One Year After the Murder of Steve Woods Shocked San Clemente, the City Lays a Foundation of Cultural Awareness, Youth Programs : Opportunity Born of Tragedy

The October attack of a San Clemente High School student who was speared through the head with a paint-roller rod sent this seaside city into turmoil.

Now, on the one-year anniversary today of the fatal stabbing of Steve Woods, elected officials, educators, police and residents say the city has gone through great changes, including a new respect and awareness for youth violence.

Mayor Scott Diehl said the tragedy had a lasting effect for the city and South County. It has not only made neighbors cautious, but also motivated residents who attended community forums to volunteer time for anti-gang projects.

In the past year, officials point to new community programs that include the Orange County Sheriff Department’s anti-gang detail, a task force on youth, the hiring of a volunteer coordinator to funnel residents into community projects, and finding jobs for unemployed youth.

“Out of tragedy, you have to look for the opportunity to make things better,” Diehl said.

Meanwhile, at the high school Woods attended, students were encouraged into social awareness programs, offering insights into other cultures and generating awareness of youth and gang violence.

“South Orange County has come to the realization that we are not immune from the same problems that are seen across the country,” said Christopher Cairns, the principal of San Clemente High School.

Woods, a 17-year-old senior, died three weeks after the Oct. 15, 1993, incident that began as a late-night confrontation at Calafia Beach County Park. The roller rod, thrown by Latino youths while Woods was in a moving vehicle, entered his head above the ear and passed through the brain.

Frustration with rising crime and gang violence turned to anger in the community after Woods died. Residents wanted answers, Diehl recalled.

“There was a realization that a kid out to have a good time with his friends at the beach could suddenly have his life snuffed,” Diehl said. “There is such a stark realization there: ‘That could have been my child. That could have been my neighbor. That could have been my grandchild.’ ”

Within days of the attack, hundreds of students and residents had rallies and packed City Council meetings, demanding an end to gang violence. It did not help that the crime occurred in one of the bloodiest weekends in Orange County--a two-day series of shootings, assaults and robberies, many of them gang-related, that left six people dead and eight wounded from Anaheim to San Clemente.

At one point, defying their principal’s warnings, about 75 students walked off the high school campus and marched to City Hall to protest violence and show support for Woods. Because Woods was white and his attackers Latino, racial tensions flared. While whites still far outnumber Latinos in the community of 43,000, the Latino population had doubled in the past decade to 5,285, about 13% of the city’s population, according to the 1990 U.S. Census.

City and school officials have sought to ease those tension through the new programs. Cairns is a member of the city’s Task Force for Youth, which had volunteers during school registrations signing up people for a new tutoring and mentor program.

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Other new programs on campus include a Peer Assistance Leadership program, known as PAL, and a program known as AVID, which is designed to help prepare under represented students for a four-year university. While these programs were being planned before the crime, the incident reinforced them.

Barbara Byers, a math teacher at San Clemente High School, said she believes there is positive direction at the school.

“Students are getting more involved and they’re trying to get the students more aware of different cultures,” said Byers, an adviser to the campus AWARE Club, which is dedicated to increasing understanding of other cultures.

The school celebrated Mexican Independence Day in September. This month students are trying to organize Asian cultural activities. Last year, students organized a daylong Multicultural Fair, she said.

While Woods case raised tensions, Byers noted that the violence never came onto campus.

“We have our problems like any other school,” she said. “But we have to take it one day at a time and deal with the problems.”

No one wants change more than Kathy Woods, the dead teen-ager’s mother who has spent much of the last year fighting for tougher juvenile laws she hopes will prevent other youths from suffering the same fate as her son. But while she said she supports the increased sheriff patrols, she believes the city could do more.

Nonetheless, Woods said she has seen changes in all of South Orange County in wake of her son’s death. “There are some awful things that have happened to people out there,” she said. “I’m zeroing more in on getting these laws changed.”

For Sheriff’s Lt. Tom Davis, San Clemente chief of police services, the dilemma was to somehow placate a citizenry that wanted to put blame on an ethic segment of the community, yet retain the public’s enthusiasm to help improve the city.

In the meantime, gang members from outside the city exacerbated the problem by pouring in on weekends, Davis said.

“Right after that incident happened, we were getting gang members from San Diego, Oceanside, L.A., San Bernardino and Riverside,” Davis said. “We were actually stopping gang members cruising up and down (El Camino Real) telling us that they came to San Clemente because they had heard or read in the media that this was a place for action.”

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To help combat local gangs, Davis said they formed a four-person anti-gang detail, that worked nights. Authorities also targeted the top 20 youthful offenders in San Clemente and followed their progress through the criminal justice system.

“Of the 20,” Davis said, “18 have a been in custody for parole violations or other crimes. And, (U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service) has helped us by deporting four of those 18 for being here illegally.”

Perhaps the biggest program with the greatest effect, Davis said, was one to change people’s attitudes about gang violence.

“A lot of people were very frustrated at some areas in the city that were heavily impacted with possible gang members,” said Jan Sener, a crime prevention officer and co-chairwoman of the task force for youth.

People wanted the city to do something about overcrowding, junk cars, vehicles parked on lawns, even shopping carts left in residential areas, she said. Sheriff’s deputies could not do everything, but did forward complaints to other city departments which has increased inter-department communication, Sener said.

Hoping to reach 10,000 homes, sheriff’s deputies embarked on an enhanced neighborhood watch program by offering training and gang seminars to 390 block captains. The seminars focused on gang attire, graffiti, how to spot gang members and what to do, she said.

Davis noted with pride that a side benefit occurred when deputies were tipped after a seminar to a gang initiation rite known as “jumping in,” a ritual during which members kick and pummel a prospect for several minutes. He said 34 young men were arrested on various charges while jumping in five gang recruits.

And there has been individual efforts, such as that of Ben Villa, a city engineer, who helped 15 unemployed city youths find jobs.

“No one actually wanted to do a one-on-one contact with the kids and that’s what I wanted to do,” Villa said. “I kind of went out on my own and I wanted to help just one or two kids. But I ended up with finding jobs for 15.”

For Amanda Miller, a 16-year-old San Clemente High senior and ethnic relations commissioner, “the tragedy was a learning experience.”

But she said she believes that the students, much like the community have matured.

“It’s kind of like we’re moving on from this.”