RECIPE FOR FAILURE INADEQUATE RESOURCES KEEP LAPD HANDCUFFED.

Byline: Beth Barrett and Phillip W. Browne Daily News

For three decades, police across Southern California have fought a losing war against street gangs, handcuffed by inadequate resources even as the number of gangsters exploded along with the violence, drug dealing and other crimes they bring with them.

The war began in earnest in 1975 with the creation of the Los Angeles Police Department's elite anti-gang units - a response to the Crips, Bloods and other gangs that took control of the streets in much of the inner city.

Since then, the number of gangsters has grown nearly 10 times faster than the region's population, while the resources used to battle them have grown only modestly, or in some cases even declined.

And many communities from the high desert in San Bernardino County to the coastal plain of Ventura County failed to respond by hiring more police or creating intervention programs as the tentacles of gangs spread throughout Southern California.

Fontana police Chief Larry Clark said his city and others experiencing high growth naively ignored the warning signs and allowed gangs to take hold so they now face problems similar to those in poor inner-city areas.

``If you're real honest, the public put its head in the sand, and said, we don't have a gang problem. By the time they realized you have to do something, it was a major issue and we were behind the curve. That has a lot to do with it.''

Added West Covina police Chief Frank Wills: ``They are in every city in Southern California, and any city that would deny it is being disingenuous.''

Even in Los Angeles County areas covered by the Sheriff's Department, where authorities have faced the gang problem for decades, the response has been inadequate.

In that jurisdiction, for example, authorities identified 12,000 gangsters in 1973. Today, there are about 57,000 - a nearly 400 percent increase. The population of the region, including Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties, since 1980 has climbed by 44 percent to 12.5 million.

The L.A. County Sheriff's Department has grown 44 percent from 5,786 to 8,341 since 1975, matching the region's population growth. But the Los Angeles Police Department has grown at half the rate during the same period, or by 22 percent - from 7,514 sworn officers to 9,120.

Crucial gang prosecution programs, meanwhile, have been cut along with prevention and intervention efforts even though experts are in agreement that they are key components of any successful effort to reduce the impact of gangs.

``They multiply faster than we do,'' said LAPD Deputy Chief Ron Bergmann, the San Fernando Valley's commanding officer.

``The gang replaces the family. If there's not a cohesive family, they turn to the gangs. It becomes their home.''

His boss, Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton, calls losing the war on gangs a tragedy.

``Last year, with some initiatives, we were able to have some impact on the problem, and homicides did go down, but now they're coming up ... particularly gang homicides.

``Our lack of resources, compounded by the California budget, has affected us so much that the criminal justice system is being decimated. Like in the Sheriff's Department of Los Angeles County, when we arrest people, they spend 10 percent of time in jail before being released.''

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said the region has suffered from a tax base hamstrung since 1978 by Proposition 13 and by longstanding differences among law enforcement and other agencies, particularly the LAPD, that until recently made a united front virtually impossible.

``It's a resource matter, and a coordination and a `compstatting' (computerized statistics) matter.''

In Pomona, where there have been 63 gang-related homicides since 1999, 30 to 50 gang probationers and parolees are returned to the street each month. Prisoners in the overcrowded county jail system routinely do just 10 percent of their sentence, said Pomona police Chief James Lewis.

``Gang members know that; how little they have to do.''

Lewis said after-school and other prevention programs aren't adequate, even with a doubling of the budget for local boys and girls clubs, and the fourth of 14 after-school centers about to open in the area.

``We have to do a better job with the young ones, and to keep those already lost off the streets so they don't serve as role models. We're struggling in both areas.''

In Ventura County, budget cuts led to the elimination of the Sheriff's Department's 15-person gang unit, cutbacks in patrol and early jail releases even as a major Oxnard gang, the Colonia Chiques, was becoming more violent.

``That all contributes to an increase in crime and gang violence,'' said Craig Husband, Ventura County undersheriff.

To government leaders, gangs were simply a crime problem - not a sign of something broken in society.

Gangs flourished as poverty, family disintegration and neighborhood segregation worsened in much of the region while government along with nonprofits, religious groups, schools and sports and recreational associations responded in limited ways without effective coordination.

``The gangs weren't as violent; they weren't as involved in drugs,'' Bergmann said. ``They weren't as visible.''

When Bergmann moved to South Bureau as a sergeant in 1979, he said, the Bloods-Crips wars were under way. There were only a handful of gang operations at that time controlling the drug, prostitution and other criminal trades on the streets that gave the gangs their names.

``I can think of a half-dozen in the late `70s and early `80s,'' Bergmann said. ``Now there are 100 at least. Now every street has a 'Rollin'-something.'''

The city now counts 11,257 gangsters in 109 Crip gangs, and 4,505 in 43 Blood gangs, according to LAPD gang statistics.

The turf wars were driven by the rise in the profitable narcotics traffic, particularly crack cocaine, as well as by changing immigration patterns that escalated racial tensions between African-Americans and Latinos.

Black gangs resented the change in demographics and preyed on Hispanics in street robberies and violent attacks.

Research by George Tita, assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, Department of Criminology, Law and Society, found gang-on-gang confrontations account for nearly one-third of killings, followed by the escalation of arguments.

Still, the majority of homicide victims in gang neighborhoods has remained African-Americans, Tita concluded in his study, ``Gang Homicide in L.A., 1981-2001.''

``For most of the period, the number of homicide victims in both groups (African-American and Hispanic) has risen and fallen in tandem, and the Latino rate has consistently been approximately 2.5 to three times lower than the black rate,'' Tita wrote.

``The growth of homicide in Southeast and other communities of the city of Los Angeles that still contain a sizable population of African-Americans is exclusively the result of black-on-black violence, mostly concentrated within gang disputes.''

In 1975, the LAPD responded with its first focused anti-gang detail, Total Resources Against Street Hoodlums, in Hollenbeck Division.

When the TRASH acronym didn't sit well, the units were renamed Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, or CRASH.

The units emphasized gang intelligence, with ``I cards,'' or paper cards containing information on each member - the forerunner to today's sophisticated Cal-Gang, a mainly intrastate computer gang tracking system.

Under former Chief Daryl F. Gates, ``Operation Hammer'' was launched in 1988 after eight people were killed at a party in South L.A. Over several years, the sweeps resulted in the arrest of more than 25,000 people suspected of gang activity.

Most of the arrests were for minor offenses or probation or parole violation, and many were never charged. While some community members may have silently applauded from behind barred doors and windows, others complained the LAPD was behaving like an ``occupying army.''

Today, Gates says he doubts residents will ``tolerate what we have to do to end it.''

``But if there was any time we could get rid of gangs, it's now. We have a war on terror, and this is terror. If I were chief of police now, I would be coming down on them like terrorists.''

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice said communities looked at the cops in the Gates era as another gang with one notable difference.

``They could kill you legally. ... It was a Constitution-free zone.''

That image wasn't helped by the use of military-style vehicles like the B-100, an armored vehicle with a battering ram mounted on the front and used to break into heavily fortified buildings, particularly crack cocaine houses.

The defining moment for many was the Aug. 1, 1988, Dalton Avenue drug raid in South Los Angeles when more than 80 officers rampaged through four apartments and beat their residents while seizing an ounce of cocaine and 6 ounces of marijuana. None of the residents was charged with a crime.

Two secret high-level LAPD reports compiled after the raid criticized Gates' war against gangs, portraying it as a managerial fiasco. The reports showed that gang officers were uncertain about the chain of command and that intelligence gathered by the task forces of up to 1,000 was not critiqued by senior officers.

One lawsuit alone involved 52 people and cost taxpayers $3.5 million.

It was not until the 1991 beating of black motorist Rodney King and the riots that followed the next year that embarrassed civic leaders began to seriously push for reform of the LAPD.

``The riots were really the beginning of making the department receptive to community concerns,'' Bergmann said.

As the LAPD and other law enforcement agencies throughout the Southland were struggling with their images, resources and recruitment, the gangs were having no trouble filling their ranks and upgrading their arsenals.

Semiautomatic and automatic rifles became a standard feature, augmenting the sawed-off shotgun and the handgun.

CRASH units, like the one corrupt cop Rafael Perez was part of at Rampart Division, were the front line but lacked departmentwide uniformity, and handled more of the drug busts. CRASH officers weren't given the same background scrutiny, including polygraphs, that narcotics officers are.

The Rampart scandal in 1999 resulted in the disbanding of the CRASH units amid another round of scrutiny and investigation of a deeply demoralized LAPD, and was central to the federal court consent decree imposed on the department. More than 100 people convicted in part on the testimony of Perez, his partner Nino Durden or other implicated cops were let out of jail. The city paid tens of millions of dollars to settle lawsuits and spent more to reform the department.

Police commanders say the current LAPD force of 9,120 officers to both patrol the city and fight gangland murders and violence is ``thin and dangerous'' and that at least 1,800 more cops are needed.

``If we had the time and resources, we'd have a better commitment to being a little more than reacting to crimes of violence,'' said LAPD South Bureau Cmdr. Jim Tatreau.

The key, he said, is to add enough total cops to the department so that gang units can be beefed up too, without jeopardizing the daily response to all violent crime and other radio calls.

``We rob Peter to pay Paul.''

Similar shortages of officers and often equipment plague police agencies throughout the region. In Los Angeles County, a half-percent sales tax referendum on the November ballot would allow 5,000 cops and deputies to be hired over time.

``The beauty of that is that all boats rise in that high tide,'' LAPD Chief William J. Bratton said. ``With that we get enough police resources to truly, for the first time in the history of this city and county, have an impact everywhere at the same time. This city and this county have never had those type of resources.''

In South Bureau, with 114 gang-related homicides through the end of the summer, the gang details, known as Gang Impact Teams, have been beefed up from ten officers and a sergeant per division to about 30 officers and three sergeants.

Still, when violence will erupt can't be predicted and on some days there is no gang unit coverage in parts of the city so patrol officers pick up any gang-related crimes. And some of the toughest areas get less attention today than they did two decades ago.

There are no foot patrols, for example, in the five housing projects - the fortresses for rival gangs - in Southeast Division, where in the mid- 1980s officers participated in barbecues and other events with community members.

``Relationships were better then,'' Tatreau said. ``It's going to be more dangerous (in the projects) until we make the commitment. It's definitely more dangerous than when I was a lieutenant there in 1985.''

Lt. Roger Murphy, watch commander of patrol at 77th, calls the strategy of attacking gangs with an understaffed department ``triage police work'' because officers are constantly being redeployed based on the highest priorities of the moment.

Last year, the department concentrated resources in 77th Division - GIT teams and a Community Safety Operation Task Force of about 100 gang and other officers plus federal agents - and homicides were cut nearly in half. This year, without the same resources, homicides are back up by about 37 percent.

``If we could impact and deter some of the outrageous violence, that could cause a different feeling among young people in the community ... they don't think they're going to live that long.''

Beth Barrett, [phone]

beth.barrett(at)dailynews.com

FUNDING CUTBACKS

Funding of the tools needed to fight gangs has steadily eroded throughout Southern California in recent years, even as authorities have come to recognize it as the region's No. 1 crime problem:

Among the major cutbacks in Los Angeles County:

--The Los Angeles sheriff's Vital Information and Directional Alternatives intervention program that put 1,700 kids at 11 regional sites through intensive counseling, mentoring and living skills programs ended in July 2003 for lack of funding.

``I had 150 parents picket my office they were so distraught,'' Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said. For many families living in neighborhoods with up to 20 percent unemployment, and from broken homes, VIDA was their kids' best chance for ``structure in their lives.''

The $2.5 million-a-year program was sacrificed after the department suffered budget cuts of $166 million over two years.

--LAPD's Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, founded in Los Angeles in 1983 to keep kids out of gangs and off drugs, was essentially dismantled in April so its 15 officers could be reassigned to other duties.

Mayor James Hahn has authorized LAPD to add 30 officers next year - not enough even to staff the new Valley station, after losing a bid last year to add 320.

--District Attorney Steve Cooley's highly successful Community Law Enforcement and Recovery (CLEAR) program, which assigns prosecutors to handle gang cases from start to finish, along with dedicated police, detectives and city attorneys, in selected communities has been decimated as federal and state funds have dried up.

From a peak of $9 million in 1998 with the addition of state funds, the program this year relied on just $570,000 in federal funds. Consequently, six CLEAR sites - including Foothill and Devonshire in the San Fernando Valley - are on the verge of closing.

The number of prosecutors in the county's hard-core gang division has dropped from 62 to 45, said Nancy Lidamore, the division's head deputy.

CLEAR ``tries to restore the community to the citizens,'' Lidamore said.

--There no longer are city housing officers or Los Angeles Police Department foot officers patrolling the five projects in South Los Angeles, each home to entrenched, feuding gangs.

--Pomona - where CHP Officer Thomas Steiner was shot outside the courthouse by 16-year-old Valentino Arenas, a Pomona 12th Street wannabe, on April 21; and where there have been 50 gang-related homicides since 1999 - has a gang unit of just two full-time officers.

After Steiner was killed, 450 law enforcement officers from 26 agencies raided 140 homes, arresting 51 people. The CHP has said it will loan up to 35 officers to help patrol city streets.

--The San Gabriel Valley's Valinda Corridor, where four gangs accounted for 40 shootings during a 12-month stretch during the late 1990s, has retained the task force created in response, but the hotline established in 1999 is gone, as are 28 Community Oriented Policing Services deputies.

--In Long Beach, with 137 gang-related murders since 1999, the police's Athletic League is worried it won't be able to sustain services to 1,000 kids at its three centers.

--The city of Los Angeles' L.A. Bridges I program, created in 1996 to keep at-risk middle school kids from joining gangs, has remained fairly steady at about $9.1 million a year for 27 middle schools, four of which are in the San Fernando Valley.

Funding for L.A. Bridges II, which funds gang intervention programs, including efforts to stop gang members from retaliating after a violent incident, was to be cut from $4 million to $3 million for next fiscal year. In response to protests from the groups, council members asked that $600,000 be restored.

Communities in Schools, the North Hills-based nonprofit run by William ``Blinky'' Rodriguez, whose organization brokers gang truces, while working with communities, schools and the LAPD to keep kids out of gangs, said cutting programs based on reductions in crime and violence penalizes programs that succeed.

``The better job you do, the less you get,'' Rodriguez said.

Daily News

CAPTION(S):

11 photos, box, map

Photo:

(1 -- color) Los Angeles Police Department gang patrol Officer Matt Clymer searches suspected Bryant Street gang member Edgar Moreira on Parthenia Street in Pacoima. Moreira was arrested on suspicion of trespassing and probation violation.

(2 -- color) Deputy Russell Helbing examines a stolen gun recovered from a gang member in Compton.

(3) LAPD South East Division anti-gang Officer Mel Hernandez examines graffiti in a South Los Angeles alley. Gangs use graffiti to mark their territory, often including nicknames of members and declarations of loyalty, as well as threats against rival gangs or a description of the criminal acts in which the gang has been involved.

(4) A suspected gang member is detained in Compton; he was not taken into custody.

(5) Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Gang Enforcement Team Deputy Jose Gonzalez approaches a vehicle with suspected gang members inside.

(6 -- color) Sheriff's deputies and Compton firefighters tend to a shooting victim at 142nd Street and Hillford Avenue in Compton.

(7 -- color) Deputy Jose Gonzalez of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Gang Enforcement Team detains a suspected Nutty Block Crips gang member. When deputies approached a group suspected of smoking marijuana, some of the men ran.

(8 -- color) LAPD gang enforcement officers collect evidence including bags of marijuana and cash, at the scene of a shooting in South Los Angeles.

(9 -- color) Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies look for evidence at the scene of a five-victim drive-by shooting on Bradfield Avenue in Compton. One of the shooting victims died later at the hospital.

(10 -- color) A policeman holds a bag of crack cocaine recovered from a suspected gang member. Gangs often use drug sales to finance their operations, and much of the bloodshed associated with gangs comes from protecting their ``turf'' from competition.

(11 -- color) LAPD officers with the 77th Division in South Los Angeles detain suspected gang members who were fighting at a party after the police were called in to break it up.

Photos by Hans Gutknecht/Daily News

Box:

FUNDING CUTBACKS (see text)

Map:

2004 gang-related murders for the city of L.A.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Police Department

Warren Huskey/Staff Artist