Bill Funds Effort to Limit Spread of Gang Activities

A provision in the sweeping omnibus drug bill enacted Saturday by Congress provides $4.92 million to fund a federal Drug Enforcement Administration task force to fight the spread of Los Angeles gang activity to other cities.

These funds had already been approved for the DEA in an earlier appropriations bill, but have now been specifically earmarked for the anti-gang task force.

“It’s seed money that we can use right now,” Ralph Lockridge, a spokesman for the DEA’s Los Angeles office, said Monday. “This is a national problem.”

The DEA announced the formation of the task force in August, assigning 28 law enforcement officials--narcotics agents, investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and federal, local and state prosecutors--to concentrate on the growing presence of Los Angeles gangs in drug trafficking.

On Monday, two Los Angeles County deputy district attorneys were added to the force.

The task force has already been involved in several investigations, Lockridge said, including the recent Los Angeles schoolyard sweeps that resulted in the arrests of nearly 100 suspected narcotics dealers.

In recent months, law enforcement agencies in Kansas City, Seattle, Portland and other western cities have reported the involvement of Los Angeles gang members in narcotics activity in their regions.

“These gang members are like killer bees,” Lockridge said.

The DEA spokesman said the task force will concentrate on long-term investigations, short-term drug sweeps and tough enforcement of probation violations in Los Angeles and other cities plagued by gangs. The agency also plans to track Los Angeles street gang members through its intelligence center in El Paso, Tex., Lockridge said.