City OKs Multi-Agency Squad to Battle Gangs

In an effort to reverse a steep increase in gang activity, the City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved the creation of an unusual multi-agency gang suppression unit that will team city police with a county prosecutor.

Under the program, which city officials said will be the first of its kind in the state, two police officers, a deputy district attorney and a county probation officer will work together in a single office at the city’s Police Department.

The action came one day after a gang-related brawl occurred at La Quinta High School in Westminster. Police on Tuesday arrested a teen-ager after the brawl.

Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi told the council that the program was “a step in the right direction to show these street hoodlums that you are in control of your streets.”

Under the agreement between Westminster and the county that was approved Tuesday night, the city will pay $434,580 of the program’s annual cost, including $100,000 for the deputy district attorney and $74,000 for the probation officer. The program will also add two police officers, one specializing in Asian gangs and the other specializing in Latino gangs, at a cost of $87,000 each. The county will pay for a small percentage of the program, picking up only a portion of the deputy district attorney’s salary.

The program will start Jan. 1, and will be funded through December, 1993. The city will pay for the program with money from the regional narcotics forfeiture fund that includes the seized assets of those convicted of drug charges, Police Chief James Cook said.

The plan, proposed by Cook to combat gang activity that “has increased at an alarming rate” over the past year, aims to remove gang leaders from the streets.

“I believe that as gang suppression programs go, it will be the most effective one ever tested in California,” he said.

Other programs combine police with the district attorney’s office or the county probation department, but Westminster’s program would be the first in which all three were brought together under the same roof.

Also, Cook said that the unit would use the state-approved Street Terrorism Enforcement Act that allows prosecutors to add a charge of gang membership when a suspect is arrested on suspicion of a gang-related crime. The result will be swifter prosecution, and longer jail sentences for gang members, he said.

Although Westminster police have been studying the plan for two years, the department rushed to implement it after a motorist was slain by gang members on Aug. 5. That night, Janet L. Bicknell was driving to her home on Forrest Lane when she was fatally shot in the head by a group of teen-age gang members who were drinking beer in a city park.

Meanwhile, police on Tuesday arrested a 15-year-old student Tuesday on suspicion of assault and battery stemming from a gang-related brawl at La Quinta High School.

The suspect, who was not named because of his age, was released to his parents, said Westminster police spokesman Robin Kapp.

Police allege that the suspect was part of a group of 15 to 20 Vietnamese youths who drove onto the campus Monday afternoon and attacked a Latino student. A brawl ensued when several Latino and Anglo students came to the aid of the student being attacked.

Police say that the suspect tried to hit several of the youths with a “trash picker,” a long, metal tool with a pincer at the end commonly used to pick up debris. It was not known whether the tool was brought onto the campus by the youth or found there.

Kapp said it was also uncertain whether the suspect actually struck anyone. The only reported injuries were minor stab wounds sustained by a 15-year-old Anglo boy who was treated and released from Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center.

A second suspect in the stabbing is still being sought, Kapp said.

No motive for the attack has been determined and Kapp declined to comment on whether it was racially motivated.