Police Sweeps Seek to Defuse Violence Over Holiday Break

A task force of 300 police officers has been deployed in Los Angeles’ most troubled neighborhoods in an effort to curb gang violence and reckless gunplay expected over the summer’s first holiday weekend.

“We want to set a tone and pattern for this summer, and especially for the long holiday weekend,” LAPD Cmdr. William Booth said. “We want to reestablish in the minds of the community that their neighborhoods are not going to be given over to the violent people.”

On Friday and Saturday nights, the first of several sweeps to be conducted through July 4 resulted in hundreds of arrests at known gang hangouts throughout the LAPD’s South Bureau, stretching from Watts to San Pedro, police said.

Stabbings at Coliseum Concert

Saturday night, about 150 members of the task force were suddenly dispatched to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in response to reports of three stabbings during a rap music concert. The officers supervised clearance of the Coliseum after the concert ended and made several arrests in connection with the stabbings. One of the victims was in extremely critical condition, officers said. Police also received reports of several incidents of gunshots fired on streets adjacent to the Coliseum. One man was reported wounded.

The task force made 47 arrests in the first two hours of Saturday night’s sweep. Officials said they expected to be busier than Friday night.

The task force arrested 235 people--136 of them reputed gang members--on suspicion of crimes ranging from selling narcotics to driving under the influence of alcohol Friday night and early Saturday morning, Booth said.

In what Booth called the largest anti-gang dragnet of the year, police officers also conducted 469 field interviews, and issued warnings against lighting illegal fireworks or shooting guns into the air.

“Indiscriminate shooting on the Fourth of July and New Year’s Day has become a major problem over the past several years,” Booth said. “People don’t seem to realize that when you shoot a bullet into the air it comes down in a way that can be fatal.”

Massive anti-gang task forces--nicknamed “the hammer” by department officials--have been routinely deployed since early 1988, on occasion involving as many as 1,000 officers. They resulted in the arrest of about 25,000 people last year, about half of them gang members.

Roll call for the first sweep of the weekend took place at 4 p.m. Friday in the parking lot of the Southeast Division Station. From there, officers patrolled known gang hangouts in the Southeast, Southwest, Harbor and 77th Street divisions until 1:30 a.m., Booth said.

Outside the boundary of the crackdown, deadly gang violence erupted in the Echo Park area shortly after midnight Friday, authorities said.

Eduardo Diaz, 23, of Los Angeles, was standing on the corner of Douglas and Colton streets at 12:30 a.m. when he was struck in the upper torso by four to five shotgun rounds fired by a passenger in a passing vehicle, said Sgt. Richard Fox of the Rampart Division. Diaz, a suspected gang member, was pronounced dead at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan, Fox said.

The suspect fired a sixth round at Eduardo Hernandez, 32, of Los Angeles, who was sitting in a car parked nearby, Fox said. Hernandez, who suffered minor wounds on the face and upper body, was in fair condition at County-USC Medical Center, Fox said.