County Gang Killings Hit Record High : Crime: Gang-related homicides soared 72% in 1993, annual report shows. Seventy-four were slain last year.

Gang-related slayings in Orange County reached an all-time high last year with the death of 74 people--a 72% increase from 1992, according to an annual gang report released Thursday by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

The total number of violent gang-related crimes, including homicides, robberies and assaults prosecuted in the county, also set a record--a 25% jump from 1992, according to the report.

The violence parallels the growing gang population, which totals 16,866 gang members in 293 gangs throughout the county--double the number of gang members identified by authorities in 1989, said Prosecutor Douglas Woodsmall, who supervises the district attorney’s gang unit.

“1993 was tragically distinguished by an unprecedented level of gang violence in Orange County. . . . No community was immune to this blight,” the report noted.

“It’s bad, there’s no doubt about that,” said Woodsmall, who said the increased numbers--of crimes linked to gang involvement and prosecution of those cases--also can be traced in part to more sophisticated methods of tracking gang crimes.

“But it’s nothing that should really be surprising, given what we see in the newspaper each day,” he said.

The district attorney’s 33-page report, however, found one “one ray of hope” in the local battle against gangs: the program known as TARGET, or the Tri-Agency Resources Gang Enforcement Team, a gang-suppression program that dispatches prosecutors, investigators and probation officers to assist police in gang-troubled neighborhoods. The program singles out the most violent gang members for investigation and prosecution.

Begun in Westminster two years ago, the city’s police department has credited TARGET with cutting gang-related crime in Westminster by 62% and boasted a near-perfect record of gang prosecutions.

“You can’t deny or dispute the results that they’ve got there in Westminster,” Woodsmall said. “That’s the impact that we would like to have countywide.”

The Orange County Board of Supervisors has agreed to spend $2 million to expand TARGET to six other areas, including Orange, Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Garden Grove and parts of South County patrolled by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, Woodsmall said.

Santa Ana, which has the most gang-related killings, has been slated to receive two of the special teams.

Collectively, the TARGET areas are the home turf of 87.6% of the gang members identified by authorities, the report found.

The report also detailed nonviolent crime by suspected gang members. In response to county-wide outrage over graffiti, the district attorney’s office gave increased priority to prosecution of people, known in gang terms as “taggers,” who defaced property with graffiti, a status reflected in the figures released Thursday.

The number of criminal filings against graffiti vandals rose more than any other group, accounting for 9% of all gang-related prosecutions in 1993, as compared with less than 1% in 1992.

Overall, criminal filings in gang cases--including nonviolent crimes--remained stable. Prosecutors filed 3,050 felony and misdemeanor gang-related charges in 1991 and 3,067 in 1993, according to the report

The troubling increase came in the category of violent crimes. Prosecutors filed charges in 465 violent felonies in 1993, compared with 372 violent felonies in 1992, according to the report.

In 1992, 34 defendants were charged with gang-related murder, compared to 77 defendants in 1993. In some murder cases, more than one defendant was charged, but in the majority of slayings linked to gang involvement, no charges were filed for lack of sufficient evidence.

Guns were used in 92% of the gang-related slayings. So-called drive-by shootings and shooting from one vehicle into another vehicle were reported in 25 of the reported murders.

The district attorney’s gang unit has stepped up efforts to identify the number of crimes where suspected gang members are the assailants, victims or both in an effort to help pinpoint gang turf, Woodsmall said.

No matter how you crunch the numbers, he said, there is no denying gang violence is on the rise.

“I think we are in fact capturing and identifying gang crimes more completely than in the past, but that’s just a small part of it. There is more violence out there,” Woodsmall said.

More Gang Activity

Gang-related violent crimes, including homicide and assault, increased 25% between 1992 and 1993. A look at gang activity in Orange County for the past five years:

CHARGES AND CASES FILED

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 District attorney filings 1,268 2,285 3,050 2,900 3,067 against gang defendants Gang defendants charged 197 268 436 372 465 with violent felonies Gang defendants charged 6 26 43* 34 77 with murder Total gang-related murders (solved & unsolved) 16 28 31 43 74

* 12 defendants were charged with one killing

GROWING MEMBERSHIP

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 Number of gangs 83 153 192 241 293 Number of gang members 8,000 10,000 12,000 14,700 16,866

SENTENCING / OUTCOME

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 State prison 18 20 62 71 81 California Youth Authority 37 68 96 79 73

Source: Orange County District Attorney