Massive Gang Sweep Had Lasting Impact on Santa Ana Street

More than five years after police swept through one of Santa Ana’s toughest neighborhoods in a massive raid, crime has plummeted, a gang once considered the most violent in Orange County is crippled and residents say they feel liberated to once again stroll along the streets.

Officials said the sweep of the 3rd Street area offers hope--and lessons--to residents across town in west Santa Ana, where an army of law enforcement agents moved in last week in a sweep inspired by what was called Operation Roundup.

That sweep--at the time the biggest such operation in county history--was aimed at breaking the grip of local gangs and resulted in the arrests of more than 100 people.

The transformation, experts said, demonstrates the effect such tactics can have on gang-filled neighborhoods. It also highlights the trade-off residents in those neighborhoods face: accepting greater police scrutiny in exchange for safer streets.

“The idea is to replicate our earlier success,” said Police Sgt. Raul Luna. “We wouldn’t have been able to put this second raid together if we couldn’t show that this type of operation can make a difference. With 3rd Street, we can make that case.”

Police statistics show a major turnaround along 3rd Street:

* Serious crimes dropped by more than 70% in the first year after the raid, according to police. By contrast, those crimes dropped by about 12% countywide and 15% in Santa Ana.

* In the 10 months before the sweep, police received 500 calls for service. During the same period in 1999, officers received 46. Moreover, most of the complaints now are for loud music, officials said.

* The crackdown, authorities said, played a major role in the city’s plummeting gang murder rate, which has dropped from 46 in 1995 to seven in 1999. The 3rd Street area, which saw five homicides in the three years before the raid, has experienced only one in the four years since.

“It’s completely different than before. Back then you couldn’t be outside, even in broad daylight. Everyone was scared,” said 20-year-old George Gonzalez, who grew up in the area of modest homes and apartment complexes a few blocks from police headquarters.

“Now the park is clean. Kids can play around and have fun. The neighborhood got together.”

Some experts, including gang specialists, have warned that such intense suppression tactics can have fleeting success.

Well-established gangs have shown enormous resiliency in some areas, as leaders move in and out of prison systems.

For example, an FBI-LAPD task force that targeted a violent, drug-dealing cell of the notorious 18th Street gang in the early 1990s proclaimed that the Southwest Los Angeles area had been cleaned up. A few years later, however, city officials argued in court that the area was again out of control and won an injunction restricting the activities of alleged gang members.

Shortly thereafter, an LAPD officer involved in enforcing the injunction was fatally ambushed in the same area, allegedly by an 18th Street gang member.

In Santa Ana, police said that the 6th Street gang, which for years terrorized Gonzalez’s neighborhood, was devastated by the September 1994 raid, which sent dozens of its members to state prison, primarily on drug and weapons charges.

Members began returning to 3rd Street over the last year as their prison sentences ended, but authorities said that the array of community efforts and aggressive enforcement has prevented the gang from reemerging as a force.

It’s all a far cry from the early 1990s, when the area was known as a drug dealing mecca where rock cocaine addicts blockaded streets and gang members brazenly robbed car passengers.

Families now picnic in a park that was once the site of drive-by shootings. And people have moved into long-abandoned homes and apartments.

The change began with the 1994 predawn raid that netted 117 drug dealers, most of them members of the notorious 6th Street gang.

Believing that arrests alone would not change the neighborhood, police launched their first effort to remake a community, and sought help from residents and local businesses.

“It’s an evolutionary linkage between visible disorder and crime,” said Santa Ana Police Lt. Bill Tegeler, who supervised the operation. “If you don’t take care of those small things, they will turn into big things.”

The park at the corner of Flower Street, a onetime thug hangout, was spiffed up after the California Angels and other businesses donated $120,000 for playground equipment and bathroom improvements. Dozens of abandoned units at a condominium complex once used as flophouses by drug addicts were rehabilitated by a nonprofit group provided with $2 million in city funding.

Police and city officials also encouraged owners to take better care of their properties. As a result, police and residents say, pride of ownership returned to the area. Abandoned cars were towed away, garbage was hauled off and graffiti painted over.

“Once you start cleaning up a property the gang people scurry away,” said Bob Bell, a Newport Beach real estate investor who had to repair bullet holes in some of the 80 apartment units he bought in the area before the sweep.

“The minute things are cleaned up and there’s pride of ownership, the gang members realize that the activity they want to do is not welcome anymore.”

But among some people who saw family members arrested during Operation Roundup, feelings about the cleanup are more mixed. Although many admit that crime is down and the street feels safer, some complain that they get too much scrutiny from officers.

‘We’ve been thinking of moving to Tustin because the police harass us so much,” said Anna Lopez, whose brother and sister were arrested in the 1994 raid. “They shine the spotlights on the house in the middle of the night. They come inside whenever they want. It’s tiring. I wish they would leave us alone.”

Tegeler said he was not aware of complaints, and most 3rd Street residents interviewed over the last few months express strong support for the police action and hope it continues.

“We feel we can do just about anything now,” said Virginia Avila, who has lived in the area for 50 years. “We can go on the bus. We can go to the store. Or go visit someone on 4th Street. There’s no crime really happening right now. We are very grateful for the police.”

Experts say the mixed reactions are typical of residents in areas targeted for intense police involvement. Complaints of police excesses are inevitable, and residents must weigh whether the benefits outweigh the potential pitfalls.

“The idea is that just busting the criminal is not enough,” said James Meeker, a UC Irvine professor of criminology, law and society. “You need to do more. You also have to do community development. It takes a lot more effort, but the rewards are there, and it’s well worth the money.”

Meeker, an expert on Orange County gang trends, said Operation Roundup and last week’s raid have a better chance of success than most sweeps because police built individual cases against each of the more than 100 suspects who were arrested.

“When they just go in and do a sweep for jaywalking and spitting, that doesn’t have an effect,” he said. “If this is subject to solid indictments and coupled with community programs, that sounds like a program that should work.”