Touted Anti-Gang Program Expands to Area in Valley

A multi-agency anti-gang program, launched after the 1995 slaying of 3-year-old Stephanie Kuhen in Cypress Park, was expanded on Thursday to include the LAPD’s Foothill and Wilshire divisions.

Citing persistent gang violence, Mayor Richard Riordan and other local officials gathered at David M. Gonzales Park, a gang hot spot, to praise recent efforts and pledge even greater law enforcement goals.

Riordan said the pilot Community Law Enforcement and Recovery program focused on the Police Department’s Northeast Division last year, and since then police reported a nearly 40% drop in gang crime. The same can happen in other neighborhoods, he said.

“Reduction in crime means healthier neighborhoods,” Riordan said as children played nearby outside Pacoima Elementary School. “It means healthier schools, healthier parks. It means that children can learn and play in areas where they don’t have to worry about seeing somebody shot or being beaten up by gang members.”

The anti-gang program, known as CLEAR, will receive about $3.7 million in state and federal funding during the next year. The funds will pay to expand the program to the Foothill and Wilshire areas while continuing efforts in the Northeast area.

The participating agencies are the Los Angeles Police Department, the county Sheriff’s Department, the county Probation Department, the district attorney’s office and the Los Angeles city attorney’s office.

The program received high marks from a Los Angeles firm, Lodestar Management/Research Inc., which prepared a case study of activities from November 1996 to October 1997.

Among the accomplishments identified as immediate results, the report noted that:

* Sheriff’s Department investigators solved 12 previously unresolved homicides.

* The district attorney’s office prosecuted 58 adult felony cases and 59 juvenile felony cases stemming from arrests generated through the program.

* Improved sharing of information led to special conditions of parole for hard-core gang members.

Local government officials stressed the effectiveness of numerous law enforcement and other agencies working together to stem the influence of gangs. Community groups and residents also play important roles, they said.

“CLEAR has empowered the community. You can see it,” said Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti. “That is the secret success of this program.”

Walter J. Kelly, the county’s acting chief probation officer, drew applause from the crowd when he said future anti-gang efforts could help keep youths out of places like the Calabasas juvenile detention camp named for Gonzales, a World War II Medal of Honor recipient from Pacoima.

“It will have the effect of allowing the children of Pacoima to play in park David Gonzales, rather than serve time in camp David Gonzales,” he said.

Kuhen was fatally shot in September 1995, when gun-wielding gang members confronted her family after they steered onto a dead-end street in Cypress Park in the city’s Northeast area.

The killing shocked Los Angeles and intensified national attention on the problems of gangs and guns.

But for some time efforts to wage an aggressive new attack on gangs either went nowhere or moved slowly.

Michael F. Thompson, director of the mayor’s Criminal Justice Planning Office, said the CLEAR effort started last year with $1 million from the Clinton administration’s anti-gang initiative. After that, Assemblyman Robert M. Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) led an effort that resulted in $1.2 million in state funding, and another $2.5 million was secured through federal grants, Thompson said.

The money will be divided among the three targeted areas based on what officials determine is necessary.

“These are areas that were deemed to have a serious gang-related problem,” Thompson said.

The LAPD’s Foothill Division, where a Latino gang truce is centered, has recorded four homicides so far this year, three of them gang-related, said Det. Frank Bishop, officer in charge of the homicide unit at Foothill.

During 1997, there were 33 homicides in the division, and 18 of those were gang-related, Bishop said.

In 1996, five of 18 killings in the division were gang-related, compared with 18 of 28 the previous year, police said.

Officials including Police Chief Bernard C. Parks encouraged residents to help authorities stem gang activity.

“If people who are involved with the gang truce believe they are making a difference, then we support them,” Parks said in an interview. “I don’t think we should dissuade anyone from taking an active role in their community.”

City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who represents the area, said the truce effort is one more example of worthwhile community involvement.

“It absolutely helps,” Alarcon said. “The push from this program should accelerate their efforts. It really does have a ripple effect.”

* MAYOR’S JOURNEY TO ASIA: B10