Religious Coalition Plans Major Anti-Gang Effort

Comparing gang violence to the ravages of floods and earthquakes, a coalition of religious and community leaders on Tuesday declared a “state of emergency” in Southern California and called on public officials to respond to the gang crisis as they would a natural disaster.

In what organizers say is an unprecedented move, the “Hope in Youth” campaign is supported by seven major religious denominations, each of which has pledged to devote its resources to the myriad social and economic problems that have spawned gang culture.

“We gather today--Jews, Protestants and Catholics--to raise our voices, to decry this senseless violence,” said Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who is spearheading the campaign. “We will not allow this crisis to go undeclared and ignored.”

Mahony, head of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, declined to elaborate on specifics of his strategy, and other organizers conceded that they face an uphill battle to generate the $10 million annually they say is needed to make a dent in violence over the next five years.

“We don’t have it in the bag,” said Larry McNeil, California director of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a political action group that is helping to lead the effort. “It’s going to be a war.”

The initiative comes almost two years after many of the same people launched the ballyhooed but ultimately disappointing “Turn the Tide” campaign, which drew heavy media coverage and several thousand marchers to Exposition Park.

That campaign--spurred by outrage over the 1988 slaying of Karen Toshima by a gang member in Westwood--brought out what was hailed as the largest and most diverse crowd ever to protest crime in Los Angeles. But the good intentions produced few results.

“Turn the Tide issued the biggest fat zero,” said Father Gregory Boyle, a priest at Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights who works closely with gang members. “It was really all bark and no bite.”

This time, organizers of Hope in Youth say two things have changed. The first is that the level of violence has reached what Mahony termed “unspeakable and tragic dimensions.” Since Turn the Tide, the number of gang-related homicides in Los Angeles County has jumped nearly 40%, reaching a record 771 last year.

Secondly, the grass-roots groups behind both efforts--United Neighborhoods Organization in East Los Angeles, East Valleys Organization in the San Gabriel Valley, Southern California Organizing Committee in South-Central Los Angeles and Valley Organized in Community Efforts in the San Fernando Valley--now have the full weight of the church hierarchy in their camp. The seven denominations, whose constituencies number in the millions, have pledged to donate $2.5 million to gang solutions by 1997.

“No more will we idly watch our children mowed down,” Bishop E. Lynn Brown of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church told a crowd of about 100 that gathered for a news conference at the graffiti-scarred corner of 41st Street and Broadway. “No more will an entire generation be destroyed, unnoticed and uncared for.”

The first test of the campaign’s political power will come March 17 when about 1,000 religious leaders will reveal the details of their strategy during a summit conference at Phillips Temple Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in South Los Angeles.

Nine top public officials have been invited, including Gov. Pete Wilson, Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana, Mayor Tom Bradley, California’s two U.S. senators and two congressmen.

“They are able to be there when there is a flood,” said Davida Foy Crabtree of the United Church of Christ, referring to this month’s torrential rains. “There is a flood now.”

Organizers declined to discuss specifics of their plan until then, explaining that they are still in the process of building their coalition and working out details.

Tuesday’s news conference was held in front of an apartment building on South Broadway where outreach teams from Soledad Enrichment Action, a Catholic group, have worked for the last three years.

Bullet holes pock the building’s facade and graffiti, some of it in letters eight feet high, proclaim this corner as the Hang Out Boys’ turf.

“That’s nice what they’re saying,” said a 16-year-old member of the gang who calls himself Shy Boy. “But they’re just talkin’. And we’re never gonna change.”