Weapons Discovery Raises Concern Over Violence in Schools : Education: Centinela Valley Union district officials disagree over whether this signals increasing gang tensions.

In the last two months, authorities at the Centinela Valley Union High School District have confiscated five weapons--including a stun gun and a homemade pipe gun--from students on the district’s three high school campuses.

Although district officials say that the number of weapons is higher than usual, they disagree about whether it signals an increase in gang tensions at Leuzinger and Hawthorne high schools and the R. K. Lloyd Continuation School.

School administrators said none of the students who were carrying the weapons are gang members, and none of the weapons were used to attack other students. Security officers confiscated the weapons--two knives, a stun gun, a homemade pipe gun and a pellet gun--after seeing them or receiving tips from other students, they said. The students were either suspended or transferred to the continuation school.

Administrators say some of the district’s students are members of local gangs, but Supt. McKinley Nash said there have been no incidents of gang violence on campus. Officials said there typically is one scuffle a day on each of the district’s campuses, but these do not necessarily involve gang members.

According to Nash, one student suffered a slight bruise on his thigh when he and another student were playing with the pellet gun that was later confiscated. But he said neither student was a gang member.

Nash said gang tensions are high in the surrounding cities of Lawndale and Hawthorne, but he said the district’s 30-member security force, which was hired last year, has continued to keep gang activity off of school grounds.

However, school board members Pam Sturgeon and Jacqueline Carrera say they fear the increased number of weapons confiscated recently indicates that gang tensions are mounting on the campuses and soon may lead to violence and injuries.

“Gang warfare is escalating heavily” in neighborhoods around the schools, Sturgeon said in an interview last week.

Although Hawthorne police say gang violence has increased in the city in recent months, police and sheriff’s spokesmen in Hawthorne and Lawndale said they have heard of no increase in gang activity near the high schools.

Board member Ruth Morales said she believes the weapons were brought onto campus because the students feared gang violence as they traveled to and from school.

Sturgeon and Carrera suggested at a board of trustees meeting last week that the district seek help in evaluating the gang situation in the district from the Community Youth Gang Services--Los Angeles’ largest civilian gang prevention program.

The proposal will be considered at the board’s meeting Tuesday.

Nash told the board he does not support the idea because he believes the district cannot quell gang violence and drug use that originate outside the schools.

“We cannot solve that kind of problem,” he said. “I’m not a drug enforcement agent, I’m an educator.”

He said the district’s problems can best be solved if the district puts more energy into addressing the fact that one of every three students is failing at least one course. Nash said that when students begin to fail, they drop out of school and out of frustration turn to gangs for support.

In interviews, board members Michael Escalante and Morales said they were also concerned about the number of weapons that were confiscated recently.

However, Escalante said he is not convinced that the district should bring the Community Youth Gang Services to the campuses. Morales said she would like to study the matter further before allowing the gang services to enter the campuses.

Board member Amparo Font did not speak on the issue at the meeting and could not be reached for comment.

The district has no specific anti-gang programs, officials said. However, Donna D. Opoku-Agyeman, associate principal at Leuzinger High School, said teachers there have been coached on how to spot gang attire.

She said she recently counseled a student against wearing blue and that the girl returned to school the next day in a yellow outfit.

Hawthorne Police Lt. Herb Mundon said gang activity in Hawthorne has escalated in recent months. He noted that a gang-related shooting on 134th Street near Hawthorne Boulevard last month resulted in two injuries. One of the victims, a 19-year-old man from Lennox who was shot in the lower back and left thigh, was paralyzed from the waist down.

Sgt. Rick Shindle said the city has had one gang-related homicide this year, compared to one in all of 1989. In January, there were 12 gang-related crimes, including the homicide, three felony assaults and four misdemeanor assaults, an increase of about 50% over the number of gang crimes recorded in December.

Mundon said the increased gang activity around the city is because of “historical squabbles” over territory.

Mundon said he has seen no dramatic increase in activity at Hawthorne High School, but he said gang problems--or any other disturbances on campus--are usually handled by the district’s campus security forces.

Deputy Herb Giron of the Lennox sheriff’s station, said he has seen no increase in gang activity around the Leuzinger High School campus. However, he said most disturbances on campus usually are handled by campus security.

He said there have been occasional reports of gang-related fistfights involving students who go off campus after school or during the lunch hour. But Giron said he has noticed no increase in those types of incidents.

Hawthorne High School Principal Ken Crowe praised the district’s security force for confiscating the weapons but said he has noticed no gang activity on campus. “(But) any time a student has a weapon, it’s a serious problem,” he said.

Crowe said some students at the school are gang members, but they consider the campus neutral territory.

“All the kids are cougars when they come here,” he said, referring to the school mascot.

Opoku-Agyeman said there have been no gang problems on the Leuzinger campus, although there occasionally are scuffles between students.

She said that some of the students are gang members, but that most of them consider the campus neutral territory. When gang members do decide to fight, they usually go off campus, she said.

For example, she said, several weeks ago, two female gang members left the campus during a lunch break to settle a dispute. The ensuing fight attracted a large number of students, most of whom, she said, simply watched the fight and did not participate.

Giron said the two students were arrested.

Opoku-Agyeman said that under state law, the district has the responsibility of making sure students are safe as they travel to and from school. But, she said, “in reality the streets are different from when that law was made,” and it is much more difficult for the district to watch over all the students all of the time.

Marianne Diaz, area manager of the Community Youth Gang Services’ office in Lawndale, said the number of gang-related incidents around Leuzinger High School has remained consistent in recent months. But she said the incidents have become more serious.

She cited the fight between the two female gang members as an example, saying it developed into a “free-for-all” involving about 75 gang members. She said a police officer and two Youth Gang Services workers were assaulted when they tried to stop the fight.

Diaz said her organization, which has 75 workers in offices throughout Los Angeles County, works closely with local police departments and sheriff’s deputies. She said her workers--some of whom are former gang members--are in constant communication with gang members and work to cool down potentially dangerous squabbles between rival gangs.

Members of the Community Youth Gang Services can collect more information about gang activity and can better intervene to quell potential gang violence if they are allowed on campus, Diaz said.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has given the group permission to enter that district’s campuses, she said.

In an interview last week, Freddy Lopez, a 17-year-old student at Leuzinger High School, said gang activity on campus and near the high school has been “crazy” in recent months. Lopez, who said he does not belong to a gang but has friends in gangs, said it is not unusual for gang members and non-gang members to carry guns and knives on campus.

He said students who don’t belong to gangs often carry weapons to protect themselves from gangs. But he said most people do not tell administrators when they see a weapon on campus because they are afraid of retaliation.

“You really can’t tell on them or you’ll get yours too,” he said.