A Police Officer-Parent Praises a Crackdown That Snared His Son

When I opened my front door that night to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies John Cater and Gary Spencer, I didn’t realize how serious the problem was, despite the evidence. Teen-age “acting-out” had consequences far beyond a petty crime.

The deputies had come to warn my son. He and some other teen-agers were mimicking gang members, spray-painting their “tag” on the side of a storm drain near his high school. They also were dressing in a distinct, suspicious way.

The evidence was always there but I just didn’t see or hear it. It was the biblical saying, “. . . none so blind as those who will not see.” I should know now. I’m a Los Angeles police sergeant. I’ve worked in the gang-ridden parts of town. I’ve seen it happen again and again. But this was my town--my own house.

Months before the deputies came to our house, my son had asked about how he and his friends could spray-paint a wall of a local business. He was told that he would have to have written permission from the business, the occupants of the building and the property owners, including representatives of the original Spanish land grant. My son was given an artist sketch book; he immediately filled it with graffiti. He bought a book that portrayed as art the work of New York vandals who spray-paint graffiti on anything that does not move.

My son took to using words that I knew were used by gang members. He mimicked the “throwing” of gang signs. I treated these as casually as I could. After all, I didn’t want to make a big deal of this, recalling the near-disastrous “forbidden fruit theory” common when I was his age. Ignore it and it will pass. Make a big deal about it and they want to do it all the more.

So I figured that his wearing baseball caps backwards or askew was a teen-ager’s normal way to drive his father crazy. This, despite my knowledge that inner-city gang members wear their hats in this fashion.

I figured that his listening to rap music had no more significance than previous generations’ listening to their own music, which their parents, too, had found objectionable.

My son’s subtle questions and probes I dismissed without real thought or concern. My son and his friends are good students; he is an award-winning wrestler at his high school. We always hear what a polite and nice young man he is.

Still, I ignored the obvious.

Deputies Cater and Spencer, who should be used as models for Sheriff’s Department recruitment posters, wore their “raid jackets” tucked into their Levi’s that night at my door. My son kept glancing at the highly polished Sam Browne gun belts, the guns, badges and handcuffs.

Plenty of Practice

The deputies sat in our living room, speaking in soft voices; it was as if they had rehearsed their talk. As it turned out, they hadn’t, but they were very practiced after speaking to several kids and their parents over the last few months.

They calmly explained to my son that his participation in “tagging” had consequences far beyond committing a misdemeanor. By watching my son, I knew the deputies were hitting home. He glanced nervously at them and at me.

At one point, one of the deputies deliberately took my son outside, away from me. I had mixed emotions; it’s my job to protect my son. I wasn’t sure what the deputy was going to say, but instinctively and professionally I knew that I must not interfere--and didn’t.

When they returned, my son was visibly shaken. All I could think of was the hundreds of times I, too, had sat down and tried to get through to a teen-ager who just shined me on. I thought of the times parents had denied the facts and proclaimed, “not my child--my boy is a good boy.”

I know from personal experience that someone--if not me, another police officer--ultimately will go back to these parents with the tragic news that their “good boy” was just killed in a drive-by shooting. This was the point that the deputies were trying to make. In my son’s case, and others, they succeeded.

Realistic Art

At first glance, kids writing on the walls of a secluded storm drain seems innocent enough, doesn’t it? In fact, some of the monikers, drawings and choices of colors were remarkably artistic. True, the kids broke the law by spray-painting the storm drain wall, but there are those who would say, “So what?”

For years, the problem of gang activity was treated as a problem isolated to the inner city or the ghettos of Los Angeles. But the truth is that gang tentacles do reach into our comfortable suburbs. There are gangs who drive through our communities; the potential for confrontation is there. One can only imagine the disastrous result of real gangsters seeing suburban kids standing about “throwing” gang signs, and, in gang fashion or in police jargon, “dressed down.”

The harsh reality is that these teen-agers were engaged in life-threatening behavior--threatening their own, at the very least. I am so grateful for the Sheriff’s Department and that our City Council took action by funding the efforts of deputies Cater and Spencer. The city councils in Westlake Village and Agoura Hills took a very real risk. There still are voters who would object to having their tax dollars spent to hire sheriff’s deputies who may have a “chilling effect” on their children.

There were three ways for them to deal with this whole problem: Ignore it and hope it goes away; deny the painful truth to protect the community from possible harm to property values or business interests; or deal with the problem.

Why They Do It

Time after time, ignoring or denying the problem only allowed it to grow. That didn’t happen in this case. Perhaps, as adults, we have learned a lesson from ignoring the drug problems of the 1970s.

But why would my son and his friends do something as stupid as emulate death-dealing thugs? After all, gangs are products of poverty and despair, or so the common wisdom goes. But Westlake Village and Agoura Hills hardly are poor communities. So much for that theory.

One answer could be dismissed as racist or music bashing. The influence, however, of rap music and its broadcast on shows like MTV’s “Yo Raps” is very real. All a parent has to do is watch and listen to the words of some of the rap records and videos. Yes, they promote drugs, cocaine specifically. Yes, the rap groups “dress down” in gangster fashion, and they sport obscene amounts of gold chains.

One rap group is N.W.A (Parents, just ask your kids what that stands for.) The May 11 issue of the L.A. Weekly newspaper featured an article on N.W.A In the article, when someone mentioned guns, the group’s leader emptied a duffel bag loaded with all types of handguns and rifles for the reporter.

Being a parent means maintaining control. If that means monitoring what my son watches, listens to and reads, then that is my job. I decided a long time ago that forbidding something without reason, discussion or justification is meaningless. Now, I will confront head-on my son’s choices in friends, music, thought and dress.

Real Consequences

Since the night that deputies Cater and Spencer came to my house, I have brought home a loose-leaf notebook filled with horrible homicide photographs, each one from gang-related murders. I showed this book to my son to prove that mimicking gang members has very real consequences.

I allow my son to share the photos with his friends but only if I speak with them first. Shock therapy has to be explained. After all, blood and gore are nothing new to these kids--they get a steady diet on television and at the movies. The point must be made that each of the photos is of a very real and very dead teen-ager or young adult, all gang members. I tell my son’s friends that you get into a gang by joining. The pictures are the way a kid gets out of the gang. Playing at being a gang member can have the same consequences.

I once read an Art Buchwald column about parents and children. Buchwald summed it all up: “. . . don’t be your children’s friend, be their parent.” Thanks to the Sheriff’s Department and my City Council, I am now doing a better job of parenting my sons.