GANG WATCH : Wanna-be Busters

The rumble, between 10-year-old street-gang wanna-bes at Lanai Road Elementary School in Encino, was on for noon. So, who were these two scary-looking adults, in classic street-gang regalia, at the school lunch tables of the unsuspecting Snakes and Thunderheads?

“Who’s in a gang here? I heard there were some gang members here,” Big Gang Adult No. 1, Tony Newsom, growled. “Who are the leaders? I want to talk to the leaders,” demanded Big Gang Adult No. 2, Michael Piceno. “If you guys are from a gang, you better act like you’re from a gang,” said Newsom, “Are you prepared to fight us?”

Suddenly, this rumble thing wasn’t looking like such a good idea. And the kids, less than 5 feet tall to begin with, had lost quite a bit of stature, bluff and bluster.

“I learned not to be in a gang,” said Andy, leader of one of the rival student groups. “It’s bad for you and you could die.”

Fortunately, Newsom and Piceno were not the real thing. They are LAPD officers called in from the West San Fernando Valley division’s Jeopardy program. The wise guy here, in more ways than one, was Lanai Principal Ronald Ferrier, who had gotten wind of the child rumble and thought of an innovative way to make gang life look a lot less appealing.

The time to start addressing gang issues, Ferrier says, is in the impressionable elementary school years. “There’s a war out there,” Ferrier says. “We could win half of it by admitting and acknowledging that the problem exists.” Ferrier has admitted it, and he’s doing something about it.