City to Fight Gangs With Police Overtime

Fearing that crackdowns on Oxnard gangs will force gang members into neighboring cities, Port Hueneme officials are spending $15,000 to make their own streets safer.

The money, approved earlier this week, will be used to fund two months’ worth of police overtime.

Sgt. Fernando Estrella, who is in charge of the city’s gang-suppression effort, praised the council’s action.

“Most of our shootings have been gang-on-gang,” he said. “This is one of the ways we can prevent the violence from spreading to include innocent bystanders.”

The money will allow officers extra time to monitor suspected and known gang members, Estrella said.

But City Manager Dick Velthoen worried that too much overtime will wear on the city’s 19 officers.

“Overtime doesn’t work. It sounds great at first, but for most people, after one, two, or three months working a 50- or 60-hour workweek, it just isn’t attractive,” he said.

But Estrella defended the police request, saying it is more efficient to have experienced officers tracking gang members than to hire a new officer for the job.

When the money runs out in two months, the Police Department will have to request more money from a city so strapped for cash it implemented a 4% utility tax in January to replenish the general fund. Until then, the city had considered dissolving the Police Department and contracting for public safety from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Velthoen acknowledged the city has a gang problem, but said the two months of overtime is only a temporary solution and the city lacks money to fund more permanent solutions.

“Throwing more police on isn’t going to solve the problem,” he said. “You need city involvement. You need Neighborhood Watch. You need programs to keep these kids going in other activities.”

Mayor Toni Young agreed that using overtime is not the best long-term solution because it could wear on morale. “But it will help because there will be a bigger presence of police on the streets,” she said.

Young also said the city is recruiting to fill two open police positions. When the new officers are hired, she said, that could reduce the need for officers to work longer days.

Port Hueneme’s action is in response to Oxnard’s Safe Streets program--a citywide crackdown on gangs implemented two weeks ago.

In that program, which is costing the city $210,000 to start, police are trying to fight gang activity by identifying suspected gang members, urging gang “wannabes” to find new friends, and raiding the homes of suspected gang members on probation.

Over the past three years, Estrella said, nine violent crimes in Port Hueneme have been gang-related, up from previous years when gang violence rarely surfaced.

The city already has recorded four gang shootings in 1995, he said, none of them fatal. Oxnard police have assisted in arresting some of those involved.

And while Estrella said gang violence in Port Hueneme is not as severe as in Oxnard--where a bystander was killed by gang cross-fire in February--he wants to be proactive.

“We didn’t want Oxnard police doing the good job that they are and making gang members feel that they are safer in our city,” he said.

Port Hueneme’s department will use some of the overtime funds to work directly with the Oxnard Police Department, because the territory of many gangs spreads across both cities and “most of the Oxnard raids have included Hueneme gang members,” Estrella said.

Estrella said he counts 16 gangs with members in both cities.

Young said while she supports her city’s current efforts, she hoped police in the future would concentrate on getting to youths before they join gangs.

“This new policy is cutting off the buds of the gang problem,” Young said. “There needs to be a lot more emphasis on the roots.”