Community Grapples with Gang Problem at Workshop

By Gene Williams
Staff Writer

March 20 -- Although Saturday’s Community Forum on Gang and Youth Violence was essentially a progress report on commitments made a year ago, it seems that Santa Monica is still grappling to understand the problem.

Certainly the death of Eddie Lopez -- a 15-year-old honor student shot down by suspected gang members two and a half weeks earlier -- made the question “why?” all the more urgent.

Lopez’s name was mentioned several times during the meeting in the John Adams Middle School cafeteria, where top City, school, businesses and community leaders explained to a crowd that numbered in the hundreds what’s being done.

The list of accomplishments is impressive -- from job opportunities to counseling to educational programs that get kids into college.

But it was the testimony of those who grew up where gangs are a problem that set the tone of the meeting – people like Jaime Cruz, a teacher at Santa Monica College and Olympic High School.

Like others that day, Cruz stressed the importance of community in keeping young people out of trouble.

“People believed in me,” said Cruz who grew up in the Pico Neighborhood and was wounded in a gang shooting. “They accepted me. They embraced me.

“Once we begin to look at each other as people, then perhaps we can see the fruits of our labor,” Cruz said.

But while officials and the public seemed to share much philosophical common ground, some residents were sharply critical, particularly of the police department and the school district.

“This community policing I keep hearing about, I don’t know what that means,” said Irma Carranza of the Pico Neighborhood Association. (see story)

“I want the police driving down the street to ask my son, ‘How are you doing?’ not ‘What are you doing?’” Carranza said.

“I don’t want the chief sitting in the front seats of my son’s funeral,” she said. “I want him to front my son while he’s still alive.”

There was also concern over safety at Santa Monica High School.

Racial tension between Latinos and Blacks resulted in a lockdown of the school last year, and brought police back recently to investigate a case of widespread hate graffiti that included some gang tagging.

“A number of teachers and a number of students at SAMOHI said they saw it coming,” said a Sunset Park resident who only identified himself as “Jim.”

“I’ve heard it from really respected teachers and I’ve heard it from students,” he said, “so you better start doing something because it’s really a problem.”

Perhaps part of the frustration stems from a realization by many that Santa Monica’s gang problem cannot be solved locally, that it is part of a much larger regional problem. Police educators and elected officials are increasingly cautioning not to expect too much.
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During a speech filled with facts and figures, Police Chief James T. Butts Jr. said there are only about 100 Santa Monica based gang members, of which about 50 live in town.

As long as they stay on their own turf, they’re not too hard to handle, Butts said. But when they do something elsewhere, they invite retaliation, and that’s when the real trouble starts, he said.

Gang members in the city of Los Angeles number nearly 39,000, Butts said.

They drive in and “indiscriminately shoot at anyone fitting the profile of a member of the rival gang,” Butts said.

Of 14 gang murders in Santa Monica during the last nine years, suspects in eleven cases were from outside the city, Butts said. Seven of the victims had no gang affiliation and six belonged to Los Angeles based gangs, he said.

Butts talked about a three pronged approach to the gang problem -- prevention, intervention and enforcement.

Prevention is the ultimate solution, he said.

“Gangs are not something our children are drawn to,” he said. “Gangs are something they flee to when their lives lack hope.”

That thought seemed to be backed up by City Manager Lamont Ewell, who talked about his own upbringing when stressing the importance of community.

Growing up in South Central Los Angeles, a child in a single-parent family that sometimes had a hard time making ends meet, Ewell explained what had kept him on the right path.

“Somehow I managed to stay out of trouble,” Ewell said, “because there was always someone from the community to guide me.”

During the two-and-half hour meeting, City and community leaders cited many programs now underway or soon to begin at the recently re-opened Virginia Avenue Park, which is serving as a hub of activities aimed at keeping young people off the streets.

The improved and expanded park includes a teen center, recording studio and computer lab. The park provides no-cost education, arts and recreation programs for all ages.

Pico Neighborhood residents -- hardest hit by gang violence -- account for 87 percent of those who use the park, City officials said.

Soon, Virginia Avenue Park is expected to host programs run by outside non-profits, including a partnership between the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce and the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles to mentor at-risk youth, officials said.

In addition, at Memorial Park, a Community Day School for kids in trouble with the law has opened through a partnership between the school district and the Los Angeles County Probation Department.

These are only a few of the programs.

But many from the Pico Neighborhood vented their frustration at what they see as years of neglect by City government.

“For many years people have seen this as a Pico Neighborhood problem,” explained Maria Loya, president of the Pico Neighborhood Association. “This has led people in that area to feel alone and abandoned.”

“This is not just a Pico Neighborhood issue,” she said. “This is a Santa Monica issue.”

Oscar De La Torre, director of the Pico Youth and Family Center, questioned the City’s budget priorities.

“In Santa Monica some bearded men were seen photographing the Pier, and suddenly we got $2 million to fight terror,” said De La Torre, whose program’s yearly budget of some $300,000 was recently reduced.

“Thirty-seven dead would not be tolerated North of Montana,” said De La Torre, referring to those killed by gang violence in the Pico Neighborhood since 1987.

Still, most of the speakers Saturday were optimistic, if somewhat guardedly.

“What happened in Santa Monica is that we got away from community. We got away from family and listening to elders,” said Gil Bautista, a supervisor at the Los Angeles County Probation Department.

“That circle has come around,” Bautista said. “We are here building a new community. You guys have really set the foundation for progress. Everything is in place, but if we don’t work together we will never get to the end in our lifetime.”

Saturday morning’s meeting was to follow up on community commitments made at the last Workshop on Youth and Gang Violence in April 2005, organized by State Senator Sheila Kuehl.

Kuehl had planned to attend the Saturday meeting but canceled due to illness.