Pull Together to Stop This Gang Epidemic

According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, this county is home to more than 1,100 street gangs, composed of more than 15,000 members and twice as many sympathizers. The district attorney’s office estimates that more than 90% of this county is infested with gangs and gang-related activities. For the past four years, these individuals have been responsible for 3,073 gang-related murders and for committing more than 35,000 felonious assaults.

Although this gang epidemic has been highly active during the past 10 years, there is not a comprehensive plan of action aimed at maximizing interagency collaborations in the areas of gang prevention, intervention and suppression. As a result, across the county there are numerous multimillion-dollar programs funded by local, state and federal agencies that work alone and thus are ineffective in curtailing this violence. These initiatives vary from the Hope In Youth program, the DARE program and Community Youth Gang Services to the Federal Community Partnerships programs.

The weekend killing of 3-year-old Stephanie Kuhen and the shooting of her 2-year-old brother by gang thugs in the Cypress Park area mandate that Mayor Richard Riordan, the City Council and the county Board of Supervisors assist the Los Angeles County Interagency Gang Task Force to create an effective plan against gang violence. In particular, this plan needs to be multidisciplinary in nature and thus share ownership, responsibility and accountability among educators, law-enforcement officers, parents, youth, businessmen, clergy and representatives from media, government and community organizations. This plan needs to foster the creation of interagency preventive policies and procedures, rather than reactive ones. Last, it needs to encourage interagency team training, learning and action.

Beyond advocating the hiring of more police officers, Los Angeles’ elected officials need to exercise effective leadership aimed at creating a plan that maximizes interagency collaborations. Until this happens, innocents will continue to die and everyone will continue to blame one another.

In the name of the thousands of victims who have been impacted by this epidemic, let us move beyond blame and learn to unite our hearts, souls and minds and exercise a personal and collective responsibility to stop these killings.