FEDERAL AGENTS TO AID VALLEY POLICE

Battling a 25 percent rise in gang violence in the San Fernando Valley,
police said Friday that they have enlisted help from federal agents to stem
illegal guns that are fueling crime.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents will bring to bear special
surveillance equipment and formidable expertise in tracking guns, which
police said are fueling the violence.

"We want to get the guns out of the hands of gang members," said Los Angeles
police Lt. Gary Nanson, officer in charge of the Valley Bureau's gang unit.

Los Angeles police also are in talks with the FBI to join the battle against
street thugs.

"Federal law enforcement agencies are becoming more active in gang
enforcement because they realize that this is a form of organized crime and
it's a very violent crime," he said. "It's a very intensive, very directed
effort."

ATF will begin providing agents and equipment to the Valley this month to
track the guns that gang members use, said Nanson, who took charge of the
CRASH -- Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums -- unit in the Valley
three months ago.

Police also are stepping up intervention efforts with youngsters lured by
gangs, and they are reaching out to the community for help in rooting out
gang members.

"There are so many law-abiding citizens out there. We want to give them the
opportunity to solve crimes," Nanson said.

A gang truce brokered in 1993 had brought drive-by shootings and similar
crimes to new lows, but began falling apart about a year ago and now appears
to have dissolved entirely, detectives said.

Driving the violence are new rivalries and membership changes as gang
members age, quit, go to jail or die.

"The gang truce is not what it used to be. Seven years into it, it's
certainly diminished a great deal," said Detective Lance Steaman of the San
Fernando Police Department. "Some of the kids getting into the gangs now
were 5 and 6 years old when the truce started and they're not recognizing
it."

It is a phenomenon borne out in lives lost.

Despite a plunge in overall serious crimes, violent gang crimes in the
Valley increased 25 percent in 1999 over 1998, with 1,506 crimes in 1999
compared with 1,204 in 1998, according to police statistics. Citywide,
violent gang crimes increased 3.3 percent, with 6,506 crimes in 1999, vs.
6,300 in 1998.

These crimes include homicide, attempted homicide, felony assault, robbery,
shots fired at inhabited dwellings, kidnapping, rape, arson, witness
intimidation, extortion and carjacking.

With a growing population in the Valley, there are new cliques being formed
and rivalries for gang turf, particularly in the Northeast Valley, officials
said.

In the LAPD's Foothill Division alone, there are about 40 gangs.

"It seems like everybody is in a gang today. Every day, I'm getting a new
gang ... It just seems to be the way now for kids, and the music and movies
glorify it," said LAPD Detective Kandi Schmidt, in charge of the Foothill
Division's gang unit.

Foothill saw a 54 percent increase in serious gang crimes last year, with
409 crimes reported in 1999, compared with 266 in 1998.

From Aug. 1 to Nov. 30, Foothill officers responded to a series of
gang-related shootings, including one weekend in November in which six
people were shot in three shootings, said Schmidt.

In the first seven days of the year, police have logged at least two
gang-related incidents in the Valley, including a shooting at San Fernando
High School that left two students wounded.

Five suspects remain on the run, but police have arrested three young men,
including a 14-year-old who was believed to have fired the shots.

San Fernando is also experiencing an increase in the amount of graffiti
spray-painted and crossed out on buildings and walls - a precursor to gang
violence, police said.

"Gang members are hanging out in the neighborhoods and looking for action,"
Steaman said. "These are the types of incidents that are precursors to
shootings and assaults.

In the West Valley, a Winnetka boy was recovering Friday from a stab wound
to his abdomen after a confrontation Wednesday night. A suspected gang
member was arrested Wednesday.

The Devonshire Division shows an 84 percent increase in serious gang crimes,
but that figure is distorted because in January 1999 it took over a
two-square-mile area in Panorama City formerly under Van Nuys' jurisdiction
that accounts for a high amount of gang crimes. The 1998 figure does not
account for that gang-infested area.

If you add that area's crime to Devonshire's 1998 figures, there's only
about a 10 percent increase in gang crimes, said Capt. Joseph Curreri.

And Van Nuys' 2 percent increase should actually be higher, officials said.

School police officers stepped up patrols in the park near Sylmar High
School at the end of last year when there was an increase in gang-on-gang
fights.

"During dismissal and after school, they were grouping and fighting. We hit
them real hard and moved them to other areas," said Lt. Stephen Dodson,
commander of the Los Angeles Unified School District's police department.

To deter youths from gangs, San Fernando officials plan to place a full-time
police officer in the schools this summer.

"It's basically a DARE program for gangs. The officer will try to ID
borderline kids and try to redirect them in a positive manner away from
gangs," Steaman said.

In Devonshire, Curreri is working to combat gangs with the CLEAR unit -- or
Community Law Enforcement and Recovery, a federally funded program that
gives officers quick access to records and suspends the probable cause
requirement for searches of homes of probation violation suspects.

About a month ago, Curreri also had traffic barriers installed on Langdon
Street to detour narcotics trafficking by gang members in the area.

Gang units from all six Valley divisions, including the Valley Narcotics
unit, will meet at least weekly to assure "strong coordination" among
officers, Nanson said. And every CRASH officer will be sent to schools for
better training.

"We're trying to work more strongly as a team," he said.