Gaining an Edge in War on Gangs : Ventura County: A three-year clampdown by authorities has slowed the spread of killings, but long-term solutions to end the violence are elusive.

Ventura County’s war on street gangs is working. But it is far from won.

A three-year clampdown by Ventura County law enforcement has slowed the spread of turf battles and indiscriminate killings that authorities say once threatened to become a scaled-down version of the carnage in Los Angeles County.

Progress can be measured in a decline in the most sensational form of gang violence--the fatal drive-by shootings that plague Los Angeles.

In the early 1990s, fatal drive-by gang shootings were on the rise in Ventura County--claiming the lives of two men outside a Cabrillo Village baptism party and a young woman in Thousand Oaks in 1991, two more victims in Santa Paula the following year and another three in Oxnard in 1993.

There are still too many drive-by shootings in the county, the most recent a shootout between rival gangs early Saturday morning in Port Hueneme, police say. But 1994 and nearly the first two months of 1995 saw no drive-by fatalities--a dramatic contrast to the previous three years.

Skirmishes in gang-troubled Oxnard and Ventura neighborhoods come in spurts now, not the relentless waves seen in 1992. Fights and killings have reached a relative lull with sporadic flare-ups in Santa Paula, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley.

Cities such as Moorpark and Fillmore have seen dramatic declines in gang violence, police say.

And police, probation officers and social workers have locked arms countywide in an effort to sweep hard-core veteranos off the county’s streets, push ex-gang members toward rebuilding their lives and discourage the youngest wanna-bes from even thinking of joining.

At the same time, cities and schools have kicked in money and resources for everything from graffiti removal to gang intervention.

But some gangs refuse to quit.

While police are putting more hard-core members behind bars than ever before, those who walk the streets are younger, meaner and more violent and heavily armed than their forebears, authorities say.

Gangs committed 5% of all violent crime in Thousand Oaks and 6% in Camarillo in 1992. Last year, gangs in each city caused at least 8% of the violent crime, sheriff’s records show.

Authorities say the forces that feed gang membership remain strong--poverty, indifferent parents, violent pop culture and the recycling of unrepentant gang members to their old turf once their jail time is served.

And--despite the progress--the killings and assaults continue.

A drive-by shooting in October wounded a Thousand Oaks woman in her home.

An alleged white supremacist with suspected gang ties was charged with stabbing a black Ventura musician late last month.

And just two weeks ago, gang cross-fire killed a 33-year-old Oxnard man and wounded another bystander.

“All of this is symptomatic of the fact that we as a county have neglected our youth,” said Marcos Vargas, executive director of El Concilio del Condado de Ventura.

“The problem is such a complex one that no one agency can handle it alone,” said Vargas, whose 400-volunteer agency works to reduce gang violence with counseling, tutoring and diversion programs. “Regardless of what the causes are, we have a responsibility to address this.

“It’s important to realize that the youth who are involved in violent crime are not just our neighbors’ kids, they’re our kids.”

County police agencies have made great strides, said Sheriff Larry Carpenter. But more must be done.

“I think we made up our minds three years ago that Ventura County was not going to become Los Angeles, and I think we have been successful,” Carpenter said last week.

“Have we eliminated the gang problem? No. Have we eliminated gang violence? No. Is it as acute as it was? No. But I’m not happy that the violence is out there,” he said. “No violence is acceptable.”

It is an old problem, grown worse with age.

Street gangs in Oxnard and Ventura have thrashed out neighborhood rivalries for decades, usually with fists, knives and blunt instruments, authorities say.

Then the late 1980s tossed two volatile catalysts into the mix, police say: a faddish fascination with gangster lifestyle fed by movies and music videos, and the rising flood of illicit handguns onto the county’s streets.

By 1991, gang bloodshed in all corners of Ventura County had boiled up to an unprecedented level, with a rash of drive-by shootings from Ventura to Thousand Oaks claiming the lives of gangsters and innocents alike.

Four Ventura gang members drove to Cabrillo Village and opened fire on a crowd to settle a grudge with gangsters there. Their misdirected rage killed two young party-goers who had nothing to do with gangs--Javier Ramirez, 18, and Rolando Martinez, 20.

A month later, Thousand Oaks gangbangers cruised past a birthday party on Houston Drive, shot at gang rivals there and killed 20-year-old Jennifer Jordan.

In 1992, bad blood between two Santa Paula gangs erupted into drive-bys five weeks apart, killing rival gang members Richard Gutierrez, 20 and Jose Lara, 19.

In 1993, Sidney Jones, 38, argued with a group of men in the parking lot of an Oxnard convenience store, only to have them drive past later and shoot him to death. And the drive-by shooting of Ruben Hernandez, 21, outside an Oxnard liquor store brought an apparent pay-back shooting a week later when rival gang member Rene Ramirez, 19, was shot to death outside an Oxnard coin laundry.

By then, police commanders who once fought gangs independently had banded together in a countywide task force to share strategy, resources and intelligence.

Zero tolerance for gangs--already practiced in scattered arenas by agencies such as the Ventura Police Department and the Thousand Oaks schools system--became a universal code in the county.

Police adopted uniform criteria for identifying, tracking and arresting gang members.

Under the new plan, youths could be labeled gangsters just for meeting two of those criteria, such as walking with or dressing like gang members.

Gang lawbreakers returned to their turf under the gaze of police and probation officers, who were working more closely together.

And gang members who merely hung with their homeboys or kept pictures of them could now be dragged into court for violating probation--and sometimes back to Ventura County Juvenile Hall or jail.

Police, probation officers and prosecutors began wielding a legal wedge to pry into gang members’ lives--a 1988 law that empowers them to search homes of gang members on probation without warrants or warning.

In massive, multi-agency sweeps, they began raiding up to 20 homes at once to ensure that probationers were hewing to the rules. And they continued raiding random probationers’ homes individually on a weekly basis.

Anyone found with graffiti tools, drugs or gang paraphernalia risks losing probationary status and landing behind bars again.

“The county effort in terms of staying on top of this situation, in terms of probation searches, it’s paying dividends,” said Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin McGee.

“I think we have a handle on it now,” Oxnard Police Sgt. Chuck Hookstra said of his city’s persistent gang problems.

“Since September of 1992, we’ve done 13 major gang sweeps,” he said. “Whenever we do something, and whenever any (other agency) does something, we call each other. We’re able to put together 10 or 15 guys on a moment’s notice and join in. It takes quick action.”

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Thousand Oaks detectives followed October’s drive-by shooting with a sweep that helped in the arrests of three young gang suspects.

And Oxnard gang detectives followed January’s fatal shooting and a nighttime vandalism rampage with two swift sweeps, netting guns, drugs, graffiti tools and the arrests of several gang members for probation violations.

Some police agencies also began using an old state curfew law last year, shooing juveniles off the streets after 10 p.m. and scrutinizing stragglers for any hint of gang activity.

Cities such as Oxnard, Thousand Oaks, Ventura and Simi Valley have paid to beef up their special enforcement units, fielding teams of plainclothes detectives to meet gangsters head-on.

Simi Valley gang officers often work the bicycle patrol, confronting teen-agers who wear gang attire, driving home the message that gangs are unwanted in town, and moving them on.

Ventura gang officers have been helping authorities evict Cabrillo Village families on public housing violations for failing to keep their children out of gang battles.

And by all accounts, Oxnard police officers try to get in the face of every gang member they meet.

On Wednesday night, the Oxnard Street Crimes Unit saturated a neighborhood near Oxnard High School.

Gang members had been firing guns into the air, dealing drugs on the streets and staring down residents there, Hookstra said. And recently, they cornered a plainclothes detective and chased his car through the streets until backup officers arrived and made some arrests.

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With the slow, deliberate pace of sharks, detectives cruised from Hull Place to K Street to Isleton Place.

They pounced on a trio of suspicious-looking youths and grilled them about their gang ties and reasons for loitering.

One 14-year-old suspected gang member dared to lie about his name. Detective Jeff Shelton quickly handcuffed him and bundled him into the back seat on suspicion of giving false information to police.

Word of the bust reached the boy’s mother. She hustled up to the unmarked car and slapped the window near her son’s face. “Hey! What are you doing over here? Why aren’t you over at Eric’s?”

“I didn’t do anything,” the boy complained.

“Well, if you didn’t do anything, why didn’t you tell him your name?”

When Shelton told her police were confronting every gang member they saw because of neighbors’ complaints, the woman protested, “My son is not a gang member!”

Later, Detective Steve Vendt--who estimated he arrested 70 to 75 youths last year on graffiti charges alone--shook his head.

“They deny it even when it’s as plain as day, when the kid’s room is full of graffiti,” he said. “It’s denial, or they don’t want to believe it.”

Denial, divorce and dual-income families are the biggest reasons gangs proliferate, said Ventura Sgt. Carl Handy, who heads his city’s anti-gang squad.

Even in more affluent Thousand Oaks, kids persist in joining gangs because they lack self-esteem and their busy parents are ignorant of what’s going on, detectives said.

On Thursday night, Thousand Oaks Detectives Dave Brantley and Joaquin Diaz dug for information on a new Asian American gang suspected in a string of burglaries and confrontations with other local gangs.

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Hunting for a youth who skipped bail on a felony warrant, they encountered only his mother, living alone now that her son has fled.

She recalled that he phoned her to say, “If something happens to me, if I die, don’t worry.” Then she burst into tears.

Brantley said, “I had a mother call me the other day, saying her daughter was dating a guy. And she said, ‘I hear he might be involved in gang activity.’ He turns out to be one of our biggest players. . . . She was absolutely crying by the time the phone conversation was over.”

Sgt. Mike De Los Santos, head of Thousand Oaks’ special enforcement detail, explained: “We talk to parents. And generally, (they give us) cooperation. They want to know, ‘What do you want us to do?’ We tell them, ‘Hey, we want to let you know that it’s happening, and here’s what you look for.’ ”

Ultimately, authorities say, the blame for gang violence rests more squarely on kids who choose a life that offers only injury, incarceration or death.

Today’s youngest gang members are far more vicious than older gang members in their early 20s, who traditionally drop out when the pressures of jobs, girlfriends and babies start changing their minds, probation officers say.

“They’re younger, more violent, more sophisticated, more oriented toward weapons, and they’re more dedicated to their gang” than in the past, Deputy Probation Officer Keith Jan said during a recent meeting with his colleagues.

Deputy Probation Officer Michele Konkle, who monitors some of the most hard-core gang probationers, added, “There are a lot of kids I talk to who don’t expect to live to 21.”

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Police say the probation officers have become their greatest allies in the war on gangs.

They are the ones who shadow gang members relentlessly after release from court or Juvenile Hall.

They are the ones who harp on the pointlessness of gang crime, the suffering of victims and the consequences of messing up again.

And often, they are the ones doing work that parents should have done--such as counseling the teen-agers on school and the looming responsibilities of getting a job.

“I get in close with the families. I could probably tell you the first name of the mothers in every family,” said Deputy Probation Officer Chris Jiron.

Jiron juggles the cases of 100 youths in Moorpark, many of them former gang members. In four years, Jiron said, he has seen the united assault by police, probation and community service agencies cut down rampant graffiti tagging and violence in Moorpark “quite a bit.”

“I was working in Camarillo before that, and I saw a lot of value in working with police,” he said. Success is in “the enforcement aspect, but I do believe it’s also in getting probation involved with the families.”

Other forces are hard at work against Ventura County’s gangs.

Peer pressure is rising against them, from unlikely sources such as “party crews”--groups of teen-agers who band together under a common name and spurn violence even when challenged by gang members.

One crew, called Minds Under Craze, gathers often at El Concilio’s meeting space in the old Moorpark High School. The teen-agers hang out, help each other with homework and plan parties where they can try to persuade younger, more tractable gang members to give up gang life.

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Crew president Oscar Rocha said he started the drug-free group about three years ago after he got caught for graffiti tagging.

One day last week, he and a dozen crew mates argued cheerfully over whether they should hire a deejay, rent a fog machine and play reggae, house or acid music at their next party.

“We have fun and stay out of trouble,” said Oscar, 17. “Some adults tend to think we’re a gang--they see a group of Mexicans coming down the street and they think, ‘Oh no, there’s trouble.’

“But when other guys (from gangs) try to hit us up, we say, ‘Hey, we’re a party crew,’ ” Oscar said. “We tell ‘em, ‘If you have a problem with us, we’ll just leave.’ And we turn and walk away.

“We try to become the peace-shapers, so there’s no need for us to rise up and protect ourselves.”

Across the room, tutor Alex Arias coached a boy on math lessons, while El Concilio counselor Alberto Rios walked three teen-agers through a social studies report.

“Some of these kids are at risk of not reaching their full potential, and being defeated by their fears,” Rios said. “When they have no hope, no care of their friends or their families, they could end up joining a gang to make themselves whole.”

Groups such as El Concilio and Santa Paula Youth in Action also work directly with gang members, offering counseling, academic help and a taste of life away from the streets.

El Concilio takes some of the most hard-core gangsters on weeklong summertime camp-outs to Lake Casitas. And Youth in Action sponsors outings to gang-free retreats such as Raging Waters and snow-cloaked Frazier Park.

“They get all excited when you take them out of town,” said Javier Nava, founder and director of Youth in Action.

“Also, we put a little bit of the spiritual into it,” Nava said. “We say, ‘Look, look around you. This is God’s creation. Look how beautiful the pine trees are. This is for you guys to enjoy. There isn’t just the street. There are no homies, no tagging here. That’s not life. This is life.’ Kids need to experience this.”

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Ventura’s Youth Services Commission has blossomed in recent years from a simple after-school program at the Westpark Community Center to a bustling hub for gang prevention and intervention.

The commission still offers core services like job counseling and a late-Friday night recreation program of sports, dances and video presentations, said director Roberta Payan.

But now it is also trying to ease the root causes of gang activity and erase barriers that once separated redeemable kids from the people most able to help them.

Twelve hours a week, 40 at-risk high school youths follow adults to their workplaces in a mentor program to learn about getting and keeping a job.

Ventura Avenue gang members are raising money with carwashes and hot dog sales for a “peace concert” they are organizing at the Ventura Theater.

And police and gang members are meeting face to face in a program called Juda Junta. The name (pronounced HOO-da HOON-ta) comes from gang slang for police--Juda, which loosely translates to jury.

Cops and gangsters share views about each other’s behavior, even trading places at one workshop in a role-playing game that had the gang members scolding the police, Payan said.

“It’s been pretty good, considering our resources have been very limited,” Payan said. “At the intervention level, we’re doing great things. I really believe that. And I think we need a hell of a lot more funding.”

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Ventura County’s law enforcement officers say programs like these play a crucial role in squeezing kids out of gangs and keeping impressionable wanna-bes from joining.

“If we want good, law-abiding citizens, we have to teach them,” said Oxnard Police Chief Harold Hurtt.

“We spend a lot of time, a lot of money on gangs from the enforcement aspect, or incarceration. That’s like locking the door after the horse is gone from the barn.”

More help is on the way.

Thousand Oaks police have begun a city-sponsored bicycle patrol similar to two-wheeled squads in Simi Valley and Oxnard that will work on spotting gang trouble before it starts.

Oxnard police are recruiting volunteer counselors for a quick-response team that would rush to schools or streets after a gang assault to cool hot blood and try to prevent pay-backs.

And Ventura County police officers, ministers, educators and county supervisors plan to meet at the Oxnard Hilton on May 13 for a summit on preventing youth violence.

“We’re getting better control” of gang violence, said Kathy Marrujo-Thurman, who oversees youth and education services for El Concilio. “Ventura County’s been very proactive on youth violence for the last 10 years.”

There is no one solution to Ventura County’s gang problem, Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren said last week.

“My constant call to the communities is that if you’re looking for large answers that will apply to solve the problem, you won’t find them,” said Perren, who oversees Juvenile Court.

“The solutions will lie in each community taking charge of its own business. And that hackneyed phrase is going around, but it’s true: ‘The community will raise its own kids.’ ”

*

Many gang members plead that neighborhoods and friends who surround them every day leave no choice but gang membership, Perren said.

But he added, “It’s a problem created by the community and themselves. They got themselves involved, whether they did it consciously or went with the flow.”

One such gang member is straddling the line now, one foot in the future, the other firmly on his old turf.

Drifter, 18, says he grew up on Ventura Avenue, surrounded by buddies who were “little troublemakers.”

At 13, he was “jumped in” to his gang--beaten bloody in a ritual that taught him they were serious about gaining his loyalty, said Drifter, who would not give his real name.

By 16, he had served time in Juvenile Hall for torching a house and assaulting rival gang members.

Now, he is fresh out of Juvenile Hall again, on probation for selling methamphetamine and crack cocaine. And he is hanging out at Westpark, trying to help Payan with youth programs and stay out of trouble.

Yet even with Payan, his mother and his probation officer constantly urging him to go straight, Drifter said, he is still barely thinking about severing the ties of blood and turf.

“That hasn’t crossed my mind yet,” he said. “I’m just taking it day by day. It comes to my mind like a puzzle, until I finish that last piece. Then I’m done, and I’ll realize I really do need to change.”