San Gabriel Responds to Rise in Gang Violence

A group of 50 residents told the City Council Tuesday that gang crime has become an epidemic here.

“The question is not whether a gang war exists in San Gabriel, but how bad is it?” said the Rev. Gerardo de Jesus, pastor of the Love Gospel Fellowship Church at La Casa de San Gabriel Community Center. “What we want is a program that is preventive in nature and educational.”

He cited the city’s three gang-related killings since September, saying that the city must spend more money for programs that work directly with gang members.

Group member Olivia Lopez told the council her 15-year-old nephew is a wanna-be--someone who wants to be a gang member.

“What we’re asking for is a gang task force to come into the community and reach the wanna-bes,” she said.

“I’m here tonight because I’m fighting for my nephew’s life,” Lopez told the council. “I’m asking the San Gabriel City Council for help, help in getting a program to get our youths off the streets.”

In response, Mayor James Castaneda formed an eight-member committee of community members and city and police officials.

The committee will work with Los Angeles-based Community Youth Gang Services to develop a way for San Gabriel to deal with the problem of youngsters who will be idle in the summer.

Castaneda acknowledged that the gang problem is the worst it’s “ever been in the 10 years that I have been here.”

Since December, Castaneda and Police Capt. David A. Lawton have been meeting with the group of residents, who call themselves the San Gabriel Community Interfaith Program.

Lawton said: “I don’t think that anybody is denying that there’s a gang problem. But I see a cyclical gang problem. Right now, we’re at a higher level of the cycle.”

Before the three gang-related killings in the past year, there had been none for two years, he said.

But De Jesus said some people think gang-related crime goes under-reported and that not enough is done by city and school officials to quickly remove gang graffiti.

“There’s so much fear in the community,” he said. “City officials and the powers that be seem not to take a real concern about it.”

In March, the City Council authorized a $25,000 reward for any information that leads to an arrest and a conviction in any of the three gang-related killings.