SOUTH COUNTY : Agencies Form Task Force to Fight Gangs

A 3-year-old child is shot and wounded by gang members in San Clemente. A 17-year-old high school student sitting in his Lake Forest living room is killed by a bullet fired by a South County gang member.

These and other recent incidents of violent gang activity are troubling South County. On Friday, representatives from cities, school districts, law enforcement agencies and youth groups in the area vowed to do something about it.

More than 100 people spent the day at an anti-gang summit searching for ways to deal with South County’s gang problem. Organizers say that the meeting was more than a workshop of words, that it resulted in a pledge of areawide cooperation to deal with gangs.

“We’re not just talking; we’re going to come up with solutions,” said James A. Fleming, superintendent of the Capistrano Unified School District, which ran the meeting. “This meeting isn’t the end, it’s the beginning.”

The summit brought together street cops and YMCA supervisors, city officials and school administrators. After talking throughout the morning in groups about gang problems, participants agreed to form a task force to meet throughout the summer.

By fall, the task force is to produce a list of proposals to deal with matters such as gang suppression and parent/student education programs.

Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Joe Davis, a task force member, said the gang problem is too new in South County to quantify. But with gang membership still relatively low compared to larger urban areas, he said, South County still has a chance to control gang activity.

“We are seeing a real increase in the number of gangs and a real increase in public perception,” said Davis, who is in charge of police operations in Laguna Niguel. “This is a chance to have an impact in time” before the South County gang problem gets out of hand.