PLACENTIA : Neighbors Gather to Stem Gang Violence

The fatal shooting of an innocent bystander during an outbreak of New Year’s Day gang violence has galvanized members of the La Jolla neighborhood, who are searching for ways to prevent such an incident from happening again.

About 70 residents nearly filled a La Jolla community meeting hall Thursday to hear Police Chief Manuel Ortega’s proposals to stem future gang-related violence and keep children out of gangs.

His plans include improving Neighborhood Watch programs, adding more officers to the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program and increasing the size of the city’s police reserves.

Although Ortega had planned the meeting before the New Year’s Day incident, many residents had the drive-by gang shooting of Jack Cisneros on their minds.

Cisneros, 33, was a member of a La Jolla neighborhood family that was one of the oldest and largest in Placentia. He avoided joining a gang as he grew up, and was the father of five children, including two twin boys born two days before he was killed.

“Even though I don’t live in the neighborhood anymore, I think we need to do something about the gang problem,” Yvonne Jordan, who grew up in La Jolla, told the crowd of largely longtime residents. “It could have been anybody. It could have been you.”

Shortly after midnight Jan. 1, a melee broke out at a party on the 800 block of Nebraska Avenue. Six men and boys were stabbed, none fatally. More than an hour later, a 17-year-old boy from Orange was shot in the leg on the same block.

About 2:50 a.m., Cisneros had been talking to neighbors on Tafolla Street about the earlier commotion. As the neighbors spoke in a semicircle, a small, dark sedan swerved over and stopped. One of its occupants allegedly yelled out a gang slogan. That was followed by a single shotgun blast that struck Cisneros in the chest.

“This is something that has never happened to such a great extent,” Rod Jimenez, a longtime La Jolla resident, said after the meeting. “People want to take back their community. The people were already concerned about it (before the New Year’s shooting). They could more or less see this coming. It doesn’t take much to galvanize people after it happens.”

Under one of Ortega’s plans, the DARE program would be expanded into city parks during the summer. There, officers would get to know local teen-agers and perhaps take them on outings. This, city officials hope, will provide new role models for the youngsters.

In addition, Ortega plans to form neighborhood committees of residents that would have “complete and open” access to him if any problems arise. Eventually, a volunteer officer would be assigned specifically to that committee, he said.

Ortega also plans to create a volunteer program in which civilians could answer calls and respond to questions at the Police Department. This would relieve officers from paperwork so they could spend more time on patrol.

City officials also are analyzing the department in hopes of forming a special gang unit that would focus on cracking down on gangs in the area, he said. But some residents complained that police have harassed innocent teen-agers while reputed gang members stand across the street, watching.

Ortega said that often it is difficult to identify gang members.

“We have to start stabilizing the problems now,” Ortega said. “It’s unfortunate because the bad ones and the good ones don’t wear signs.”