The Daily News of Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES — Gang members in the central San Fernando Valley were put on notice this week: Stop the violence, or law enforcement will come down hard on not just you, but your entire gang.
Police, prosecutors and community activists sat down 18 members from nine gangs in and around LAPD’s Mission Division during an intervention as part of a new initiative dubbed Operation Ceasefire that launched Tuesday night.
“It’s going to be like nothing you’ve ever seen before,” Capt. Bill Scott, commanding officer of Mission Division, told the group gathered at a conference room in Providence Holy Cross Medical Center. “It’s going to be relentless. You guys have a choice: Put down the guns, put down the weapons, stop shooting, or you’re going to have extra attention go out to your gangs.”
The intervention comes at a time when gang violence across the Valley is down 2 percent compared to this time last year.
But with a recent spike in gang shootings concentrated in Panorama City and North Hills pushing gang violence up 5 percent in the Mission Division - seven more crimes than the same period last year - police officials are hoping to clamp down even more by warning gangs of the consequences while connecting them with social service providers if they want to go straight.
With the next killing, however, LAPD vowed to descend on all gangs involved, as they did with a gang enforcement task force on May 4 in response to the shootings in mid- to late-April. Targeting Blythe, Columbus and Langdon street gangs and using gang injunctions, they conducted 19 parole or probation searches, stopped 75 pedestrians and vehicles, made 18 arrests and recovered one gun.
As of May 28, 40 gang shootings were reported in the Mission Division, with 21 people wounded. Three have died.
Most gang members seemed to pay close attention to the speakers, some even sitting forward in their seats, Scott said.
Still, others slumped and one even fell asleep, according to Mark Thomas, a 42-year-old former gang member from Pacoima who served a 20-year stint in prison for selling cocaine.
“Some people just don’t care,” Thomas said. “Some troublemakers go (in and out of prison and never learn their lesson).”
Initiative 15 years old
The operation, carried out in conjunction with criminologists from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, was first instituted in Boston in 1996. Murders were cut by 50 percent and youth homicides there were cut by two-thirds. The initiative has since been applied in dozens of cities.
“This is not about getting people out of a gang, it’s not about getting them to stop being criminal,” said Vaughn Crandall, deputy director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay. “It’s about stopping shooting and killing. What they tell themselves is that disrespect must be responded to with violence, and going to prison or getting killed doesn’t matter.”
An earlier attempt at Operation Ceasefire was launched in LAPD’s Hollenbeck Division in 1999 in conjunction with the RAND Corp. Gang crime and violent crime dropped, but the initiative sputtered after officials deviated from the intervention plan and the social services component didn’t materialize, according to a U.S. Justice Department report.
This time, with 18 months of planning and support from community activists and the city’s Gang Reduction and Youth Development Office, police are hoping to be more successful, with an eye toward possibly expanding the initiative to other parts of the city.
“We are very hopeful,” said Capt. John Romero of Mission Division, adding that the plan included identifying other at-risk groups and staging more call-ins. “We think we can cut gang crimes significantly.”
Getting the message out
The gang members were called into the meeting as part of parole or probation requirements and were encouraged to bring the message back to their gangs. Nine of 18 gangs called in showed up, and parole violations may be possible for those who skipped the meeting, police officials said.
Speakers included the mother of a teenage girl killed in gang crossfire, who pleaded tearfully for the violence to stop as she spoke of how her 16-year-old was shot eight times. City, county and federal prosecutors warned of zero-tolerance and stiff prison sentences. A trauma surgeon, dejected by the number of shooting victims, said he was tired of telling families of deaths and seeing mothers cry. Reformed gang members spoke about redemption and offered help in getting out of street life.
The mugshots of 25 murdered gang members were projected on a screen, followed by a photo of four-month-old Andrew Garcia, who was fatally shot in the head by gang fire as he was being bottlefed in a car in Van Nuys in 2009.
Alfonzo Landa, who was convicted of attempted carjacking in that case, later pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter for Andrew’s death and three counts of attempted murder. He was sentenced to 30 years to life in state prison.
‘Something has to change’
Federal prosecutors also warned that those convicted could be sent to penitentiaries anywhere in the U.S., effectively cutting off family contact.
“Your family will have to fly to see you,” said Jennifer Corbet, a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “Your little kids will graduate, people die, other people go to prison. You don’t see them.”
Most quickly left as soon as the session was over, but several stayed to speak with members of community outreach groups, aimed at providing reintegration through job training or family services.
“It has a lot of potential,” said Jeanette Chavez, a community activist with Justice for Homicide Victims. “I hope they do change their lives for the better.”
Others just hoped that the violence would stop.
“However way they go about it, something’s gotta happen,” said Thomas, the former gang member.
“Something has to change,” said Thomas, who lingered to talk to anti-gang officials. “If you get these individuals interested enough, it can happen.”
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