STANDING UP TO STREET GANGS
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.
*
Friday: A neighborhood that won't take it anymore.