Gang Injunctions May Help, but Jobs Still Key

The latest weapon against gangs is the injunction, a legal version of the old-fashioned roust.

“To rout or drive out” is the dictionary definition of the tactic, which has long been favored by liberals and conservatives alike. One of America’s most famous liberals, the late Hubert Humphrey, once told me that as mayor of Minneapolis in the ‘40s, he got tired of the “bums” around the railroad station and downtown. He called in the chief of police, and said, in effect, “Chief, get rid of them, and don’t tell me how you did it.” As I recall the story, the cops ended up stuffing a lot of them in garbage cans, head first.

That wouldn’t be accepted today. So we’ve come up with another way for the cops to roust the undesirables. Earlier this month, a judge approved a preliminary injunction against one of Los Angeles’ largest gangs, 18th Street, prohibiting a number of its members from hanging out together. There have been challenges by civil libertarians to such efforts, but the U.S. Supreme Court last month upheld the tactic in a San Jose case. Similar injunctions have been used against gangs in Long Beach, Pasadena, Norwalk, Redondo Beach, Panorama City and Inglewood, among other places.

I’m most familiar with the Inglewood injunction. I was in court when it was handed down and toured the targeted neighborhood, Darby-Dixon, six blocks of crowded, run-down two-story apartments long dominated by a gang known as the Crenshaw Mafia gang. This week, I decided to see how the neighborhood had done in the more than six months since the injunction was issued.

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The last time I visited Darby-Dixon, in January, my guide, Councilman Garland L. Hardeman, a former Los Angeles police officer who represents the area, had cautiously called the Inglewood Police Department to let the cops know we would be walking around. I thought this showed that the place might be dangerous, even during daylight.

As I learned, things seem to have improved.

I discussed the injunction with Inglewood’s new mayor, former Superior Court Judge Roosevelt Dorn. The mayor, it should be noted, is an expert on stopping youth crime. While a juvenile judge, he was famed for his mixture of toughness and understanding--and his belief in the curative powers of education and jobs.

It’s now safe to walk around there, the mayor told me. Take a look. Talk to the people who live there.

Thursday, I drove to Darby-Dixon. Six cops were around an apartment house on Woodworth Avenue. I stopped to check them out. A tenant had pulled a gun on a Southern California Edison employee who had come to turn off her power, one of the officers told me. She was being led away by the cops. It reminded me of an infamous incident in South Los Angeles years ago, when police shot and killed Eulia Love, a woman involved in a similar dispute with a utility man. That incident led to police-community tensions that lingered for years; this time, everybody stayed cool.

So cool, in fact, that there was no sense of crisis as the event unfolded. I stood with three neighbors, a man and two women, watching the action.

They were friendly, although none of them wanted to see their name in the newspaper.

Aside from the utility company dispute, how are things going in the neighborhood? I asked. A woman said the gang leaders haven’t been around. “I haven’t seen or heard of them,” she said. A man agreed. “I haven’t heard gunfire for a long time,” he added.

I headed over to Lawrence Street, a gangsters’ hangout. Two young men stood in front of an apartment house, one holding a friendly looking pit bull on a leash. I introduced myself and began chatting with one of them. He wouldn’t give his name, but suggested I refer to him in the paper as “Alias D.”

Alias D said he was an inactive gang member and was not one of the men targeted by police in the injunction. But he said it limited his rights. When he visits old gang associates who are on the police list, “they consider it loitering. How can it be loitering if you are visiting someone? It’s an attack against people who don’t know the law and who don’t have the financial ability to defend themselves in court.”

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Too bad. Get an education. Get a job. Don’t hang out. Take responsibility for your life.

That’s what Judge Dorn prescribed for delinquents, and he hasn’t changed his philosophy now that he’s Mayor Dorn. But as mayor, he’s in a better position to do something about the jobs part of his prescription.

The city is negotiating with Home Depot and others to open businesses in the area and working with the school district to open a medicine and science magnet school near the Darby-Dixon neighborhood.

Mayor Dorn knows that the roust, alone, has never stopped crime.