Rules of Engagement Complicate Fighting Gang War

When Garden Grove police last week pulled up alongside a car with suspected gang members inside, one of the occupants quickly tossed out the window a 9-millimeter handgun.

The next night, some of those same officers stopped a car with a missing tail light. During the search of the vehicle--legal because the driver was on probation--Officer Ted Peaslee noticed what could have been a fake panel. Inside was a small cache of weapons: a .45 caliber MAC-10 assault weapon, two .45 caliber pistols and a 9-millimeter pistol.

This gang investigating is serious business.

And some police are convinced that Orange County is about to experience an upswing in gang-related crimes, even though the overall crime rates continue to drop. Gang crimes peaked in about 1995 because so many gang leaders had been hauled off to jail or prison. Now, some officers say, many of those former leaders are out, and back on the streets. Moreover, a county report released last year said gang membership is on the rise.

Recently I’ve heard criticism that the police are too quick to publicly identify young people as gang members. At a recent Orange County League of Cities meeting, one official complained about police mistreatment of minorities without proof they are gang members.

Maybe this goes on, and if so, it shouldn’t.

But taking on gangs is no easy task. After noticing those back-to-back gun incidents in the newspaper, I asked to speak with some of the officers of the Garden Grove Police Department’s gang suppression unit.

Last year the Garden Grove gang unit made 1,331 arrests, and it’s on pace for an even higher number this year.

“We have gangs that have been rivals for so long, their members don’t even remember why they hate each other,” said unit veteran Jim Fischer.

Last year the Garden Grove gang suppression unit confiscated 45 weapons. In just the first three months this year, they’ve already confiscated more than half that number, including a handgun found inside a Bible with pages ripped out to make it fit.

One amazing figure: The seven-member gang suppression unit, led by Sgt. Dave Kivler, made more than 4,000 contacts with known gang members last year.

“Talking to them as much as we can is the only way we have of finding out what’s going on and identifying who’s doing what,” said unit member Tom Da Re.

This unit wants the public to set aside any notion that gang members commit crimes only against each other.

“They need to feed the gang income, so they’re out there stealing cars, committing home invasions, dealing narcotics,” said unit member Phil Schmidt.

A new twist this past year in gang activity has been an increase in counterfeiting, especially in travelers checks and credit cards, the unit members told me.

This is not to say that we ought to be worried about gang members at every corner on our streets. But the gang suppression officers believe that most of us in the public would be surprised at how often gang crime affects our neighborhoods. It’s certainly enough to keep them all hopping.

When I first asked to speak with these officers, they were assisting the department’s narcotics unit in serving a morning search warrant because gang members were suspected of being involved. The same day, their regular shift did not end until midnight.

That’s a 15-hour day, and that’s the downside of the job, said Officer Schmidt.

“Being in this unit is hard on family life,” he said. “Because of court appearances and the need to work days off, all of us regularly work about a 60-hour week.”

But the upside is the great satisfaction, as Officer Da Re said, in “getting these guys off the street.”

This hard-line attitude doesn’t always extend, however, to the 13- or 14-year-old gang members.

“Their dad was a gang member, their brother’s a gang member, so it’s the only life they know,” said Schmidt. “We try to steer some of the young ones into a county program that can help them break away. But frankly, sometimes it’s impossible.”

When I asked if burnout was a factor among the officers working gangs, I got a surprising answer. Fischer, who has been in the unit six years, said it probably takes about eight years on the gang beat to become fully knowledgeable about the county’s gang activities. Instead of burnout, you get more excited about the job because you know your knowledge is making a strong contribution.

“There are Santa Ana officers who have been on the gang job about nine years, and they are extremely valuable to all the rest of us,” Fischer said.

Don’t be surprised if you live in Westminster and see Garden Grove police making a gang arrest. The Garden Grove cops see all of Southern California as their territory.

“We’ve got about 200 known gangs in the area, and just about all of them cut across into Garden Grove,” Fischer said.

Fortunately, serious gang violence has been on the decrease in recent years. Garden Grove saw about 60 gang-related shootings in 1994, about 40 the next year, and that dwindled down to just six last year.

But a report last year by the county found that while gang homicides continue to decline, gang membership rose 43% between 1993 and 1996.

I couldn’t prove to you that the gang suppression unit’s “pro-active” approach is responsible for that, as its members like to believe.

But one thing we pretty well know: Those two in the car with the cache of weapons last week also had rubber gloves on the seat next to them, and you can bet they weren’t on their way to a Chamber of Commerce meeting.

They were out to commit a crime somewhere that night. Maybe in my neighborhood. Officer Ted Peaslee’s sharp eye is the only thing that stopped them.

I agree with those at the League of Cities meeting who say that police officers who might be harassing innocent people should be called on it. But at the same time, let’s give a little credit to those doing the grunt work on the front lines of this battle for the rest of us.

Those guns found in the car cache last week were all loaded. Extra magazines included.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Monday and Thursday. Readers may reach Hicksby calling (714) 564-1049 or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com.