PERSPECTIVES ON THE LAW : Resolved: Dangerous Gangs Should Be Banned From Parks : PRO: Children are gunned down or scared away from the only place they have to play. Let’s eject criminals instead.

In gang warfare in Los Angeles, there is a word for innocent bystanders who get caught in the cross-fire: They are called “mushrooms,” because they “pop up” in “the wrong place.” Very often, that place is a public park.

Recently, Enriqueta Duran took her three small children to Las Palmas Park in San Fernando. While heading for the swings, they were caught in the cross-fire of an urban gang war. All four of them were hit by a shotgun blast. Two of the children--a girl, 9, and a boy, 8--were seriously wounded.

You shouldn’t suppose that this was an isolated incident. In many parts of Los Angeles County, something similar could happen any day of the week.

Is there anything that can be done? Yes. Our office has drafted a landmark ordinance for the City of San Fernando that gives the police the authority to keep criminal street gangs out of Las Palmas Park.

This ordinance was carefully drafted to respect constitutional rights. It applies only to “criminal” street gangs--specifically, gangs whose members are known to have committed two or more crimes such as murder, shooting at an inhabited house or occupied car, robbery and the like.

How, it is asked, can the police identify members of these criminal gangs? Easy. Anyone who is a member of such a gang sees to it that this is widely known in his neighborhood. These are not secret societies. They don’t carry membership cards in their pockets; they wear tattoos. They flaunt their gang affiliation openly and aggressively in order to intimidate.

Anyone belonging to such a gang would not be allowed to enter Las Palmas Park, under the ordinance adopted by the San Fernando City Council.

The ACLU screamed bloody murder! Not, mind you, when the gangs opened fire on Mrs. Duran and her children, but when the gangs were to be kicked out of the park. Public parks are for everyone, says the ACLU--even gangs.

It should be pointed out to the ACLU that some parks are not open to everyone. It isn’t the gangs that are excluded--it’s ordinary decent people who pay taxes to maintain the parks but are deathly afraid to use them. And they are right to be afraid.

The simplistic reply, by those who are not personally affected, that parks are for everyone shows arrogance or insensitivity to life as it is lived in huge stretches of this city. In neighborhoods where houses and apartments are jammed together on tiny lots and kids have no place to play, they can’t play in their neighborhood parks, either, because of gangs. I wonder how many of the critics would allow their own children to play in a gang-infested park.

The reality of criminal street gangs must be understood. They are not just loose collections of youths, some of whom are bad apples. Murder and robbery are their principal activities. Every member is part and parcel of that pattern of criminal activity. And anyone who lingers long in the vicinity of gang members is going to meet with violence--either intentionally inflicted or unintentionally.

People who live in gang-infested neighborhoods understand this very well, even if the ACLU does not. That’s why they are solidly in support of an ordinance that seeks to break the hostile occupation of their parks. The ACLU has served notice that it will challenge this law. So I guess we’ll see them in court. But what a grotesque irony it is to hear those who speak for the rights of gangs to use public parks invoke the First Amendment’s guarantee of every citizen’s right to “peaceably” assemble.

A park is a place for children to play and adults to relax. Going to a park should not require an act of courage.