Koreans to Get Crime Victim Help : Advocacy: City hires Korean American to put people facing language and cultural barriers in touch with public agencies that can assist them. County plans similar effort.

Pledging that they want to forge a new working relationship with the Korean American community, City Atty. James K. Hahn and Dist. Atty. Gilbert Garcetti teamed up Wednesday to announce a “special emphasis victim service” program to help Korean-speaking crime victims in Los Angeles.

“Korean Americans unfortunately have been disproportionately victims of crime here in Los Angeles,” said Hahn during a City Hall news conference attended by numerous Korean American community leaders and members of the Korean-language press. “We believe that in many situations, victims are not getting services that they need.”

The new program, made possible through a grant from the state Office of Criminal Justice Planning, enabled Hahn to hire T. C. Kim, a Korean American journalist and former community worker, to be an advocate for Korean crime victims in the city attorney’s office. Kim, 28, will work out of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Koreatown substation at 3330 W. 8th St.

The Koreatown office space is being provided free by Judy Park, a Korean American businesswoman who owns the building. “This is my contribution to the community,” said Park, a Los Angeles resident for 20 years. “It’s something I want to do.”

Kim, who speaks fluent Korean, will be in charge of screening cases referred by law enforcement officers, prosecutors, hospitals and other agencies, contacting victims to assess what help they need, referring victims to appropriate agencies as well as helping to explain court procedures and provide court escort. His job will also involve pulling together a team of volunteers from the Korean American community to help.

Garcetti said his office, too, is stepping up efforts to reach out to the Korean American community. He has made an offer to hire a first-generation Korean American to be its victims’ advocate, he said. If all goes as planned, the Korean American should be on board in early January to help his office “bridge the gap with the Korean American community,” Garcetti said. This is essential, he said, because so many in the predominantly immigrant Korean community “either don’t have a trust of government or don’t know what government can do to assist them.”

Saying that the Korean American community is too often the target of hate crimes, Garcetti also said he plans to hire Korean-speaking investigators and prosecutors. Korean American community leaders who attended the session in Hahn’s office said they were pleased with the development.

“We’ve been pleading with city officials to do something about the intolerable crime situation in Koreatown for some time,” said George Hwang, a Koreatown businessman who is a civilian volunteer in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “This is the result.” Hwang said he will monitor the program closely.

The new service adds a Korean component to the existing city attorney’s Victims Assistance Unit. Last year the unit helped more than 23,000 crime victims in Los Angeles County.

This year, more than two dozen Korean Americans have been killed or wounded during robberies in Southern California, according to statistics compiled by Korean American community agencies and the Korean language media.

Hahn said it is his hope to institute similar specialized victim assistance programs for other ethnic groups.