VENTURA COUNTY BUSINESS

Seven years ago, Pasadena was roiling. That Halloween, three teenagers walking home from a party were shot and killed by gang members angered by the death of a friend. The victims were among 15 young people murdered in the city in 1993.

Today, it’s a different story. In the last two years, the rate of homicide deaths among people between 13 and 24 is 90% lower than in 1993: There have been only two killings in the past 22 months.

With little fanfare, Pasadena has used tougher policing of gang-related crime and youth accountability programs to make a gradual dent in homicides.

“I don’t think there is any question that people feel safer,” said the Rev. George Regas, a retired Episcopal minister and founder of the Regas Institute and the Coalition for a Non-Violent City, established in the aftermath of the 1993 shootings. Partially as a result of progress, the group has changed its name to Coalition for Zero Violence.

Celestine McFern Walker, president of Neighbors Acting Together Helping All in northwest Pasadena, where the 1993 ambush killings occurred, said a 1999 survey of more than 300 households confirmed Regas’ feeling.

Walker attributed part of the improvement to better coordination among city, police and school efforts to curb violence. “Before, I think everyone was struggling independently around the issue.”

There was slow progress after the Halloween murders of Stephen Coats and Reggie Crawford, both 14, and Edgar Evans, 13. Anguished residents staged memorials and mobilized a task force to lobby for tougher gun laws. By the time the killers of the three boys were sentenced to death in 1996, the number of young people murdered in Pasadena had fallen to six.

That same year, Pasadena hired a new police chief, Bernard Melekian, who made a commitment to reducing violence but took some controversial steps.

Melekian stopped using civil court injunctions, obtained by the district attorney’s office, which allowed officers to arrest gang members or youths affiliated with gangs if they were seen hanging out.

Focus Shifts to Violent Crimes

Though numerous cities have used such injunctions aggressively in recent years, “I think they are a social Band-Aid, and they stigmatize people of color,” said Melekian, who is of Armenian descent. He said he wanted to focus more attention on the smaller proportion of youths who actually commit violent crimes.

To bolster community policing, the department initiated the Community Law Enforcement Area Resource (CLEAR) program, sharing crime information with the Sheriff’s Department, the district attorney’s office and Probation Department. The program uses a database of known violent offenders, making it easier for police to target possible suspects, Melekian said. “When there is a bad incident, we don’t saturate the neighborhoods. We go talk to these people. . . . When you do saturations, every young man of color walking down the street is going to get stopped,” which diminishes community trust in law enforcement.

One defense attorney, Marilynn Van Dam, complained that the CLEAR program has created friction by targeting nonviolent offenders as well. She says the program casts too wide a net. The Pasadena branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People said it has heard such concerns but no specific complaints. “We are keeping our ears to the ground on the issue,” said NAACP branch President Del Yarbrough.

In 1998, the Police Department created a Youth Accountability Board, which brings first-time juvenile offenders before a panel of adult community members.

Young Offenders Get Chance to Make Good

Offenders sign a six-month contract outlining requirements they must meet to graduate from the program. At two-month intervals, progress is reviewed, and those who successfully complete the program receive scholarships to Outward Bound, a national organization that offers courses in outdoor learning including camping, hiking and canoeing. Of 75 children who have come before the board, Melekian said, only four or five have been rearrested.

Melekian, a former Santa Monica police officer and the father of three grown sons, said he has gone to the scene of every murder of a child since coming to Pasadena. He said each visit reminds him of the powerlessness he felt when his oldest son, now 26, suffered from brain cancer a decade ago. “I remember . . . the recognition that I don’t control anything,” he said.

The Coalition for Zero Violence recently received a $300,000 federal grant from the Department of Health and Human Services. The money will be used to fund summer jobs, involve local churches in prevention efforts and establish a clearinghouse for violence prevention organizations.

On a recent Thursday, 50 young people gathered for Pasadena’s Week Without Violence. Amid food, music and games, a few youths read poems about the violence that dampens their lives. Their concerns ranged from gun violence to the continued presence of gangs in their communities.

“There is still a lot of work to do,” said Regas. “But the fact is that seven years later, people are still at work. There are people that still persevere.”