Pasadena to Use Street Terrorism Law in Crackdown Against Gangs

Alarmed by a sudden increase in gang violence, particularly drive-by shootings, the Pasadena Police Department has assigned more officers to deal with gangs and is preparing to issue citations to gang members, warning them that they are liable for prosecution under a new state law against street terrorism.

Police say Pasadena is averaging two or three drive-by shootings a week. Sixteen people, including six bystanders, have been hit by gunfire since the beginning of the year.

“It’s happening at both ends of town,” said Lt. Wesley A. Rice, detective section administrator. “It’s happening with our Hispanic gangs on the east end and with our black gangs on the west end.”

Rice said the city has experienced 321 assaults in which people were hurt or weapons were used in the first three months of this year, contrasted with 124 in the same period last year. He said the city did not keep track of drive-by shootings last year, so there are no comparative figures, but police are certain that the number has increased greatly this year.

Causes Unclear

The reasons for the upswing in violence are unclear.

“There are all kinds of theories floating around,” said Lt. Donn Burwell, who heads the city’s Neighborhood Crime Task Force.

Some people say gangs are at war over turf or drug sales, Burwell said. Others suggest that the Police Department’s success in sending drug dealers to jail has had the ironic effect of creating openings in the drug trade that are being fought over.

Burwell said the Neighborhood Crime Task Force, which concentrates on combating crime in northwest Pasadena, has always put much of its effort into the area’s drug problem, but is now giving equal attention to gangs.

Four members of the task force and two detectives have been assigned to gang activities.

Burwell said that by stopping and talking to gang members, police will increase their knowledge of gangs and also put members on notice that they are being watched. Perhaps then, he said, gang members “will be more reluctant to drive around with guns.”

Citation Program

Burwell said the department is planning to issue citations to people identified as members of gangs engaged in crime. A new state law, the Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act, provides that notified gang members can be sent to jail or prison for as long as three years for a number of activities, such as loaning a car or gun used in a drive-by shooting.

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner announced in April that the Sheriff’s Department and police departments in Pasadena, Pomona, Compton, Los Angeles and Long Beach would participate in the start of the gang citation program, serving notice on 3,700 gang members.

Under the law, Reiner said, those who are notified and later arrested could have gang membership added as an additional charge. Gang membership by itself, however, would not be a crime.

Counseling Program

In addition, the Police Department is planning to enlarge its youth peer-counseling program to try to dissuade youths from joining gangs and is asking Neighborhood Watch groups to inform police about gang hangouts.

Police Chief James Robenson recently asked the Pasadena Board of Directors to add eight police positions in next fiscal year’s budget as a response to the increasing violence. Mayor William E. Thomson Jr. said Robenson should have no trouble winning approval for the enlarged police force.

Thomson said the public is alarmed at the increasing violence. Not only are people firing from passing cars, he said, but pedestrians are starting to shoot back.

“This is like Jesse James and the Old West,” Thomson said.

The mayor was referring to a May 10 incident at Fair Oaks Avenue and Washington Boulevard in which two reputed gang members in a car fired at a man who reportedly fired back. The only person hit was a 14-year-old girl, who was wounded in the shoulder as she walked home from a store with her 5-year-old brother.

Innocent Victim

Rice said the girl had no connection to the gunmen. “She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.

Two 17-year-old youths have been arrested and charged with attempted murder.

“We’ve been very lucky,” Rice said. “Sixteen people have been shot. It’s just a matter of luck that we haven’t had that many homicides.”

Rice said the risk to bystanders is arousing concern from the public.

“Ordinary, common folks living their lives the best way they know how haven’t got time to worry about gang-bangers blowing each other away,” he said. But when “innocent people start getting injured, it gets their attention.”

And it is not just drive-by shootings that are touching outsiders with gang violence, Rice said.

Restaurant Shooting

In March, he said, an 18-year-old Altadena youth was sitting in a car eating a hamburger across from a food stand on Foothill Boulevard in Pasadena. Two gang members walked by shouting their gang name. The 18-year-old was not a gang member, but he yelled something in reply. One of the gang members came over to the car and fatally shot the young man.

“It was just that cold,” Rice said. Two teen-age gang members have been arrested in connection with the killing.

Rice said that although gang violence seems to be hitting Pasadena especially hard, the city is no worse off than many other communities in Los Angeles County.

He said Pasadena thus far has been spared some of the problems that other cities are facing with assault rifles. The drive-by shootings have involved handguns or shotguns.

Burwell said he sometimes tells officers that gang members could be worse. “I think we should be grateful that they don’t take target practice,” he said.