Companies Honored for Anti-Gang Work

Police and gang prevention officials on Monday recognized the contributions made by two companies to help reduce gang crime in parts of the San Fernando Valley.

Representatives from Anheuser Busch and the Hispanic Broadcasting Co. received framed photos and T-shirts signed by youths in the Foothill area anti-gang Jeopardy “Bouncing the Odds” Foundation at a ceremony at the group’s San Fernando site.

The brewery, which employs about 1,100 people in the Valley, and HBC, which owns radio station KSCA 101.9 FM, have raised about $1 million for the gang-prevention program over the last nine years through the “Extravaganza Sin Fronteras” concerts held annually in July at Hansen Dam Recreation Area, foundation officials said.

“Instead of talking about [gang prevention] or theorizing about what needs to be done, they’re out there doing it,” Capt. Kenneth Garner of the LAPD’s Foothill Division said of Jeopardy and its sponsors.

Although there have been several gang-related shootings in the last several months in the Foothill area, Garner said that overall, gang-related crime has decreased almost 30% this year compared to 1999.

The nonprofit Jeopardy Foundation, which works with the Los Angeles Police Department and schools to target juveniles between 9 and 17 who are at risk of joining a gang, serves about 125 youths and their families in the Foothill area annually by providing counseling, after-school activities, tutoring and parental education. Eighty-nine percent of the participants do not enter gangs, foundation President Irwin Rosenberg said.

The five LAPD stations in the San Fernando Valley have Jeopardy programs.