LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS TEAM TO PROVIDE STUDENTS SAFE PASSAGE

Recent operation targeting individuals known to harass students on
their way to, from school nets two arrests

COMPTON-As a new school year kicks into gear, school police and
sheriff's deputies are again teaming to ensure local high school
students are able to get to and from school without being harassed by
gang members.

The Safe Passage program, funded with grants from the state Department
of Justice, puts additional patrol cars on the streets surrounding the
school district's three high schools during the hour before and the
hour after school.

It is thought that their increased presence will deter gang members
who often pressure students to join gangs, take drugs or otherwise
harass students.

With more than 65 known gangs and roughly 11,000 active gang members
in this 10.5-square-mile city of roughly 100,000, the sheer saturation
of gangs puts most students at risk of coming into contact with
loitering gang members.

According to the state attorney general's Crime and Violence
Prevention Center, the objective is to create a multiagency
enforcement partnership to provide safety from gang-related crimes
against high school students on specific streets, at bus stops and on
bus lines immediately surrounding schools.

The six-year-old program, comprised of school staff, volunteer
organizations, concerned parents and others, came on the coattails of
the state attorney general's commission of a survey of schools in California.

Results revealed that the majority of students, especially those in
urban areas, feel their most major scholastic problem is safely
getting to and from campus. They reported being the victims of armed
robberies, drive-by shootings, gang harassment and other crimes.

Such is the case of Robert Grant Jr., who, while attending Compton
High School, would have to cross through two different gang
territories to get to school each day. His sister, LaTasha Kelly, told
The Bulletin in May that he had been shot at and offered drugs.

Last year, officials said there were major problems with gang members
stealing students' personal belongings, even ripping jewelry from
students' necks.

Compton Station ServiceArea Lt. Tony Lucia said two cars are assigned
to each Compton school. The funding covers the cars for Centennial and
Compton high schools.

"Dominguez is not officially part of the program, but we still try to
get over there and do patrols," Lucia said.

Dominguez is not included on the books because, at the time the grant
was first secured in 2006, the focus was on Centennial and Compton,
schools Lt. Joseph Gooden said had "serious problems."

The Bulletin made several requests for information regarding the
school police's part in the program, but several inquiries both by
e-mail and telephone have gone unanswered for weeks.

Lucia said additional agencies are involved. Each month a committee
comprised of school police, district administrators and
representatives from the Sheriff's Department, Metropolitan
Transportation Authority (MTA), City Attorney's office and county
departments of Child and Family Services and Probation meet to talk
about the previous month's statistics, problems and specifics on
particular gang activities.

Particular attention is paid to gang flare-ups, Lucia
explained.

"We try to focus our efforts on those particular hotspots," he said.
"We try to identify potential hazards and deal with those."

Joe Faulkner, a probation officer and supervisor for the L.A. County
Probation Department, described Safe Passage as a multi-agency collective.

"It's a group of people who collaborate to provide children safety to
and from school," said Faulkner, who oversees the program at Compton
and Centennial.

But it's not just the committee's member agencies that can
help-something as simple as an adult presence can ward off a wide
range of problems, officials said.

And it's all about getting creative.

For instance, at Washington High in Los Angeles, students identified a
municipal bus stop adjacent to a drug house frequented by gang
members. The school's committee got together with the MTA and moved
the bus stop a few hundred feet away from the house, where students
can wait more comfortably, Faulkner said.

Students aren't the only ones who reap the benefits. Areas surrounding
schools typically experience lower crime rates and residents, overall,
feel safer because of the heightened visibility of law enforcement and
others assisting in the creation of so-called safe zones.

"What we've done is identified their (students') most traveled routes
and put our resources there," Probation Officer Stan Ricketts said.
"We know that if we can get them there (school), we can get their
truancy down, we can get their attendance up, we can get their GPA up
and we can decrease their chance of recidivism."Friday, Aug. 29, local
law enforcement officials conducted an unannounced sweep targeting 15
locations throughout the city where known gang members reside and
routinely harass students. The sweep was conducted just before the
first day of school, Sept. 2.

Those targeted are all on probation or parole, and two were arrested
on outstanding warrants, Lucia said.

The operation aimed to send a message to gang members that a
zero-tolerance policy is in place.

"Just the fact that we made contact has an affect," Lucia said. "They
know why we 're there