AREA BOOSTS EFFORTS TO CURB GANGS.

Byline: Lisa Van Proyen Staff Writer

PACOIMA - Beset by gang violence that has killed three people within the past month in the northeast San Fernando Valley, police have joined city officials and residents to fight back.

Armed with paint brushes, workers have been erasing gang graffiti that police said last week certainly signals the intensification of a gang war.

Residents and community activists have been brainstorming new ways to get youngsters off the streets, starting with a softball tournament Saturday for probationers and gang members at El Cariso Park in Sylmar.

The Los Angeles Police Department has been fighting back by adding more patrols in the parks, deploying the elite Metropolitan Division and conducting more parole and probation searches, especially on weekends when gang violence escalates.

``We're bringing some direct pressure to the area to show the gang members that we mean business - and we're responding to the problems they're creating,'' said Cmdr. Val Paniccia, Valley Bureau assistant commanding officer.

``Our desire is to make them quiet.''

Much work is needed. In the past three weeks, there have been at least seven gang attacks in the Northeast Valley, including as recently as Wednesday night, when a 20-year-old suspected gang member was fatally shot in a rural Sylmar neighborhood.

LAPD Officer Ted Watson, a senior lead officer at the Foothill Division, said graffiti at Hubert Humphrey Memorial Park - near where a 15-year-old gang member was fatally last month - has telegraphed the gangs' intentions.

The Pacoima-based gang the 15-year-old had just been ``jumped into'' is believed to be continually painting its name along with ``187,'' the penal code section for murder, Watson said.

``They're trying to send a message to the rival gang,'' Watson said.

``It causes a lot of tension between rival gangs. By lining out someone's graffiti, you can get killed. That's how the war starts.''

So Watson calls in his defensive troops: city paint crews to eliminate the graffiti.

They use paint removers on play equipment, sandblast sidewalks, and climb walls and roofs to paint over gang markings.

``Our goal is to make that park like a regular community park where kids play,'' Watson said. ``Once the graffiti's gone, the murders will go down.''

On Friday, Recreation and Parks crews swept through the Valley to paint over graffiti in parks, including the Ritchie Valens Recreation Center in Pacoima, where the handball courts were tagged with one gang's large black initials in spray paint.

``The graffiti has been flaring up. Where there were once quiet areas, they're now writing on the walls,'' said one city painter, who declined to give his name in fear of his safety.

``It's just like the cavemen used to do, except it's a little bit more violent now,'' the city worker said as he rolled a brush over gang initials.

Hector Martinez is well aware of how the graffiti on his street turns gangsters violent. The Pacoima resident hears gunfire each week on his cul-de-sac near Ritchie Valens Park and in a long underground tunnel beneath the freeway that divides Pacoima and San Fernando gangs.

``Every day, they spray gunfire here. They fight for days,'' Martinez said. ``Three weeks ago, one guy comes and crosses out the other guy's name out. They beat him.''

``I'm afraid to do anything,'' Gonzales said. ``This is their meeting area. You can't even look at anyone wrong. The cops don't even come.''

About two months ago, the gang violence hit home for Gonzales when his 50-year-old brother was shot seven times just a block away from his home. He believes it was a gang member.

Still recuperating, Gonzales's brother, who declined to give his name, said it's only community involvement that will combat gangs.

``In that particular area, there's been a lot of gang activity. A lot of people have been shot and died with one gunshot,'' he said, using his left hand to lift his injured right arm onto a tabletop.

``What's important is for the community to get involved. The only thing is, where I live the community is afraid to get involved. They're afraid of retaliation.''

The Pacoima resident was attacked while walking back home from buying cigarettes Aug. 25.

As he pulled up his shirt to display his 14-inch stomach scar, the man, who works as a carpenter said his body and life will never be the same. ``We feel like things are never going to happen to us,'' he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

Police say this victim is an example of the increase in attempted murders eclipsing the fatalities in recent months in the Northeast Valley.

``Gang crimes have continued. We have a whole bunch of attempted murders. We're just lucky and they're not dying,'' said LAPD Detective Frank Bishop of the Foothill Division.

William ``Blinky'' Rodriguez, a community activist who works with gangs, said alternative programs and good communication are the answers.

``In the past month, there's been a dramatic rise,'' Rodriguez said of the gang violence in the Northeast Valley. ``Factions have risen up against one another, but I wouldn't call it an all-out war.''

Rodriguez, whose 16-year-old son died in a drive-by gang shooting, said he wants to create solutions before the bloodshed.

He began that effort on Saturday with a softball game and barbecue at El Cariso Park in Sylmar, where hundreds of gang members and teens on probation played one another.

``Hopefully, it will send a message out to the other neighborhoods. It's an indication of their willingness to do the right thing,'' Rodriguez said. ``Here, we're creating an alternative and a willingness for change.''

Next time, he plans to arrange games between rival gangs ``to cause communication and dialogue,'' he said.

Police and city officials also continue to intensify their own efforts in quelling the gang violence.

Nine police officers are monitoring the historically gang-infested Hubert Humphrey park at the drop-in police center set up there last week.

And LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks has deployed about 20 more officers from the department's elite Metropolitan Division downtown to assist in Foothill.

The City Attorney's Office is also working with the LAPD for a gang injunction against one or more Pacoima-area gangs.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 color -- ran in Bulldog edition only) graffiti, scrawled across places like this pedestrian tunnel in Pacoima near the Ritchie Valens Recreation Center, above, is often the first sign of escalating violence. At left, a longtime Pacoima resident shows bullet wounds from an attack in August.

(3) A Los Angeles County parks worker paints over graffiti at the Ritchie Valens Recreation Center on Friday, part of an effort to limit the precursors to the gang violence rising in the area.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer