Anti-Gang Tactic May Win Converts : Crime: Garcetti says cities are asking the D.A.’s office about a legal injunction that Norwalk residents used to curb violence in their neighborhood.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, touting the success of an injunction that has curbed a gang’s violent activities and brought peace to a small neighborhood in Norwalk, said Thursday that his office wants to soon repeat the legal assault in other cities.

“This program restores hope that you can take your communities back,” Garcetti said at a news conference as he stood next to an enlarged map of Norwalk’s Orange Street neighborhood.

Garcetti’s office has received more than a dozen inquiries from communities since the injunction was granted six weeks ago and is now urging several of Norwalk’s neighbors, including Lakewood, Cerritos and Hawaiian Gardens, to seek similar court orders.

Norwalk is one of the first cities in the state to use an injunction against a gang, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Deanne B. Ancker, who filed the court order. Los Angeles and Burbank have sought similar anti-gang measures.

Ancker said the strategy is effective because it involves gang members in a legal battle they don’t understand. “When you serve a gang member with a stack of civil pleadings two inches thick . . . they get a little nervous,” said Ancker, who joined Garcetti at the news conference. “It’s fear of the unknown. This is a new tactic. It’s only been used about four or five times in the state.”

Residents of the modest Norwalk area, a mile south of City Hall, say the Orange Street Locos gang has terrorized them in recent years--firebombing homes, harassing visitors, firing guns and breaking into cars.

The legal action, they say, has brought calm to their streets. The injunction bars 22 of the gang’s most active members from carrying baseball bats, crowbars and other potential weapons in public, and prohibits them from harassing people and trespassing on private property. The order lists 19 restrictions, including a 10 p.m. curfew for gang members under 18 and a midnight curfew for adult members. Violators could face six months in jail and $1,000 fines.

Since the injunction was granted in August by Superior Court Judge Lois Anderson-Smaltz, gang members have stopped partying late at night and harassing neighbors, residents say. Calls to the Sheriff’s Department have declined dramatically and graffiti have virtually disappeared, authorities said.

“Just a few months ago, people in this neighborhood were afraid to walk their own streets even during daytime because of gang activity,” Garcetti said. “Now, that has all changed.” The injunction was the first obtained under a year-old pilot program involving the district attorney’s office and Norwalk, which spent $72,000 on the effort.

Gang members in the Orange Street neighborhood complain that the city exaggerates the trouble and contend that overzealous sheriff’s deputies frequently harass them, an allegation deputies deny. Gang members’ parents and even a few residents with no gang ties agree with the gang that the predominantly Latino neighborhood is a quiet place filled with law-abiding families.

Even so, Garcetti said the change in the Orange Street neighborhood should send a message to other communities. To prove his point, Garcetti read from a letter written by a resident of the Orange Street neighborhood lavishing praise on city officials for bringing calm to her streets.

But whether the changes will hold remains to be seen. The resident who wrote the letter, while clearly pleased, refused to give her name when contacted at home. “Right now, I feel like I can go outside and water my lawn and there won’t be trouble,” said the woman, who had once thought of moving to escape the nightly gunfire and other violence. “If it stays this way, I’ll be fine.”