Anti-Gang Effort to Get Federal Funding

Orange County is expected to receive a $1-million grant today from President Clinton as part of a new anti-gang initiative that aims to fight youth crime through community policing.

The Orange County Police Chiefs’ and Sheriff’s Assn. learned only Saturday that its cooperative anti-gang proposal was among 15 selected across the country, Westminster Police Chief James Cook said.

“The thing they were interested in in Washington was the fact that we are all working together,” Cook said. “We’re actually applying as a giant jurisdiction of 2.6 million people. This enables us to compete with [big cities such as] Boston and Chicago.”

Cook, Westminster Mayor Charles V. Smith, Irvine Police Chief Charles Brobeck and Irvine Mayor Michael Ward will join other mayors and chiefs in Washington today to receive the grant after Clinton launches the $11-million initiative.

Brobeck is president of the local chiefs association and Cook serves as chairman of the association’s countywide gang strategy steering committee, formed in 1991.

The U.S. Department of Justice reviewed hundreds of applications and selected the 15 jurisdictions based on their rates of youth violence, gang membership and commitment to community policing, according to a source familiar with the process.

Part of Orange County’s portion of the money will go to an expanded Gang Incident Tracking System run by the association and UCI researchers who are analyzing gang movement across the county.

The tracking system looks at gang trends and reported gang incidents all over the county so law enforcement can plot strategy together to solve the problem rather than pushing it from city to city, Smith said.

“It gives us a very powerful tool for combined strategic planning in fighting gangs,” he said. “Without this, we would always be reacting in segments.”

The grant also will be used to bolster Orange County’s Tri-Agency Resource Gang Enforcement Teams--know as TARGET-- a multi-agency effort pioneered by the Westminster Police Department in 1992.

In addition, the grant is expected to reinstate the county’s Project: No Gangs, develop programs for the 8% of youths identified by the county Probation Department as repeat offenders, and expand the Probation Department’s Youth and Family Resource Center.