A 'SURGE' ON GANGS ALONE WON'T HELP

Violence-Plagued Neighborhoods Need Real Reform, Not Just More Cops
Walking The Streets

CHERYL GREEN died Dec. 15 because she was black in the wrong
gang-dominated neighborhood. Like innocent Latino children who are
terrorized by black gangs in Watts, the 14-year-old was allegedly
gunned down by members of the Latino 204th Street gang because she
rode her scooter too close to the no-blacks Mason-Dixon line that
gang members had drawn in her Harbor Gateway neighborhood.

L.A. politicians and law enforcement leaders have reacted forcefully
to her death. Amid enough satellite dishes to remind one LAPD officer
of the O.J. Simpson trial, officials at a January news conference
declared war on 204th Street.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proclaimed that no one should fear losing
his or her life for being the wrong color. He vowed to put the gang
out of business. Police Chief William Bratton, Sheriff Lee Baca and
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III announced weapons of mass
crackdown: combined LAPD-Sheriff's Department patrols; cooperation
with neighboring Torrance police; targeting of the gang's guns and
drugs by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; dragnet operations;
electronic surveillance; observation posts; intelligence sharing;
early-release exclusions and a "most-wanted list" of the 10 worst gangs.

The U.S. attorney brandished stepped-up use of federal hate crime
laws, death penalty enhancements, civil rights laws and RICO
prosecutions. The city attorney added the use of "stay-away orders,"
which ban gangs from the neighborhood, on top of existing injunctions
that forbid gang members from congregating.

Two days after this display, 204th Street shot another innocent black
resident waiting in his car for his daughters.

"We've done this before," the LAPD officer at the news conference
recalled. He was referring to a similar crackdown on the 204th Street
gang in 1997, when members killed another African American youth.
Then, as now, politicians threatened zero-tolerance, the LAPD
increased patrols and arrested everyone in the gang they could.
Officers galvanized the community against the gang. Politicians held
community planning meetings. "And then, the focus shifted," the
officer said, "we went back to normal deployment levels, and while we
probably abated it for a while, new gang members refilled the ranks.
Nothing on the ground changed. All of the conditions in that
neighborhood continued."

Bingo. The "surge" in 1997 was temporary and, more important, the
city never reversed the neighborhood conditions that fuel 204th
Street. For the last nine years, the gang has continued its ethnic
terrorism, with the murder of Cheryl Green as one of its latest acts
of violence.

Let's be clear here: Strategic suppression is essential, a strong
response to violent gangs such as 204th Street is necessary, and the
effort will need more resources. But it is unclear whether the city
has learned that suppression must be coordinated with comprehensive
prevention and intervention strategies. And, right now, the
prevention and intervention side of the equation is mostly missing.
Law enforcement is doing its part; it's the rest of us who are AWOL.

What needs to happen in Harbor Gateway? Concerned politicians must
connect with the right experts, who can diagnose the unique
neighborhood factors that fuel the gang's dominance. They must
authorize county, state and school district staff to jointly close
the entrance ramps into the gang and open the exit ramps out of it.
Effective violence reduction requires a sustained community
organization that forms a 24/7 shield against gang violence.

In Harbor Gateway, that planning has to begin with the area's
isolated, "Galapagos Island" configuration, the diaspora of gang
members who return on weekends to enforce 204th Street's sovereignty,
and Harbor Gateway's unconnected and intimidated residents.

In addition to tough-on-crime tactics, the region's leaders will have
to use political capital to reset priorities and redeploy the
millions in tax dollars spent every year on anti-gang programs but
with no sustained violence reduction to show for it.

And after determining that gangs do not get to take our children,
Angelenos must launch a "cultures and values" campaign to end the
violence and killing of la vida loca.

Without the political will to change business as usual, politicians
will be back again before the cameras, declaring yet another
suppression surge with no long-term effect. In the meantime, Cheryl
Green's mother, Charlene Lovett, and her black neighbors say they
have been told by police that the only way to be safe is to stay
inside their homes -- or move.