YORBA LINDA : Youth Behavior Prompts Concern

City officials expressed growing concern this week about two separate incidents recently involving local youths.

In the first, a church-sponsored event was crashed by youths planning a fight.

In the second, a local junior high school was hit with extensive graffiti.

The first incident occurred Feb. 23, during a regularly scheduled Yorba Linda Friends Church Bible study group for about 50 junior high school students. They were interrupted when another group of about 40 youths showed up intending to start a fight, according to a church pastor.

“There had been an assembly earlier in the day at Esperanza High School for students from Travis Ranch Middle School, Bernardo Yorba Junior High School and Yorba Linda Middle School,” said the pastor, who asked that his name be withheld. “Students from Bernardo Yorba and Yorba Linda exchanged words.”

The students then set up a time and place to fight, he said.

When the group arrived about 7 p.m., students in the Bible study informed the pastor leading the activity that the other youths were there to fight.

Police were called, and officers arrived at 7:45 p.m., before any fighting occurred. A search of the prospective combatants turned up a starter’s pistol and a knife with a five-inch blade, Brea Police Lt. Bill Lentini said.

Lentini said he would not characterize the fight as gang-related. However, the pastor said the church youngsters identified some in the other group as being either gang members or associates of gang members.

On Feb. 27, Bernardo Yorba Junior High was hit with graffiti that was discovered the next morning. Principal Richard Vouga said the graffiti was the most extensive he had seen at the school in some time.

Students who arrived on campus early Monday morning before the graffiti was painted over were “incensed” about the defacement, Vouga added.

“We’re trying to get them riled up and disgusted about the graffiti,” the principal said. “The student council is offering a $250 reward for information about who did it.”

Yorba Linda Councilwoman Barbara Kiley said she is concerned that if the city does not take action now to curb youth crime, it will continue to escalate.

She plans to present for the council’s consideration two ordinances that she said would help combat graffiti and other youth crime.

“We need to pass two ordinances: one establishing a curfew, and the other making parents responsible for graffiti removal,” Kiley said.

Kiley said she also wants the city to hold dances and other supervised activities for local teen-agers.

“I don’t think we are giving kids enough to do,” she said. “We need to give them places to go.”