Offensive Words? We Need to Stay on Offensive Against Gang Killing

Today, even more than usual, I’m going to be very careful about my choice of words. A sensitivity epidemic is spreading across Los Angeles, and I certainly don’t want to become part of the problem.

The issue is gangbangers killing anything that moves (or rather, I should say, the problem is mishaps involving wayward youth). Whatever you call it, you’d think we were in Dodge City, the way bullets are flying in parts of Los Angeles.

And what are public officials and other luminaries worked up about?

Language. That’s right. They’re in a lather over the words being used to describe a police crackdown on killers.

Our story begins with Mayor Slim Jim Hahn.

It’s Thursday afternoon, and Times political editor Jim Newton gets a phone call from the mayor, who isn’t happy.

Myself, I’ll take Jim Hahn being angry any day. It’s proof there’s a pulse.

Hahn’s in a dither, as it turns out, over a Times headline that said: City Declares War on Gangs.

The city did no such thing, Hahn argued, claiming that he and LAPD Chief Bill Bratton have been careful to avoid military metaphors. After making his point, Hahn went away mad.

Your tax dollars at work.

Maybe this would be a more acceptable headline:

City Peeved at Gangs.

Aside from the fact that Bratton actually used the word “war” at the press conference while Hahn stood there like fence board, here’s something to ponder: The headline appeared Dec. 4, and the mayor called Dec. 12.

We all knew this guy is slow off the mark, but did the man take an eight-day nap?

Actually, I’ll tell you what happened. Hahn got some heat from members of the African American community and a couple of liberal do-gooders. John Mack of the Urban League and somebody from Magic Johnson’s development company met with Hahn to beef about this war talk.

They weren’t the only ones stirring it up. Tony Muhammad, the Nation of Islam’s Western regional director, told The Times, “We are with the police chief when he says, ‘Get angry.’ We are angry. But how do you differentiate between a gangbanger and my brother?”

If he doesn’t know, maybe the cops should bring Tony and his brother in for questioning.

A mayor with the tiniest thread of courage would have told these chaps he understands the racial implications and long-standing concerns about cops storming South L.A. like Marines. Then he would have asked his critics what the heck they were doing to save lives.

Is John Mack throwing himself into the line of fire? Does Magic Johnson think the road to peace is a string of Starbucks with his name on the wall?

Innocent bystanders are bleeding to death in the streets, terrified parents are begging for help, and we’ve got a posse on the lookout for insensitive language. Meanwhile, the mayor, making like a tough guy, beats up on a newspaper hack.

Bill Bratton, as I’ve said before, hasn’t been here long enough for any of us to know whether he’s got any answers. My doubts grew last week when I saw that he might hire John Miller, co-anchor of ABC’s “20-20,” as his personal assistant.

Barbara Walters wasn’t available? As a TV reporter, Miller scored a sit-down with Osama bin Laden and nodded like a Yankee bobble-head, as if he understood a word of Arabic. He also spent 10 minutes working as an NYPD flack, and co-wrote a quickie book on national security. I’m sure that’ll do him a lot of good at 103rd and Central.

In fairness to Bratton, the guy has told us a dozen times that he knows he can’t make a difference by blitzing street corners with paramilitary battalions. Gangs are flourishing because 6,000 things have gone wrong, and Bratton has met with one community leader after another asking for ideas and assistance.

Does Bill Bratton talk too much?

Maybe so. But the bigger problem is that everyone else has so little to say.

I don’t care whether Bratton calls it a war, and I don’t care whether he calls the bad guys morons. What matters is that he take care of business, and he can’t do it if everyone else who might make a difference is standing on the sidelines, giving him grades on political correctness.

Hahn made a so-so recovery Friday when he told The Times he was distressed about the murders of children and their grieving mothers. He said he wants to make sure an overzealous LAPD doesn’t alienate the neighborhoods it has to work with to get the job done.

“We have to be careful about our choice of words here,” he said. “That is the bottom line.”

No it isn’t.

We’ve had 600-plus homicides this year, half of them involving gangs. The bottom line is that our so-called leaders have to put an end to the carnage, by whatever legal means, and by whatever name.

*

Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@

latimes.com.