Still No End in Sight to Ever-Rising Gang Toll : Violence: School and police crackdowns, truces, even orders from prison ‘mafia’ fail to stop the carnage. Killings hit new high for fifth straight year.

Zero tolerance at school. Gang truces. Law enforcement sweeps. A call for peace by a prison gang.

All were supposed to help stem the tide of gang violence.

Yet, the killings continue.

Last month, a record for gang-related homicides in Orange County was established, the fifth consecutive year the mark has been eclipsed. More than 50 homicides this year have been attributed to gang violence, compared to 43 all last year and more than triple the number of gang-related homicides in 1989.

Underlying the wave of killings is the nagging sense that though much has been done in the past year, from banning gang-type clothing at schools to creating more gang diversion programs, nothing seems to be helping curtail the violence.

“Drive-by shootings are so hard to stop,” said Steve Swaim, Anaheim’s community services superintendent. “You can give people jobs and clean up their neighborhood, but all it takes for someone to shatter that is someone rolling in from some other neighborhood, rolling down their windows and starting to shoot.”

Attempts at ending gang violence have been made at many levels, from grass-roots movements to legal battles to the most active role ever undertaken by local schools and governments.

In August, the Santa Ana Unified School District joined other districts around the county in adopting a “no-tolerance” policy that calls for the expulsion of any student who has a weapon or anything that resembles a weapon on campus. Students who participate in gangs, become involved with drugs or “tag” schools with graffiti are subject to expulsion.

The district also set up a toll-free phone line to encourage individuals to report the presence of weapons on campus.

At the Capistrano Unified School District, based in San Juan Capistrano, the Board of Trustees revised its student dress code this year, banning “gang-related apparel” that includes hair nets, chains, bandannas, combat boots or “any combination of clothing which law enforcement agencies currently consider gang related.”

Weapons are also banned from campus. Most other school districts have instituted similar restrictions.

Even with the new rules, school officials say they have no control over what happens in the lives of students outside their seven hours in school.

“We can only do what we can do,” said Richard Hernandez, president of the Santa Ana Unified School District. “The rest of society has to pitch in. It’s a matter of teaching love and respect for each other from an early age.”

The city of Westminster went to court in July to seek an order banning four dozen members of a gang from associating with one another.

But Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard J. Beacom ruled in September that such a prohibition was unconstitutional. While acknowledging that the gang problem had pushed the county “to the edge of anarchy,” he called a prohibition on association an “impermissible invasion of privacy” and First Amendment rights.

However, many see encouraging signs of peace that aren’t reflected in the grim statistics.

Earlier this month, 200 members of various gangs gathered in a church parking lot in Santa Ana to spread a general warning about the Mexican Mafia prison gang, which, it was reported, had called for a halt of drive-by shootings by Latino gangs. Retaliation against those who broke the truce would occur in jail if arrests were made.

After the announcement, the shootings abated for a short time before they started up again last week.

Earlier this year, another 200 participated in the second annual gang unity march, walking a mile from Santa Ana City Hall to El Salvador Park. Though a symbolic gesture, the gathering raised hopes that gangs were prepared to lay down their arms.

In August, 1992, about 500 Latino gang members in Orange County signed a formal treaty that promised a new era of nonviolence. The gesture so impressed Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles that he met here with local gang leaders to discuss ways in which the treaty could be duplicated in Los Angeles County.

Despite the rising death toll, local leaders hailed the treaty as the first step toward an eventual decline in the carnage.

Jessie Arredondo, president of the United Barrio Council, a nonprofit group that travels to different neighborhoods to promote peace, said that many gangs still hold to truces and that at least three have not pointed a gun on a rival gang for five months.

“The papers keep printing that (the gangs) haven’t done anything (about peace), but they have,” she said.

Outside the sphere of gangs, there are other hopeful indications that the community is fighting back against the violence.

* A woman whose 17-year-old son was shot in a drive-by near El Toro High School held a peace march in Mission Viejo last weekend, attracting dozens who wanted to stop youth violence. A similar event is scheduled for today.

* After an attack on a group of San Clemente high school students last week--one of whom was speared in the head with a metal rod--parents flooded the Sheriff’s Department and schools asking what could be done about gangs. Someone hung a sign on an freeway overpass in San Clemente that said, “Take Back Your Community.”

* In an Anaheim neighborhood, residents held a party recently to celebrate the successful eviction of gangs from their area by reporting crime and poor housing conditions, inviting the police in, and screening rental applicants.

* A countywide anti-gang summit is scheduled for Nov. 30 in Anaheim. The idea is to bring educators, business leaders, court officers and police officers together for a regional approach to getting youth out of gangs.

“We’ve never seen that kind of stuff before,” said Al Valdez, an investigator with the Orange County district attorney’s gang unit. “I think people are angry enough. The time is right for many citizens to come forward and take back their community. We will not become another L.A. A lot of people are fed up.”

Valdez, who works with the Westminster Police Department to battle gangs in a program that combines the resources of the police, district attorney’s office and Probation Department, said that despite the increasing number of gang-related murders, “I don’t think (gangs) are winning.”

Juan Velasco, a Santa Ana man whose 17-year-old son, Juan Luis Velasco, was killed last week, isn’t sure who to blame for his son’s death. He knows only that his son and others who join gangs do so because they cannot find work, he said.

“Whenever five or 10 kids get together, it’s called a gang,” he said. “Those kids are there because there’s nothing to do. There is no way the system is right, if they don’t give them a chance. Give them more ways to be more active.”

Velasco called those in his son’s gang “good kids” but “before they noticed it, it was a routine: somebody shot, somebody hurt, OK, let’s retaliate.”

Velasco said he is worried that his son’s friends will retaliate for the murder. “They all know who did it,” he said. “But I don’t want to see any more blood.”

One 23-year-old member of a Santa Ana gang said truces and anti-gang school programs have little impact on the younger generation of gangbangers.

“The only way to keep kids safe is to lock them in their rooms and don’t let them out,” he said.

A former Orange County probation officer who works with gangs and requested anonymity said today’s breed of gangster is different from those he used to see in years past.

“One of the first things they do now in retaliation is grab a gun,” he said. “That used to be the last resort. You’re never going to get rid of (the gang problem.) You’re talking about a problem that spans three generations.”

Times staff writer Jeff Brazil contributed to this report.

VOICES

“You can give people jobs and clean up their neighborhood, but all it takes for someone to shatter that is someone rolling in from some other neighborhood, rolling down their windows and starting to shoot.”

--Steve Swaim, Anaheim’s community services superintendent

*

“We can only do what we can do. The rest of society has to pitch in. It’s a matter of teaching love and respect for each other from an early age.”

--Richard Hernandez, president of the Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Trustees

*

“I think people are angry enough. The time is right for many citizens to come forward and take back their community. We will not become another L.A. A lot of people are fed up.”

--Al Valdez, an investigator with the Orange County district attorney’s gang unit

*

“Those kids are there because there’s nothing to do. There is no way the system is right, if they don’t give them a chance. Give them more ways to be more active.”

--Juan Velasco, a Santa Ana man whose son was killed last week

*

“The only way to keep kids safe is to lock them in their rooms and don’t let them out.”

--Gang Member, 23-years-old, Santa Ana

*

“You’re never going to get rid of (the gang problem). You’re talking about a problem that spans three generations.”

--Former Orange County probation officer, who works with gangs who requested anonymity

Gang Deaths

Gang-related killings in Orange County have been increasing steadily since 1989, with a record number this year despite what looks like a declining trend in total homicides.

Total Gang-related Gang-related Year homicides homicides as % of total 1989 366 16 4 1990 370 28 8 1991 319 31 10 1992 392 43 11 1993* 161 50** 31

* As of Oct. 21

** Confirmed so far this year

Sources: Orange County Sheriff’s Department, district attorney