Deputy Chief Calls Gang Injunctions Too Costly

Opponents of court injunctions designed to stem gang crime may have gained an unexpected ally last week: the San Fernando Valley’s top police officer.

LAPD Deputy Chief Michael J. Bostic surprised politicians by calling the injunctions too costly and instead recommending improving the ability of beat officers to snare parole violators.

Buying computer software that would give beat police instant access to a suspect’s record would be a better investment than pursuing more court orders, Bostic said.

The orders, widely embraced by municipal officials, give police broad latitude to arrest gang members for seemingly innocuous activities such as loitering on a public street, associating with others or carrying a pager.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which considers the court orders unconstitutional, unsuccessfully fought an injunction for Blythe Street in Panorama City. The group also contends that the policy pushes gang members into other neighborhoods, doing little to mitigate overall criminal activity.

“I think what the deputy chief said ties into one of our major concerns about the efficacy of gang injunctions,” said Elizabeth Schroeder, associate director of the ACLU of Southern California.

“Police are able to put mammoth resources into areas covered by the injunctions immediately after the court order goes into effect,” Schroeder said. “However, they are unable to sustain that kind of commitment and adequately patrol other areas (at the same time).”

Bostic’s statements, during a briefing on gangs for Valley council members earlier this month, come at a time when Councilman Richard Alarcon is pushing a $1.1-million plan to step up anti-gang efforts by expanding the injunction tactic.

“I’m not going to tell you that I wasn’t surprised,” Alarcon said. “But it hasn’t changed my perspective that injunctions are a very effective tool in stopping gangs.”

“Michael Bostic was suggesting we needed a $500,000 computer to fight gangs. I’m not going to wait around when I have a tool right now,” Alarcon said.

Bostic said he does not oppose injunctions, but expressed concern that the court orders are becoming “the chic thing to do.”

“Crime patterns change and we have a responsibility to move to that problem,” Bostic said. “But when we have a gang injunction, it limits our ability to respond to a larger problem that may crop up because we are ethically committed to be there.”

One of those commitments is in the Blythe Street neighborhood. Since 1993, when a judge first signed an injunction for the area, the Los Angeles Police Department has made 150 juvenile and adult arrests there.

Neither the Los Angeles city attorney’s office nor the LAPD could provide exact numbers detailing the decrease in gang crimes along Blythe Street. But Capt. Richard Wemmer, commander of the Van Nuys Division, called the drop in crime significant.

An ACLU report that examined LAPD crime statistics found a slight increase in violent crimes in the first year of the Blythe Street injunction, which was followed by a steady decrease.

There were 155 violent incidents in 1992, rising to 160 in 1993. Those totals fell to 125 in 1994 and to 117 by 1996.

Prosecutors report a similar trend in the Pico-Union area, where an injunction ordered in August against the 18th Street gang preceded a 31% decrease in the most violent crimes, according to the head of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s hard-core gang division, Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Genelin. It’s that success, Alarcon said, that demonstrated the need for “a surgical approach” to fighting gang crime and broadening the use of injunctions to other parts of the city.

Under Alarcon’s proposal, the city would hire seven lawyers to bolster the city attorney’s office gang prosecution unit. Four would be assigned full time to draft injunctions.

City officials said the Oakwood section in Venice and two areas in Alarcon’s Northeast Valley district--including North Hills and Hubert Humphrey Park in Pacoima--are the most likely candidates for new injunctions.

If approved, these would join the 17 others put in force in the past four years in Los Angeles County, including in Panorama City, Pico-Union, Long Beach, Pasadena, Norwalk, Lennox and Inglewood.

But it is precisely that kind of growth that is causing concern for Bostic.

In the meeting, Bostic also criticized political initiatives he said “severely limited” his commanders’ ability to respond to crime.

In an interview Friday, Bostic warned of the potential for similar problems with injunctions because they are labor intensive and generate volumes of paperwork from one specific area.

“You can do the same thing and you can do it in a shorter period of time by checking probation and parole violations,” Bostic said. Police need a system that could allow officers to make checks of parole status “seven days a week, 24 hours a day,” Bostic said.

Under the existing system, police can check for warrants by computer but must call the county during regular hours to check for probation and parole violations. But Bostic pointed out that a lot of police work doesn’t occur during business hours. “It’s at night and during the weekends,” he said.

“You can do it without going through the formal documentation. You go back to court through the district attorney and say, ‘Here’s our problem. Would you add this probation condition?’ ”

Alarcon had no objections.

“It’s important that we consider all of the available tools, and I support both approaches. But which one, or both, is used is driven by the circumstances.”