No More Duck and Cover

It’s the urban war-zone version of the old Cold War drill. Gangs trade fire on the streets bordering Gates Elementary School. Children who are as familiar with the sound of gunshots as they are school bells stop finger-painting or multiplying fractions and dive under a desk.

Last week, Mayor James K. Hahn stood in front of this besieged Lincoln Heights school and announced a citywide anti-gang initiative. He’s in a hurry to do something about gangs, and no wonder: The body count from shootings citywide already stands at 184, a 67% increase over this time last year. His Los Angeles Safe Neighborhood Action Plan, which he has given the snappy acronym L.A. SNAP, calls for putting police drop-in centers in 40 city parks to deter gang battles. Hahn wants to boot 100 police officers from desk work to street patrol and reopen a citywide “cold phone” for reporting crime tips anonymously. He also wants to match kids from high-crime neighborhoods with city jobs.

SNAP attempts to marry approaches that too often pit proponents in bitter opposition. Cops, prosecutors and judges, who spend their lives confronting kids who blow their peers to pieces, tend to tout individual responsibility and crack down hard on troublemakers. Activists and social workers, who visit budding gangsters in homes that are often squalid or reigned over by an abusive parent, believe that opportunity, not jail, is the cure for a problem that spans generations. The mayor’s unified approach shows that he has embraced the best thinking on how to end gang violence.

But SNAP is disconcertingly sketchy. It’s up to Hahn to make it more than the sort of squishy “accomplishment” that politicians sometimes stockpile for use at election time.

One way the plan falls short is by failing to determine whether a component works or doesn’t--the same civic sloppiness that has let gangs go on killing each other for decades. For instance, the mayor has earmarked an extra $1.3 million in grants for the city’s existing intervention program, L.A. Bridges II, even though no one knows if it reduces violence.

Two years ago, then-City Controller Rick Tuttle audited L.A. Bridges I, a related prevention program aimed at younger kids, and found that the city Community Development Department had managed it poorly. The audit also noted that City Council members’ efforts to grab a piece of the program for their districts (surprise!) diluted its effectiveness. Maybe Bridges II is better. But battle-scarred neighborhoods can’t afford for the mayor to shovel more cash into unproven programs.

If tough review would strengthen Hahn’s plan, so would putting someone in charge of it. When asked who would lead SNAP, Hahn called it a team effort. Well, teams need leaders. And the city needs one person who is responsible for drawing together local, county, state and federal anti-gang efforts and for screaming if they don’t show results. Hahn’s commitment is critical, but he needs to give that commitment a face and a phone number that’s easier to reach than a busy mayor.

The ideal choice would be someone committed to solutions, not politics, whose ideology falls somewhere between former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates (philosophy: club the thugs) and former-lawmaker-turned-gang-interventionist Tom Hayden (hug the lugs).

Finally, Hahn would be well served to remember that gangs spill blood in neighborhoods, not City Hall, and to appoint a leader who could use the city’s money, personnel and expertise to bolster the efforts of the people whose children are shooting and being shot. In December, Gates Elementary School had just let out its students when, according to police, suspected gang members shot and killed a rival as he waited to pick up his child. He crashed into the car parked in front of his and tumbled out the door in front of hundreds of horrified children.

For a city to teach children to “duck and cover” is capitulation, not a solution. It’s what politicians have been doing for years.

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Friday: A neighborhood that won’t take it anymore.