POLICE FEAR NEW WAVE OF YOUTH CRIME.

Byline: Jason Kandel Staff Writer

While crime has fallen citywide, gang-related crime has risen dramatically in some parts of the San Fernando Valley, as much as 57 percent in one area, according to the most recent police statistics.

Gang membership citywide has swelled to 65,000 this year, up from 57,000, and more than 400 gangs operate across the city, police said.

``We've had dramatic decreases in crime overall, but not in gang crimes. That concerns me,'' said Valley Bureau Deputy Chief Michael Bostic.

Citywide, crime has fallen by about 10 percent, but authorities attribute the rise in gang crime in some areas to a new generation of gang members with no allegiance to a truce seven years ago.

Complicating the battle against gangs is the Rampart Division scandal, which police said has hurt efforts to win community cooperation and has led to the dissolution of the department's anti-gang units.

Police and prosecutors said the key to reversing gang crime lies in reaching the new and would-be gang members before they commit crimes.

``Right now we're just reacting to the gang shootings and gang murders. But our job is prevention,'' Bostic said. ``We've got to get them young, and work the full diversion programs for the wannabes.

``All areas of gang crime are up a little and that concerns us because that's the one area that continues to creep up on us every year.''

It is a block-by-block battle, where one street is plagued by problems and the next one over is not, police said.

The worst area in the Valley, bounded by the Golden State Freeway, Terra Bella Street and the Pacoima Diversion Channel, in the Foothill Division saw a 57 percent increase in crime from 1998 to 1999.

``This area has been historically involved with gangs,'' said Los Angeles Police Lt. Gary Nanson, of the Valley Bureau Special Enforcement Section, Gang Section. ``When kids grow up in the neighborhood, generation after generation, they just think that's a normal way of life. They don't know any difference.

``There are a lot of efforts out there that do turn a lot of kids away from gangs, but there are still others who we don't reach or who are not willing to buy into the programs.''

From one neighborhood to the next, the level of gang crime varies. Just on the other side of the Golden State Freeway, the crime rate dropped by 21 percent.

And in the heart of an area covered by a gang injunction, along Blythe Street, crime has dropped by 8.2 percent.

The Los Angeles City Attorney's Office has won eight gang injunctions across the city, including two in the Valley, on Blythe and Langdon streets in North Hills. Prosecutors are going to court this week to fight for another injunction, this one in Venice.

``We have to make sure that we don't let up on enforcement against these criminal street gangs who are terrorizing neighborhoods,'' said City Attorney James Hahn.

Even with the order to disband the department's anti-gang crime unit, Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, injunctions against gangs will be enforced, Hahn said.

``We still expect LAPD to enforce the gang injunctions,'' he said. ``We may see some new faces. There may be some new officers. But we're still in the gang injunction business.''

Members of the Valley CRASH unit will be reassigned.

``Those officers will move to patrol,'' Chief Bernard C. Parks told a group of Valley residents at a Town Hall meeting last week in North Hills, ``while we revamp CRASH.''

Parks vowed to audit all gang files, establish new gang enforcement units, and set new training guidelines and requirements for gang officers. The review could take up to 60 days.

While the LAPD reinvents its battle strategy, the gangs are reconstituting themselves with youngsters.

A rising tide of young gangbangers, who were barely entering elementary school when a Valley peace treaty was brokered in 1993, is partly to blame for this latest wave of gang violence.

``These new young gangs have a lot to prove. They're more dangerous than the older gangs. The truce is definitely gone,'' said LAPD gang Detective Candice Schmidt, of the Foothill Division.

On the streets, word of the treaty's death is certain.

``I had one guy come up to me and say, 'Hey, man, there ain't no peace here,' '' said Danny Ambriz, 46, a former gang member from Norwalk who counsels youths 7 to 14 years old at Pacoima middle schools with Communities in Schools, a dropout prevention program.

Police regularly patrol the streets in squad cars and helicopters. Foothill cops have been focusing their efforts near Astoria Street, where they say gangs are fighting over turf.

``It's funny, you got these guys, some of them are 30 years old, and they're chasing around these little guys,'' Schmidt said.

For Jim Christensen, a security guard at Astoria Gardens, this is nothing new. ``It's a never-ending battle that'll go on forever.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, map, pointer

Photo:

(1) Sammy Batres, 14, sits outside a vacant house where he and fellow gang members party.

(2) Empty spray paint and beer cans litter the ground at the "Backwall," an area near the 118 Freeway in Pacoima where gang members go to party and tag.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer

Map: HOT SPOTS 

While violent crime in most gang-infested areas has subsided, a few areas are experiencing significant increases.

SOURCE: LAPD

Bradford Mar/Staff Artist

Pointer: INSIDE

--Rampart scandal shouldn't give gang members cover. VIEWPOINT