Time Is Ripe for a Move Against Gangs : * Cycle of Violence Started Early This Year With Death of a Father of 5 in Placentia

Listen to these words from a neighbor of a 17-year-old Santa Ana high school student who was killed in a Jan. 4 drive-by shooting believed to be linked to gangs:

“We usually hear shots every night. It’s normal. Sometimes they kill somebody. Sometimes they don’t. It’s just too many kids with guns.”

Or these, from a member of a gang in Placentia. He was commenting on the death of a 33-year-old man--the father of five who himself was not a member of a gang--who was the victim of a drive-by shooting generated by a New Year’s Day gang dispute:

“You take it in stride. But he was a good guy. He just got in the way.”

These are chilling words that indicate a resignation in these communities to the gang violence residents seem unable to do very much about. Despite stepped up anti-gang programs by the Sheriff’s Department and several cities where there is high gang activity, so far it’s been a sad beginning to 1991 in Orange County. What’s more, last year, gang murders doubled over the previous year.

Placentia’s new police chief, whose first order of business was to beef up the city’s anti-gang programs, said he was discouraged to find his city distinguished for having the county’s first gang fatality of the year. He needn’t have worried; another city quickly followed. Placentia Chief Manuel Ortega will hold neighborhood meetings soon to talk about gang activity. That’s a good idea if there’s any chance of reducing the county’s gang killings which totaled 28 last year--up from 16 in 1989.

Gang violence is discouraging, but that does not mean Orange County should give up. The communities involved, especially Santa Ana, Westminster, Garden Grove and Placentia, must redouble their law enforcement efforts and try harder to reach children before they become involved in gangs.

That won’t be easy, given the municipal and county budget reductions that are affecting police and schools. It would help if residents in the communities with high rates of gang violence got angrier at the way gang thugs have dominated their neighborhoods and added unnecessary tragedy to their lives. That will take courage, as a Santa Ana family learned last year when it was repeatedly intimidated by gang members for giving police information about the suspects in a drive-by shooting that claimed the life of an 8-year-old boy.

What is clear is that even more must be done to stop the violence, now that the new year has begun with a bang.