The Battle for the Streets : Violent Gangs Still Have a Hold on Harbor Area

Fueled by an unprecedented level of gang assaults and drive-by shootings early in the year, the Los Angeles Police Department’s Harbor Division ranked second among the city’s 18 divisions in the number of gang-related felonies for the first half of 1991.

Further, LAPD statistics show that gang violence from January to June of this year was up 20% over the same period a year ago in the Harbor Division, which encompasses San Pedro, Wilmington, Harbor City and Harbor Gateway.

In all, there were 385 gang-related felonies--including 10 homicides--in the division during the first six months of 1991, compared to 321 felonies--and 10 murders--for the same period last year.

Only the LAPD’s downtown Rampart Division had more gang-related felonies in the first half of 1991. That division reported 572 such crimes, which range from assault to murder. Ranking behind the Harbor area were such traditionally gang-riddled divisions as Hollenbeck and Newton on the city’s Eastside and the 77th in South-Central Los Angeles.

One positive sign for the Harbor Division in the LAPD statistics is that in May, June and July, the level of gang violence declined from the numbers of January through April.

The year’s first four months represented one of the bloodiest periods locally in recent memory. And although a recent show of force by the LAPD and gang intervention agencies succeeded in curbing gang crimes, police officials, gang specialists and community activists caution that it is too early to tell if the Harbor area has turned the corner on an especially violent year.

“I don’t think anybody in the community should be lulled into a false sense of security” about the recent drop in gang violence, said Detective John Woodrum, the Harbor Division’s gang coordinator.

Added Eleanor Montano, a longtime Wilmington activist: “Things are better, but what I’m afraid of is that (gangs) are just kicking back. . . . (And) talking to different people out there, I know they’re scared.”

During the first four months of the year, those fears were evident throughout the Harbor area when local communities were virtually under siege by gangs linked to six murders and 70 drive-by shootings.

Those crimes and others accounted for a staggering 46% increase in gang-related felonies in the four months, compared to the same period a year ago.

“We were literally shoveling sand against the sea. It was terrible,” Harbor Division Detective Ira Beaty said.

Fearing that the gang problem was reaching crisis proportions, the LAPD dispatched more than 50 additional officers to Harbor Division, more than tripling its normal number of nighttime patrol officers.

In addition, community groups and two gang intervention agencies--Community Youth Gang Services and Community Reclamation Project--deployed more gang specialists to the area, focusing on about a dozen gangs feuding over turf.

The deployments, coupled with an increase in arrests and prosecutions of area gang members, have had an impact on the level of violence, LAPD statistics show. In each of the last three months, an average of 51 gang-related felonies have been recorded, compared to an average of 63 per month during the year’s first four months.

The decline was most evident in July, when only 42 felonies were recorded--the lowest level since February, according to the LAPD.

In addition, authorities said, a crackdown by police on one San Pedro gang and the deaths of two Wilmington brothers in gang-related violence have combined to quell some of the crime so rampant early this year.

“Back then, there was just this attitude, this mentality (among gangs) that, ‘We have a debt to take care of,’ ” said Joe Alercon, a Community Youth Gang Services supervisor in Wilmington.

Now, especially since the springtime deaths of Piedad Vargas, 20, and his brother, Eddy, 22, within three weeks of each other, many gang members are rethinking the consequences of gang violence, Alercon said. “A lot of them are thinking about themselves now. They’re saying, ‘Hey, that could be me.’ ”

But if some gang members are more cautious about violence, many remain bold and open about their affiliations, community members say. And that is cause for concern, given how easily confrontations can ignite.

“I see more gang members on the street than I have ever seen,” said Montano, vice president of a local Mothers Against Gangs chapter and a resident of Wilmington for more than 40 years. “They used to be out at night, and now they’re out in the daytime. I don’t know why. I don’t know whether they are getting more daring or what.”

Thus far, authorities said, the increased visibility of the gang members has not sparked any widespread problems. As proof, Harbor Division Commander Capt. Joe De Ladurantey noted that three recent church festivals in the Harbor area, each drawing crowds in the thousands, were held without incident, despite the presence of plenty of gang members.

“We had three major community events that could have really gotten nasty . . . and (there were) no incidents,” De Ladurantey said.

The recent decline in gang violence, De Ladurantey said, stems from the increase in police patrols and the permanent addition a month ago of 10 gang detectives at Harbor Division. The detectives are from the department’s so-called CRASH detail, an acronym for Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums.

In addition, De Ladurantey credited local gang intervention agencies and community groups for their work in negotiating truces between local gangs, and persuading some members to leave gangs altogether.

Although he remains optimistic about the future, De Ladurantey said that all he is counting on now is for the gang violence to remain steady, without the flurry of shootings and assaults recorded early this year.

“I’d like to think that the next four months, at least we will level out” in gang violence, he said. “But hell, if I could predict that, I’d be king.”

Gang Crimes in LAPD’s Harbor Division

Here are the five Los Angeles Police Department divisions that recorded the largest number of gang-related crimes during the first six months of 1990 and 1991. Statistics include only felonies linked to gang members. This year, the LAPD’s Harbor Division has soared to second place citywide in gang-related crimes. Citywide, there are 18 LAPD divisions.

1991 1990 Rampart 572 399 Harbor 385 321 Hollenbeck 379 331 Newton 374 502 77th 353 344