Police Turning Gang Turf Back Into the Neighborhood Park : San Fernando: City is determined to reclaim the area where a mother and her children were caught in a cross-fire.

Sitting one evening beneath the feathery, whispering palms that give Las Palmas Park its name, Jose Montelongo turned to look at the sandy playground behind him, full of new equipment, full of hazy sunlight--and empty of children.

“It was always completely packed at this time of day,” the 25-year-old San Fernando Parks and Recreation Department employee said, shaking his head. “There used to be kids all over the place. But ever since the shooting, it’s been empty.”

The shooting he referred to happened the day before the Fourth of July, on a lazy summer’s eve not much different from the one Montelongo was enjoying a week later.

Two rival gangs who claim the park as their turf were on the verge of facing off the night of July 3, armed with knives, broom handles and shotguns. Instead of the gangs hurting each other, however, it was a mother and her three young children, out for a brief stroll a few blocks from their home, who were wounded by shotgun blasts.

The attack angered San Fernando police. “These were the most innocent victims I’ve ever seen,” Lt. Ernest Halcon said afterward.

The shooting also triggered an attempt by police and city officials to reclaim the park from the gangs. Police Chief Dominick Rivetti and the City Council announced Wednesday that the city would increase police patrols, hold a community meeting to address residents’ concerns and sponsor more activities in the park to bring back worried park users.

The feud over Las Palmas Park erupted two years ago when an older, established gang decided to oust a new group that had claimed the park as theirs, Halcon said.

Over the past six months, violence has escalated. Since June the neighborhood has seen three attempted murders, all of them gang-related, two of them right next to Las Palmas.

“It just looks like everyone wants to solve their problems with a gun,” Detective Robert Ordelheide said.

Nearby residents weren’t surprised by the July 3 shooting. For them, the incident confirmed that they themselves have become the victims of the feud, which they say has made them avoid using the neighborhood park for fear of getting caught in the cross-fire.

“We have four kids. As a parent, it’s terrifying,” said Ed Govea, 32, who has lived around the corner from the park for the past six years. “If we had the means, we’d move out of here.”

The fear of going to the park is accompanied by a bitterness, because the park’s new playground--only a few dozen paces from where the July 3 shooting occurred--was built by the residents themselves. The playground was dedicated just two weeks before Enriqueta Duran and her three children were peppered with shotgun pellets.

Since then, the $80,000 “tot lot” has been shunned by parents worried about their children’s safety.

“If I lived in that area and I had kids or grandkids, I wouldn’t go to the park either,” Mayor Doude Wysbeek said. “That’s being honest and up front.”

The increased police patrols began Wednesday. A pair of police officers will patrol on foot each evening between 6 p.m. and the park’s 10 p.m. closing time.

“Those who create the problem have been put on notice that we mean business,” Wysbeek said.

On Thursday, it was Sgt. Jim Martinez and Officer George Ficarra who made the rounds, leisurely pacing the sidewalk bordering the park for four hours.

Some of those at the park waved as the officers passed. Others stared. One man was ordered out of the park when he could not produce identification. On several occasions, wide-eyed children clustered around the pair, chattering and checking out the handcuffs and radios dangling from their belts.

Tina Trujillo, a pretty 10-year-old out roller-skating with her younger sister and two cousins, said that after the shooting her mother had forbidden them to play in the park. They returned after her mother found out about the new patrols.

“We had to stay home until we heard that the two police people would be here,” the girl said. “And we can’t come out” in the evening until the officers arrive.

Inside the park’s gym, Carlos Jimenez, 12, and his friends crowded around Martinez and Ficarra, listened to the officers casually chat for a few minutes, then announced that they were glad to have police around.

“All the gangsters come in when we’re playing basketball and kick us out. They’re big gangsters with tattoos,” Carlos said, brushing a bead of sweat that trickled down his brow. “The police will help us if someone comes to push us around. I feel more safe.”

“Me too,” chimed in Pablo Bedoy, 5, who was playing in the park one afternoon when gang members grabbed him and used marking pens to scrawl graffiti on his torso, his brother, Miguel, said.

Gang members, though, were notably absent Thursday evening. Halcon of the Police Department said word of the new foot patrols spread quickly among gang members. He said an aggressive campaign by police in June during which officers reined in gang members for traffic violations and other infractions already had made them wary.

But early signs of success were no reason to rest, he said.

“The heat’s on, and they know it. They’re laying back, but I don’t want them feeling like they can come into town and raise hell” after the pressure is off, he said.

Enriqueta Duran, whose wounds remain a painful memory of her last visit to the park, said she doesn’t plan to return yet, despite the efforts to make it safe.

“I’m still scared,” Duran declared at her Pico Street home, as her children played about her, never far from reach. “I don’t want to go back because I think maybe the same thing will happen.”