Efforts to End Gang Violence
In response to Sen. Art Torres’ (D-Los Angeles) call for renewed war on gangs in East Los Angeles (Metro, Oct. 26):
This “war” can only be won by combining a strong, strategically directed law-enforcement approach with motivated and active community volunteers mixed with comprehensive prevention and intervention programs, all operating in unison. This has been the approach in the Los Angeles Police Department South Bureau, where we have seen a gradual but promising reversal of the gang violence trend.
For the past two years there has been unprecedented cooperation among various entities including the city attorney, the Parks and Recreation Department, the Los Angeles Unified School District, LAPD South Bureau and Community Youth Gang Services South Region personnel. More than 300 volunteers have come forward to take back parks and schools and to reclaim the community, including the youth. It is by no means enough!
This kind of cooperation has been in operation in East Los Angeles under the auspices of the East Los Angeles Inter-Agency Gang Task Force.
Concerned Parents, a group of dedicated mothers who share the distinction of losing one or more children to gang killings, along with the East Los Angeles Sheriff’s, the Probation Department, CYGS and others reduced gang homicides to zero for all of 1988.
While CYGS did concentrate our forces in South-Central Los Angeles beginning in 1988, Supervisor Ed Edelman is again building up various agency forces to continue and increase the strategic attack on gang violence in East Los Angeles.
Whether someone’s child is murdered in East Los Angeles or in South-Central Los Angeles, the horrifying loss is felt just as deeply. More funding must be provided in a comprehensive coordinated approach to solve the problem of gangs throughout Los Angeles.
Only then will we begin to see a decrease in gang violence as well as decreasingthe exportation of gang violence to other cities.
STEVE D. VALDIVIA
Executive Director
Community Youth Gang Services Project
Los Angeles
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