join community patrols so that children can travel freely to school and to parks. Frances James, the SCOC leader, intervenes whenever she sees a youngster in jeopardy; her son has lost three friends, none of them gang members, to gang violence this year.

Zero tolerance of murders, drugs, guns, violence and hard-core gang activity on school grounds, playgrounds and parks is a commendable goal. But the leadership will have to focus directly on how--and whether--it can be achieved.

Rarely a day goes by without a drive-by shooting--10 people wounded in one 12-hour period this week. Rarely a week goes by without several murders--gang members and more innocent youngsters giving up their lives for nothing. Despite massive police sweeps, a new park-ranger program and continued public attention, the shootings and murders are up by 20% this year.

Sheltering children from this shoot-’em-up atmosphere commands a high priority. They need safe harbors at school and on playgrounds and in parks. The new partnership between city leaders and the community organizations--UNO, SCOC and EVO--holds out great promise. If it works, and we hope that it works dramatically, it will make a bus ride to school a time of fun, not fear.