Grant Sought to Form Anti-Gang Unit

The Garden Grove and Westminster police departments have applied for a $302,000 state grant to form a unit to tackle the increase in Asian gang activity in their cities.

Garden Grove Police Lt. John Urbanowski said there are about 47 Asian gangs with about 1,300 known members in the two cities.

“It’s not unusual to have a new gang pop up every week,” said Urbanowski, who wrote the grant application.

He added that there may be up to 2,500 gang members in the area but that police lack the resources to keep up with increases and changes in gang activity.

The 2-year grant would pay for two officers, one for each department, and one clerk. It would also pay for one patrol car for Garden Grove and an undercover car for Westminster. Both cities now have substations on Bolsa Avenue, where the cities border each other and many Asian-Americans live.

The unit would enable police to keep more accurate data on gangs. Police have tied Asian gangs to homicides, commercial and residential robberies, burglaries, auto thefts and extortion.

Most of the crimes are committed against other Asians, Urbanowski said.

“The big thing is that we want to develop a joint departmental (unit) where we have an accumulation of data and dissemination of gang activity, and maybe we can be a resource throughout the state,” Urbanowski said.

“What it boils down to is we’ve seen this (gang) problem increasing again. . . . We want to take advantage of (both cities’) resources. We do have a problem, and it’s the old saying of two heads are better than one.”

Garden Grove and Westminster will be competing with other police departments to obtain part of nearly $1 million available from the state Office of Criminal Justice for anti-gang programs.