U.S. Pledges Help in Fight Against Gangs

Federal authorities Monday pledged more resources to the Los Angeles Police Department’s fight against gang violence, including special drug enforcement units with a track record of reducing crime in targeted neighborhoods.

The announcement came two weeks after Mayor James K. Hahn and Police Chief William J. Bratton appeared with family members of a slain teenager in South Los Angeles, calling the city’s street gangs a national threat that deserved intense federal attention.

Hahn and Bratton met Monday with U.S. Atty. Debra W. Yang and top local agents for the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms.

At a news conference after the meeting, Yang -- who prosecuted Los Angeles gang members after the 1992 riots -- called gang violence “the worst it has been for some time.”

She said that killings in Los Angeles, which Bratton said Monday now number more than 650 for the year, had “threatened the very way many citizens live their lives and have taken away their ability to feel safe and secure in their own homes.” Law enforcement officers estimate that about half of all homicides are gang-related.

“We can bring narcotics charges, which have a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison. We can bring firearm charges that have a mandatory minimum of five years,” Yang said. “We can bring racketeering charges, also known as RICO, which can be used to attack organizers of structured criminal gangs.”

Yang said that although such cases take much longer to build than those using other approaches, they are more likely to significantly damage the infrastructure of the most organized gangs.

Additionally, the DEA pledged a 20-member Mobile Enforcement Team to South Los Angeles early next year. The use of such a team earlier this year in the Hollenbeck Division is credited by law enforcement officials with stemming skyrocketing crime in that area -- at a time when the homicide rate in the city looked to be far worse than the current 11% jump over last year’s totals.

ATF officials also said they plan to assign 20 to 25 additional agents to pursue illegal gun trafficking in targeted city neighborhoods by spring 2003, although those positions have yet to be funded. Don Kincaid, head of the ATF local office, said resources have been stretched on antiterrorism and his agency’s capacity to contribute to the anti-gang effort depends on additional funding.

Yang called prior cooperation between federal and local authorities a patchwork approach. Together with Hahn and Bratton, she expressed confidence that better coordination would get results, even without additional U.S. money.

Federal authorities will cross-train LAPD officers in federal statutes to improve the chances of success in federal felony filings.

Yang said federal prosecutors already are reviewing firearms cases from the LAPD’s 77th Division -- where there have been 116 homicides to date this year -- and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Lennox Station to determine if federal prosecution would be appropriate -- and if it would mean longer sentences than state law.

“We target those gang members who are among the most dangerous,” Yang said. In the last decade, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles County have convicted more than 275 gang members.

In 2002, U.S. prosecutors brought racketeering indictments against alleged members of three gangs: the Aryan Brotherhood, the Nazi Low Riders and the Wah Ching.

Hahn said Monday that the federal government could and should do even more.

“California needs its fair share of resources to fight this problem,” Hahn said. He said he would make that point when he and Bratton visit Washington next month.

“We are not going to surrender one inch of turf to the gangs. The streets of Los Angeles belong to the law-abiding citizens,” Hahn said. “The federal government has some important tools, some powerful tools, some heavy hammers to use in this fight,” he added.

Bratton said that cooperation between police and residents in South Los Angeles -- particularly the 77th Division -- seemed to be helping.

Since the news conference two weeks ago, Bratton said, anonymous tips from residents there have produced leads in nine unsolved homicides. And the addition of 70 officers to the South Bureau has also produced results, he said.

“We’ve had one homicide in the 77th so far in the month of December. This is a division that had over 100 homicides rolling into the month of December, leading the city,” Bratton said. “This is focused policing, smart policing, and it is going to be policing in partnership with counterparts in the federal and state bureaucracies.”