The Turning Point Was Murder : After his best friend was killed, Gus Frias vowed to try to stamp out gang violence by attacking poverty and racism.

My involvement with gang violence began in high school, when my best friend was murdered. It was the culmination of many killings. The majority of my friends were murdered through drugs and gang-related crimes. So I decided to commit my life to preventing young kids from killing each other, and to doing whatever I can--as an individual and as a participant in society--to identify key minds and resources and collectively do whatever we can to make a difference.

We have 1,000 gangs in Los Angeles County, with a membership nearing 150,000. Most are young Hispanics, but we have all types of groups represented--male, female, young, old, even gay. The average age range is 17 to 25.

I do consulting work on violence prevention. I recently came back from Washington, D.C., where I participated in the creation of the National Inter-Agency Violence Prevention Initiative. I represented Southern California, voicing to Washington that we have a crisis of such magnitude that it reaches 100 degrees, and the solutions are only 10 degrees. We’re missing the boat. To address these needs, we need a multimillion-dollar effort.

So far, we don’t have a comprehensive plan. Everybody is doing their own thing, and there is no communication or cooperation.

All these factions are not coordinating their work. We need an interdisciplinary plan, which means we bring together the Los Angeles Police Department, the schools and the business sector to form an interagency. To do that, I propose that Los Angeles County fund a full-time staff, because the current task forces are very part-time. And we need to come up with a more creative, united approach.

At the local level, I just did a consulting job for Councilman Mike Hernandez. It was only a $25,000 contract, but there were three things we were able to do:

* First, we began a gang-violence-prevention media campaign. We got together with media representatives and cable TV networks and made a half-hour television special, which aired for a month on all the cable networks. It was followed up by a discussion with law enforcement, community leaders and young people involved one way or another with the issue of gangs.

We also got business to assist in putting up billboards. The theme was “Stop the Killing,” and they showed a picture of a mother holding a slain child. There was a lot of media coverage for that.

* Second, we created an academy to teach youth organizers how to deal with violence in the community. We identified 50 kids and adults and put them through a 10-week training course on violence prevention, intervention and suppression.

* Third, we concentrated on developing and implementing a comprehensive, school-based violence-prevention curriculum. It consisted of making presentations to educators, parents and youths, and training youths to make responsible decisions and develop self-esteem, good work skills, responsible citizenship, refusal skills, conflict management and anger management. That helped a lot.

But as long as we have poverty and racism and people--particularly parents--who don’t care about their kids, we are going to have social dysfunction, whether it shows up as gangs or something else.

My optimism tells me we will change things around and make sure children growing up in today’s neighborhoods have a better chance of survival and success.

My dream is that one day we will live in a society where we don’t have the prejudices that divide us and lead us to kill each other. It is important for us to learn to work together.