County Parks Officials Cool to Plan to Bar Gangs : Law enforcement: Many point to the constructive role of recreation. Antonovich proposal finds support among neighbors of plagued sites.

A movement to ban gang members from Los Angeles County parks is generating little enthusiasm among parks officials and recreation supervisors, most of whom said it would exclude many of the youths they are trying to reach.

“One of our goals is for the gang members to use the park. Some of them might see the light that way, see that there are alternatives,” said Henry Roman, assistant director of the Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation Department.

“To say, ‘You can’t participate,’ in a way you’re even further hurting these kids,” said Roman, who manages the county’s East Region, which includes gang-dominated areas in East Los Angeles.

Similar views were expressed by many of Roman’s colleagues within the far-flung park system, which includes more than 100 parks in the unincorporated areas of the county.

None denied that a number of parks suffer from gang-related problems and some easily recalled drive-by shootings, assaults and drug trafficking. But these officials said their current gang-control efforts, consisting of an array of recreation programs backed by a 100-member park police force, are sufficient to keep the parks safe.

“We typically keep things in control that way,” Roman said. “It’s very rare that we get into the same situation that they did in San Fernando, where the gangs totally take control of a park. It hasn’t happened in the three years I’ve been here.”

The nation’s first park gang ban was enacted last fall in San Fernando after a mother and her three children were injured in gang cross-fire in Las Palmas Park.

Those events inspired Supervisor Mike Antonovich to propose a similar ban in county parks. On Jan. 13, the Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed to ask county parks officials to return to the board in mid-February with a list of parks that might benefit from such stringent action.

Residents of neighborhoods near some county parks with a history of problems were divided in their opinions. Several said the tougher approach might be the only antidote to gangs overrunning their parks.

“I applaud a ban. It would be perfect for . . . any of the parks with that kind of problem,” said Jerre Davenport, chairwoman of Operation Safe Community, an East L.A. organization formed a year ago to fight gangs and graffiti.

But the only parks officials who expressed support for the concept were from those areas with the fewest problems--located in the park department’s North Region, including the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys and a sliver of the northern San Fernando Valley.

They shared a fear that future budget cuts could slice the ranks of the park police force and recreation staffs, leaving them vulnerable to gangs.

“With our existing resources, we are able to keep our park system safe,” said Jeff Wheeler, operations manager for the North Region. “But if we get to the point where our resources are reduced . . . an ordinance like this might be needed.”

Peter Whittington, Antonovich’s parks deputy, said the proposal for a countywide ordinance was not intended as an attack on the county parks department.

“Parks and Recreation does a good job,” he said. “But we can always go another mile.”

He said Antonovich requested the park study before moving to enact an ordinance because “we don’t want to inhibit” the efforts of recreation leaders.

“You can fight them, you can open up your arms or you can try to use both of those approaches,” Whittington said. “This is just trying to find a way to do both.”

Under San Fernando’s ordinance, which was crafted by the county district attorney’s office, police issue written warnings not to use the parks to members of criminal street gangs--labeled as such because at least two of their members have been convicted of felonies. If the gang members ignore the warning and enter the park grounds, they can be cited and fined $250.

The San Fernando ban has been challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union, primarily on the grounds that it usurps gang members’ First Amendment right to assemble.

Unlike San Fernando and other small cities, when outbreaks of gang violence, drug dealing or intimidation occur in the Los Angeles County parks system, officials can call on the park police. A team of park officers can then focus on that troubled park instead of the usual practice of simply passing by during regular patrols.

In fact, skeptics of the San Fernando ordinance point out that its apparent success may not be a result of the ban itself, but of the increased police power and awareness behind it. San Fernando Police Chief Dominick Rivetti reported to county supervisors at the Jan. 13 meeting that nearly a quarter of his city’s 34-member force is trained for and spends time on the gang-ban detail.

County parks officials said that the judgment and creativity of their recreation supervisors are at least as important as the might of police in fighting gangs.

“I can get more security out of one recreation leader working a park than I can from five police officers,” said Sam Jones, assistant director in charge of the county’s South Region, which includes Athens Park. “A recreation leader is not a threat to anyone, so they can relate to the gang members as well as to the parents and the teachers and so on. They see things, and they can alert us to problems before they become problems.”

On-site recreation department staff members have suggested some of the more novel strategies against gangs, such as turning sprinklers on at night to prevent loitering, allowing use of weight rooms only in graffiti-free parks and temporarily removing diving boards from park pools when they became the subject of dispute between warring gangs.

The county parks’ Community And Recreation Safety (CARS) program was mentioned by parks officials as another preventive measure.

The program supplements standard recreation fare--exercise classes and sports teams. But it also chisels away at more elusive causes of youths going bad, such as parents’ language barriers and their own learning difficulties and drug problems.

Shane Coleman, owner of a video store next to Val Verde Park near Santa Clarita, said members and wanna-bes of the Val Verde Smokers gang hang out in front of his store, but “they’re pretty good kids, actually. With the right love and attention, they respond in a good way usually.”

Coleman, who is also the parent of park users, favors the county’s more subtle approach--programs aimed at keeping kids out of gangs or luring them away.

In particular, he complimented an afternoon study hall at Val Verde where kids can get help on their homework before sporting events. He also hopes to help organize a touring entertainment program for parks in the North Region.

Val Verde Park holds English literacy classes taught by volunteers, and a team of park police play basketball with a team of neighborhood adults to foster understanding and respect between the two camps.

Other CARS programs include a Saturday morning Just Say No to Drugs club for 7-to-13-year-olds at George Lane Park in Quartz Hill.

In the East Region, CARS leaders have helped organize touch football for about 800 youths; in the South Region they were involved in coordinating a basketball program aimed at attracting gang members.

“It’s really hard to say who’s a gang member, who’s not. You start judging people, and there’s where the problems start,” said Julian (Jim) Venegas, recreation supervisor for City Terrace Park in East Los Angeles, which has fought a long battle against gangs and drugs.

“Our philosophy has always been that we provide programming and we set up rules for those programs,” Venegas said. “Any type of person can come out, as long as they follow the rules that we have.”

But some park neighbors argued that the county parks department already is spread too thin and only responds after neighborhoods organize and complain.

Vera Ellis, a leader of Operation Safe Community, said that at night Sunshine Park--four blocks away from her East Valinda house--is dominated by three different gangs.

“That’s their turf, they call it that,” she said. “On weekends, there are shootings and fights.”

She said many of the area’s residents are illegal immigrants who are loath to attract attention by contacting park or law enforcement officials.

“The parks and recreation people are starting to come around here now, because I pester them so much on the phone,” Ellis said. “But I’m watching what’s happening in San Fernando closely. I personally would like to see a ban instituted in every park, because I’ve seen the degradation that can occur.”

Nancy Kelly, who lives in an unincorporated area west of Compton, applauded the county’s response to the gang problem at nearby Athens Park. But she said that an outright ban on gangs would help.

Athens Park is highlighted by county parks officials as a sterling example of community organizations joining with the county to regain control of their park through regular brainstorming sessions and community events.

But that liaison occurred only after the Bloods gang came to Athens Park about three years ago, leading to numerous drive-by shootings, said Kelly, chairwoman of Athens Park Concerned Citizens.

Kelly credited the vigilance of park police and the removal of roadside public telephones--a hub of the drug trade--with helping to drive the Bloods away from Athens Park.