Stockton Finds to Stop Gangs, Disarm Them

After seven young women were killed or wounded in the cross-fire of gang shootings here in 1997, city officials decided to try something new to stem the city’s rampaging gang violence.

Borrowing from a program pioneered in Boston, they launched Operation Cease-Fire, a multi-agency carrot-and-stick effort to get guns out of the hands of gang members.

Since then, gang-related killings have dropped from about 20 to four per year. Crime in schools has fallen 40%. The number of people younger than 24 killed by firearms has been cut in half.

The success comes in one of California’s toughest cities, a San Joaquin River port and agricultural center that annually records one of the state’s highest crime rates. An estimated 150 gangs prowl Stockton’s streets, representing a variety of ethnic and geographic groups typical of diverse California: Hmong, Cambodian, black, Norteno, Sudeno.

The approach features intensive enforcement by specialized police units that work with county probation officers to identify gangs most prone to violence. Community liaisons called Peacekeepers, often recruited from gang ranks, are sent into the toughest neighborhoods offering help: job training, high school diploma studies--and warning of draconian consequences to those who do not take it.

Cease-Fire, launched on a limited basis last year in East Los Angeles and in San Francisco, does not employ the gang sweeps that became notorious in the Rampart scandal.

“The problem with those approaches,” said David Kennedy, one of the creators of the Cease-Fire concept at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, “is that much of this kind of incessant policing actually strengthens gang identity and alienates police from the community. Cease-Fire is not directed at gangs as such. It is an anti-violence strategy.”

Funded by a $400,000 grant from the National Institute of Justice and administered by Rand Corp., the Los Angeles experiment with Operation Cease-Fire is limited to the Boyle Heights area.

But George Tita, a UC Irvine criminologist who is a consultant to Rand on the project, said the program has been slowed by the Rampart controversy, the police manpower drain caused by last year’s Democratic National Convention and a change of leadership in Los Angeles.

“It has been difficult to maintain continuity,” said Tita, “but there is a core of individuals within the Probation Department, the prosecutors’ office and the Los Angeles Police Department who are committed to the project.”

The San Francisco program is still in the beginning stages.

Operation Cease-Fire does not try to solve all of society’s ills, proponents say. Rather, it aims its efforts specifically against guns and violent crime.

If a gang engages in drug dealing or petty crime but does not commit violence, it is likely to be left alone by Cease-Fire personnel. But a violent gang is likely to be pursued relentlessly for everything from drugs to expired bicycle licenses.

Stockton Police Lt. Mike Becker, who heads the city’s gang intelligence unit, often encourages landlords to evict tenants in homes where gang shootings have occurred. City building codes are strictly enforced in known gang hangouts, even family homes.

“What we do is tell the gangs that if they do violence,” said Stewart Wakeling, juvenile justice coordinator for San Joaquin County, “then we will make it very hard for them to do all the other things they really like to do, such as sell drugs or sit on a stoop and drink a 40-ouncer.”

According to Cheryl Maxson, a UC Irvine criminologist who specializes in gang issues, it is this clarity of message that distinguishes the Cease-Fire program from other anti-gang efforts.

“This is a strategy that is being picked up across the country,” Maxson said. “It involves a clear message and a follow-up. It tells the gang, ‘If you do this particular thing, the wrath of the state will be called upon all of your members.’ ”

In the Sacramento office of Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard Bender is a glossy photograph, arranged like a team picture, of one of Stockton’s most violent street gangs, the Southside Stocktone. The photo was taken two years ago by a police officer who somehow managed to get the gang to pose in a local park.

To Bender’s satisfaction, nearly all of the gang members in the picture are in prison or face trial in federal court on drug and gun charges after 200 federal, county and city officers swept through the gang’s turf in the summer of 2000 and again this year. So far, 23 members of Southside Stocktone have been charged.

“Between the two busts,” said Bender, “we took the core out of what had been the Southside Stocktone.”

It is Jose Gomez’s job to make sure that the lesson of the Stocktone crackdown gets out to other gangs. Gomez, 32, is a muscular former Marine who works for the Peacekeeper unit.

He is also a former gang member, who in his youth was arrested for possession of a sawed-off shotgun and for his involvement in a drive-by shooting. “The Marines are the most powerful gang in the world,” Gomez said. “Joining them was the best thing I ever did. They turned me around.”

Now Gomez spends his time counseling gang members, warning them about dangerous behavior and gently using his example as a path out of violence that they might also take.

“That kid has really expressed a desire to change,” Gomez said after riding around in one of Stockton’s toughest neighborhoods with a reporter and a young gang leader dressed in his blue colors. “He’s smart. He’s streetwise. But he’s got the death wish.”

When he gets a chance, Gomez, who makes about $35,000 a year, said he likes to drive some of his favorite gang leaders into the Sierra, where they can experience trees and snow. “I just like to show them that there is a different world,” he said.

His biggest success, he said, has been convincing several of his proteges to enlist in the Marines.

On the front lines of Operation Cease-Fire is Stockton Police Sgt. Brian Ingersoll, a 12-year veteran who commands one of the five-man Gang Street Enforcement Teams, known on the streets as G-SET.

When gang violence breaks out, G-SET swings into action.

On a recent night, Ingersoll’s job was to crack down on two rival Asian gangs for a series of shootings.

His first step was to contact members of the county Probation Department. One of the key components of Cease-Fire is the involvement of probation and parole offices in sweeps of gang neighborhoods.

Ingersoll asked the probation officers to identify members of the two gangs who were under court supervision and therefore subject to search without a warrant.

For several hours the plainclothes G-SET team, backed up by uniformed patrol officers, conducted impromptu searches of gang members’ homes and cars, recovering three guns and several thousand dollars from one young man who had a 9-millimeter handgun under his front seat.

“We are part of the high-visibility enforcement--saturation enforcement,” said Ingersoll.

Later that night, Ingersoll and his team would station themselves at key intersections in a neighborhood where the two gangs are at war, hoping to intercept them. Other tactics include shadowing gang members in public places, such as a weekly flea market that one of the gangs likes to frequent.

This clearly has not earned the G-SET any favor with gang members. Popular gang graffiti includes “187 G-SET,” using the police code for homicide.

But the saturation tactics have been effective. According to program director Wakeling, Stockton officers recovered 1,200 guns in the first year of the program. This compared to 600 guns in Boston, a city more than twice Stockton’s size.

As the G-SET unit searched the ranch-style family home of one gang member, recovering a rifle and a shotgun, Patrolman Dave Brown, a 10-year veteran, looked on.

“You can’t believe how much this place has changed,” said Brown, a native of Chicago. “A few years ago this was like Vietnam.”