SALEM RESIDENTIAL STREET TURNS INTO GANGLAND TURF AT NIGHT

SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- By day, Lee Street could be a residential street
anywhere in Oregon. Children ride their bikes, and people sit on their
porches talking with neighbors.

When the sun goes down, it becomes a battleground for gun-toting
gangsters.

Mothers bring their kids indoors. People leave their front yards. The
people of Lee Street have reason to fear.

Four shootings have disrupted their street this year as gang violence
climbs on Salem's streets. Gang shootings have more than tripled in
Salem from 14 by the end of August last year to 47 so far this year,
according to an analysis of city crime records by the Statesman
Journal newspaper.

The city's gang enforcement unit has joined other agencies in Marion
County to help stop the violence. The county is hiring a special gang
prosecutor. Salem Hospital has tightened security because of the
number of gang members treated in the emergency room.

Among the people wounded this year in shootings on Lee Street were two
bystanders, and that's enough to make Janine Keltz want to move.

"It scares the hell out of me," she said.

Keltz laid down new rules for her children after a bicyclist became a
random target. They can't go alone to Lee Park, across the street.

"To them, it seems unreasonable," she said. "I'm looking at it that my
kid is going to get shot. That is my big fear."

Many gang members live on or near Lee Street.

"Gunshots aren't something unusual here anymore. It's part of life
around here," said Carl Vinson, 17, who lives next door to several
gang members.

Karla Mayta, who bought a house in the same block a month ago, was
warned before she moved in.

"The mailman said you don't let your kids go to the park and you don't
let them out in the yard after 6," said Mayta, 27.

Gary Zander, another Lee Street resident, said the shootings have
forced him to go inside at sunset.

Zander and his neighbors shouldn't have to alter their lives to
accommodate gang violence, said Capt. Jerry Moore of the Salem Police
Department.

"We want to make sure gang members don't control areas," Moore said.
"We're going to go wherever we perceive gang members to be."

The Salem and Keizer police departments and the Marion County
Sheriff's Office have formed a gang task force. In two months, it has
seized 15 guns from gang members.

Marion County probation officers and police are visiting gang members'
homes at night and to do surveillance of popular gang hangouts.

People like Cat Cavazos, a gang member-turned-counselor, are running
programs to convince gang members to quit. The Salem program he
directs, Street Vision, is geared to teens who've been arrested.

But sometimes it seems like that's too little, too late, Cavazos
said.

"There are kids that have bought into the gang myth, and we'll never
reach them," he said.

Only 11 arrests have been made in Salem's 47 shootings this
year.

Ben Burdette, 15, said he joined a gang for protection at school. Now,
he considers his fellow gang members to be family, and he's willing to
fight for them.

"I'm not afraid to die," he said.

Kaya Echols, 17, knows being seen with guys like Burdette could
jeopardize her safety. But she says being friends with gang members is
a choice she has made consciously.

Sometimes she feels safer being associated with gang
members.

"We have protection," she said.

She and her friend, Vinson, scoff at Lee Street residents who say they
are worried.

"If parents want their kids to be safe, then take them up to a rich
neighborhood," Vinson said.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry