EDITORIAL A GROWING EPIDEMIC CITY'S GANG PROBLEM SHOWS THAT CURRENT STRATEGIES AREN'T WORKING.THE horrific stories just keep coming in, and the number of victims continues to climb. We're not talking about the prison-abuse scandal in Iraq, but a crisis that hits far closer to home - rampant gang violence in the San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. and other parts of Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. and Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, . The latest tale in this awful saga came over the weekend, after Cecilia Cortez of Sylmar made the tragic mistake of opening her son Gregorio's 16th birthday party to the public. Earlier in the week, Gregorio and his housemate house·mate n. One who shares a house with another. Noun 1. housemate - someone who resides in the same house with you , Chris Lara, had passed out 1,000 fliers promoting the event. Mindful mind·ful adj. Attentive; heedful: always mindful of family responsibilities. See Synonyms at careful. mind of the Northeast Valley's gang problem, the family took steps to keep the party safe, serving no alcohol and stationing security guards to frisk guests on their way in. That turned out not to be enough. Some half-dozen gang members pushed their way past the guards and into the party. In short order, a fight began, one that ended in gunshots - and the dead bodies of two innocent guests. That's two more victims on a rapidly expanding list. Homicides and gang violence have exploded in the Valley this year - up 60 percent in the Los Angeles Police Department's Foothill Division, and a whopping 200 percent in Van Nuys alone. And it's not even summer yet, when temperatures spike and, if history is any indication, so do the number of killings. Citywide, homicides are up a more modest, but still troubling, 5.1 percent, while gang killings have increased by 11.4 percent. What those numbers tell us is that while the upsurge in gang violence is a citywide problem, it's hitting the Valley harder than anywhere else. And that's not entirely surprising. Beleaguered be·lea·guer tr.v. be·lea·guered, be·lea·guer·ing, be·lea·guers 1. To harass; beset: We are beleaguered by problems. 2. To surround with troops; besiege. by the Los Angeles Police Department's perpetual shortage of cops, Chief William Bratton has tried to address the city's manifold manifold In mathematics, a topological space (see topology) with a family of local coordinate systems related to each other by certain classes of coordinate transformations. Manifolds occur in algebraic geometry, differential equations, and classical dynamics. crime problems by shifting officers from one hot spot to another. So when cops were sent to fight gangs in South Los Angeles South Los Angeles is the official name for a large geographic and cultural area lying to the southwest and southeast of downtown Los Angeles, California. The area was formerly called South Central Los Angeles, and is still sometimes called South Central. , their absence left the Valley even more poorly covered than usual. When cops are away, the gangs will play - which, in their case, means killing. The problem obviously isn't Bratton's fault, but the numbers suggest that the ongoing game of musical cops isn't working. They also also make Bratton's goal of reducing homicides by 20 percent look ever more like a pipe dream. At this point, we'll be lucky to end 2004 with no more carnage that we saw in 2003. There's no easy answer to this problem, but there are some clear steps that need to be taken if Los Angeles will ever permanently reverse the trend of gang violence. The LAPD 1. LAPD - Link Access Procedure on the D channel. 2. LAPD - Los Angeles Police Department. needs more officers. The city needs more and better programs for at-risk youths. And neighborhoods, parents and community groups must work together to reform the culture that feeds the gang epidemic. To win the war on gangs, all of Los Angeles must go on the offensive. As the weekend's slayings show, simply not belonging to a gang or even hiring security guards isn't enough to ensure anyone's safety. And it's intolerable that ours is a city in which teens' birthday parties can so easily turn into homicide scenes. |
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