A Couple of Steps Too Far : Well-intentioned anti-gang effort has too broad a scope

On average, there is an arrest every day on a certain block of Blythe Street in Panorama City. The primary culprits, who hold sway in an area described as the most crime-ridden stretch of the San Fernando Valley, are alleged to be the members of a powerful and well-organized street gang. That gang has now been targeted by the City of Los Angeles in a far-reaching effort to break its grip on the area.

Specifically, the city attorney’s office sought and is operating under the authority of--thus far, at least--a sweeping 22-point court injunction forbidding gang members to engage in such otherwise legal acts as standing on rooftops and possessing two-way radios or cellular telephones. Illegal for them to carry: large flashlights, tools that could be used in car thefts, spray-paint cans, etching devices, and hammers, crowbars, belt buckles, razors and other objects that might be used as weapons.

It is laudable that the city is attempting to give relief to law-abiding citizens who appear to be held hostage in their community. It’s also reasonable that the city attorney’s office is testing the limits of a rare and controversial law enforcement tool--the banning of violent street gangs from the areas on which they prey. These methods have been successful in the past, although they have not yet received a resilient challenge in the courts.

But it is also true that the bans on gangs that were briefly applied on streets and in public parks in San Fernando, Pomona and Burbank were very limited in scope. They were applied against relatively small groups that were well known to the local authorities and involved relatively small geographic areas. That was a large part of the appeal of such efforts. They were different from the vagrancy and loitering laws of the past, which often were too broad, vague and subject to abuse.

The Blythe Street ban, by contrast, seeks to control about 350 gang members. It’s true that the city must first serve notice to the individual gang members and can ban only those thus served, but this number unquestionably is huge. Also, the injunction calls for two gang curfew areas, one focused on juvenile gang members between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. in a 112-square-block area. It is unlikely that the Los Angeles Police Department could scour such an area--on the lookout for a gang larger than two Army companies--and not wind up confronting innocent individuals who might only look like gang members.

A more limited effort, targeting fewer individuals in a much smaller geographic area, would be more manageable, less intrusive and less likely to negatively affect innocent citizens. Enforcement of such a ban would also not require an enormous contingent of police officers. The current Blythe Street injunction would require nothing less.