700 Attend Town Meeting on Gangs : Ventura: Residents gather to plan a strategy to curb growing violence. Community involvement is called crucial.

In an unprecedented display of concern about gang violence, nearly 700 Ventura residents attended a town-hall meeting Wednesday night to grieve for recent casualties and devise a strategy to prevent further bloodshed.

“I want Jesse’s death to mean something,” said John Strobel III, grandfather of a 17-year-old Ventura High School football player who was stabbed in what police are now saying was a gang-related attack.

The popular student was buried last week with 600 mourners attending his funeral, and his family has pleaded with civic leaders to do something to eliminate Ventura’s gang problem.

“We’ve got to make our schools safe again,” said Jesse’s father, John Strobel IV. “We’ve got to come together and make a stand.”

Mayor Gregory L. Carson told the crowd at the Ventura Theatre, “It’s very unfortunate the circumstances that led to our meeting tonight . . . . We’re sick and tired of what’s happening.”

Police Chief Richard Thomas said gangs are an old problem in Ventura. In the last five years, however, it has grown worse because of a breakdown in family relations and because gangs have been glamorized by the movies and media, Thomas said.

Shootings and stabbings will persist until residents decide to do things like establish anti-gang dress codes at the schools and put money into preventive programs for at-risk youths, Thomas said.

“It’s not a police problem,” he told the audience. “It’s a community problem.”

The two-hour meeting did not result in any definite actions, but residents pledged to combat the gang problem, and additional meetings will be scheduled.

Longtime residents said they are shocked at the rising level of violence in the city, and parents said their children are afraid to go to school because they are being threatened by gang members.

Tom and Jan Lewis, who have three children in elementary school, said they came to the meeting because they are worried about their children’s futures.

“Parents are the key,” Tom Lewis said. He didn’t think his children would ever join gangs, but “as they get older and peer pressure sets in, you don’t know.”

Mitzy Darapiza, whose son, Edward (Tony) Throop, was convicted last year of two slayings in a drive-by shooting, told the crowd that parents play crucial roles in preventing their children from joining gangs.

“I’ve had a lot of horrible, horrible guilt,” she said. “He needed me, and I was not there. I’m partly responsible for my son being in a state prison for the rest of his life.”

Jesse Strobel’s grandfather said of the increasing violence, “It’s reached such proportions now that we’re becoming aware of it.”

About two weeks ago, two homicides and two stabbings occurred in Ventura in three days, police said.

Jesse Strobel’s death has attracted the most attention, prompting plans for a school assembly at Ventura High School and a raid of 21 dwellings in which police arrested six people on a variety of charges.

Two days before Jesse Strobel’s death, Alfonso Garza Sanchez, 24, was shot and killed in an alley near Flint and Olive streets in Ventura.

Carson said some of the city’s programs aimed at at-risk youths may be expanded or new programs may be created, depending on what residents want.

Ventura Unified School District Supt. Joseph Spirito said in an interview Wednesday that school officials are considering an anti-gang dress code, strengthening security at schools and bringing parents onto campus to talk with students about gangs.

The Ventura City Council on Monday also decided to close a section of Poli Street to prevent drive-by shootings at Ventura High School.

Like Carson, Spirito emphasized that schools and police are ineffective without the cooperation of parents and residents.