‘Kids Are Scared’ in Drive-By Killing Wave : Gangs: The Sheriff’s Department has assigned up to nine more patrol cars and more detectives to help keep peace in volatile south Norwalk.

For officials from the city and the Sheriff’s Department, it’s the same routine: more patrols, a funeral for the victim and a community meeting to end gang violence.

Emiliano Landa, 12, was the fourth person slain in a gang-related incident in Norwalk this year. He was fatally wounded Monday in a drive-by shooting.

Since the shooting, the Sheriff’s Department has assigned up to nine more patrol cars to help keep peace in volatile south Norwalk. More anti-gang detectives have also been assigned.

“We’ll keep it up as long as we can,” Sheriff’s Lt. John Radeleff said last week.

Norwalk’s community workers, who are part of the city’s new anti-gang program, have also stepped up their rounds in a bid to calm nerves and keep hostilities from erupting in the poor neighborhood of one-way streets where Landa was shot. The streets are bordered by Norwalk and Pioneer boulevards on the east and west and Excelsior Drive and Alondra Boulevard on the north and south.

“Kids are scared,” Norwalk community worker George del Junco said. “It takes it real close to home when one of their home boys gets shot.”

Del Junco was making funeral arrangements for the family.

The city has scheduled a community meeting Wednesday to educate parents about gangs. City officials will also try to establish a Neighborhood Watch group in the Hayford Street area, where Emiliano was shot, Norwalk public safety coordinator Kevin Gano said.

Such a group was established in the Barrio Norwalk district to the south after a gang member was shot to death there in June.

Mayor Luigi A. Vernola said the City Council will also consider offering an award leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspect in the Emiliano’s killing.

“It’s imperative that we let people know that the city wants these people brought to trial,” Vernola said. “If we have to offer an award, we’ll do that. We don’t want them on the streets. We want them behind bars.”

So far, the city’s rewards have not been successful.

In 1989 the council offered a $5,000 reward after Juan Enriquez, a 17-year-old honor student at John Glenn High School, was killed in a drive-by shooting as he walked home from school.

The council also offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of gang members who shot Jesus E. Diaz, 16, at a graduation party in June. Diaz was reportedly a member of Artesia’s Chivas gang who had strayed into the turf of longtime rivals Barrio Norwalk.

No one has been arrested in either of those slayings.

Sheriff’s investigators have received many tips on Monday’s shooting, but no one has been arrested, said Sgt. Al Grotefend, supervisor of the Norwalk gang detail.

There had been fear of retaliation after the Diaz slaying, but there is no evidence that Monday’s slaying is related, Grotefend said.

“Whether they intended to hit (Emiliano) or not, we have no way of knowing,” Grotefend said. “With a lot of these gangs, they don’t care who they hit. They just care that it’s someone in the gang area.”

The community meeting will start at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the city’s Social Service Center, 11929 Alondra Blvd.