Anti-Gang Effort Cut Crime, Police Say

Mayor Richard Riordan and top law enforcement officials Friday proclaimed that a sweeping anti-gang effort in the neighborhood where an LAPD officer was killed last month has reduced gang crimes.

“There should never be another Brian Brown,” Riordan said, referring to the 27-year-old police officer who was shot by a gang member Nov. 29 in the area near Culver City.

The anti-gang effort is part of an expanded program launched after the 1995 slaying of 3-year-old Stephanie Kuhen in Cypress Park. The girl was fatally shot when gun-wielding gang members confronted her family after they turned onto a dead-end street.

The program, Community Law Enforcement and Recovery (CLEAR), has cracked down on truancy, enforced gang curfews and worked to clean up blighted areas.

The effort combines LAPD anti-gang officers with Sheriff’s Department homicide experts. They are joined by specially assigned city and county attorneys who prosecute everything from vandalism, probation violations and nuisance complaints to violent crime.

Since the program began in the Northeast Division in 1997, the LAPD has reported a nearly 40% drop in gang crime in that division. After the success in the Northeast Division, the department decided to expand the program to the Foothill and Pacific divisions this year. The expansion was paid for with $3.7 million from a block grant program sponsored by Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks).

The Pacific Division task force focuses on two areas, the Oakwood area of Los Angeles and Santa Monica and the Mar Vista area near Culver City. LAPD officials said they chose the areas because they historically have been centers of gang crime.

Riordan was joined Friday by Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, City Atty. James K. Hahn, Councilwoman Ruth Galanter and representatives from the LAPD, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the Santa Monica Police Department and Los Angeles County’s chief probation officer at the news conference in Culver Slauson Park.

Garcetti told reporters after the news conference that a gang injunction is also anticipated for the area. “I have one lawyer working on it full-time. There will be an injunction,” he said.

Gang injunctions allow police officers to arrest gang members for associating with one another publicly. The tactic has been popular with some police agencies and politicians, but has been fought by civil liberties groups.

The anti-gang program will expand into three additional areas next year, according to the mayor’s office. Riordan said that an additional $20 million would be needed to run the program citywide.

Implementing the program throughout the city would fill a gap that has surfaced from its initial success.

LAPD officers said that the program, along with another program begun this year called Model Neighborhoods, has already curtailed gang activity on the streets in the Pacific Division.

Sgt. Ralph Ramirez, who coordinates the Model Neighborhoods project, said that one side effect of the program’s success has been that gang members have moved to other neighborhoods.

Deane Leavenworth, a spokesman for the mayor, said Friday’s news conference was not a response to Brown’s death, but was called “to raise awareness of the program in the community.”

Galanter, who represents the area, said that the program is part of ongoing efforts that are important companions to immediate police responses “every time there’s a flare-up.”