ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Getting a Grip on Gangs

Spurred by recent gang crime, the city of Westminster has come up with an innovative response: a multi-agency, gang-suppression unit aimed at the worst offenders. The unit is believed to be the first of its kind in California.

Indeed, this isn’t just another effort by police, prosecutors and probation officers to work together on gang crime.

The city feels so strongly about the issue that it is spending $434,580 to finance the unit, taking the unusual step of paying the salaries of a deputy district attorney and a probation officer. It also is assigning two police officers who are specialists in Latino and Vietnamese gangs. All will work out of police headquarters.

The group will identify and target gang members who commit the most crimes--and then follow their cases through arrest, prosecution and probation. Criminal studies, including one done recently in Orange County, have shown that a relatively small number of youths commit a large proportion of crimes. Westminster’s new gang-suppression unit, as one city police officer said, is aimed at “cutting the head off the monster.”

The idea for the unit had been under discussion for some time, but police officials worried about taking it to the City Council because of its high cost. On Aug. 5, however, Janet L. Bicknell was fatally shot while driving past a city park where gang members were drinking beer, and angry residents demanded a response. When the gang unit came up for approval Tuesday, the council vote was unanimous.

Money for the unit, which will be launched Jan. 1, will come from the city’s share of regional narcotics forfeiture, including seized assets of those convicted of drug charges. That’s a good use of these funds. It shows the city is serious about getting a grip on its gang problem.