 George S. Cardona, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. |
Criminal activity by street gangs is a significant and long-term problem in the Central District of California, which encompasses 7 counties and a population of more than 18 million. In Los Angeles County alone, conservative estimates put the number of separate street gangs at approximately 1,000 and the number of individual street gang members at somewhere between 80,000 and 100,000. Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Ventura Counties are estimated to be home to approximately 40,000 to 60,000 more gang members.
The district's gangs are entrenched, territorial, and often multigenerational. Street gangs in the district engage in narcotics trafficking at the wholesale and retail levels, as well as extortion and money laundering. The gangs commit violent crimes both to extend and defend their other illegal activities and their so-called turf. Gang members also participate in well-organized robbery crews that engage in violent takeover-style robberies of banks, financial institutions, and other businesses. As a result of their violent activities, criminal street gangs are believed to be the driving force for the homicide rate in the district.
Street gang violence often encompasses innocent victims. In May 2006, Mynesha Crenshaw, age 11, was in her family's apartment in San Bernardino making tacos for Sunday dinner with her family when stray bullets from a gang shootout killed her and wounded her 15-year-old sister. And in December 2006, just before Christmas, in a neighborhood no more than a mile from Los Angeles's federal courthouse, Charupha Wongwisetrisi, age 9, was struck in the head and killed by a bullet from a gang shootout across the street. The bullet came through a wall into the kitchen where she was playing while her mother washed dishes.
If these types of incidents were not enough, several recent disturbing trends have increased the urgency for addressing the district's gang problem. First, after a 5-year downturn in gang-related crime, statistical data showed a sharp increase in gang-related crime in 2006 in many parts of the city of Los Angeles. San Bernardino, similarly, has seen recent increases in gang-related violent crimes. Second, certain of the district's gangs, such as 18th Street and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), have demonstrated increased organization, with growing ties to violent and well-entrenched prison gangs, most notably the Mexican Mafia (also known as La Eme). These gangs increasingly appear to be involved in protection rackets that resemble more traditional organized crime. Third, certain gangs appear to be committing more race-related acts of violence against non-gang members in efforts to preserve their turf from perceived incursions by residents or visitors of a different race.
Lest other areas of the country dismiss this district's gang problem as something unique, it is important to recognize that Los Angeles is a "source city" for gangs and gang members, meaning that Los Angeles-based gangs have migrated, and continue to migrate, to other communities throughout the country. For example, members and cliques of the Los Angeles-based 18th Street and MS-13 gangs have migrated all over California, the states of both the Southwest Border and the Pacific Northwest, and as far east as New York and Virginia. These gangs also have a significant presence in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and El Salvador. Federal prosecutions have also tracked Los Angeles-based gang members from various factions of the Bloods and Crips to communities all over the United States, including cities in Virginia, New York, Texas, Indiana, Oklahoma, and North Carolina. Where these gangs migrate, they typically bring with them increased levels of crime and violence.
This district is fortunate to have local law enforcement partners with experience and expertise in addressing violent gang crime. For example, in Los Angeles County, both the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) have experienced gang detectives and officers who know the various gangs and gang members and are dedicated to investigating and prosecuting gang crime. Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura Counties similarly have dedicated gang crime detectives and officers.
In addition, Los Angeles County has two programs that have proved successful in addressing gang crime. First, at six locations in the county where gang violence has been particularly problematic, local law enforcement has implemented the Community Law Enforcement and Recovery (CLEAR) Program. This grant-funded program brings together all of the relevant law enforcement components (i.e., police, prosecutors, probation, and parole) at regular meetings to coordinate intensive enforcement efforts within the designated CLEAR Program target area. Coupled with these enforcement efforts are gang intervention efforts directed at diverting at-risk youth from gang involvement. To ensure that community concerns are accounted for, each CLEAR Program site has a Community Impact Team that includes community members and works with the other site partners to prioritize community problems and develop community-based strategies. The sites also work closely with local schools and parents to identify gang members and address gang crime being committed in and around schools. The CLEAR Program has well-established data reporting criteria, with statistical analysis demonstrating its success in reducing violent gang crime.
Second, the City Attorney's Office in Los Angeles has obtained civil gang injunctions in a variety of areas claimed by some of the city's most active and violent gangs, including the Bounty Hunter Bloods, Grape Street Crips, Shoreline Crips, 18th Street, MS-13, and Avenues street gangs. These injunctions proscribe a wide range of activities that, though not in and of themselves illegal, are used by these gangs to obstruct law enforcement efforts and to intimidate and maintain control over the areas they claim as their turf. Enforced through criminal contempt, these injunctions have provided law enforcement with an additional tool with which to work with community members to take back their neighborhoods.
Federal law enforcement in this district works closely with its local partners. The majority of gang enforcement is accomplished through task forces, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) Safe Streets Violent Crime Task Force, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives's (ATF's) Violent Crime Impact Team, the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA's) Metropolitan Enforcement Team, and several local task forces addressing gang activity in particular areas of the district. These task forces seek to complement local efforts, using a variety of federal criminal statutes to obtain lengthy federal sentences for gang leaders. The district has pursued a number of RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) prosecutions against the leaders of gangs that engage in organized violence, such as 18th Street and La Eme. Federal and local partnerships are crucial to success in these prosecutions. For example, after the murder of a Burbank police officer and a 16-year-old homicide witness by members of the Vineland Boys, a street gang centered in Burbank (in the San Fernando Valley), a task force comprising members of six local police departments, as well as agents from the FBI, DEA, U.S. Marshals Service, and Internal Revenue Service, engaged in an 18-month investigation that culminated in a RICO indictment charging 49 members of the gang with a variety of narcotics and violent crimes. To date, 38 defendants have been convicted, 9 following a jury trial; of the 9 convicted at trial, 1 has been sentenced to life in prison, another faces a mandatory life sentence, 6 have received sentences of between 15 and 40 years, and 1 remains to be sentenced with a mandatory minimum of 10 years. Trial for three other defendants on charges carrying the death penalty that arise from the murder of the 16-year-old witness will begin later this year. The net result of this investigation has been the dismantling of this gang's leadership.
In addition to RICO, federal narcotics and firearms statutes, which carry significant minimum sentences, are also used to address gang activity. For example, a recent FBI, LAPD, and LASD task force investigation of the Blood Stone Villains, a gang based in the Newton Division area of Los Angeles, using undercover drug purchases and federal and state search warrants resulted in arrests of 28 defendants, with 16 being convicted on federal charges and receiving sentences ranging from 51 months to 27 years. And in December 2006, a 7-month investigation by a DEA-led task force culminated in the arrests of 45 gang members believed to be major suppliers of methamphetamine in San Bernardino and its surrounding area.
Federal civil rights statutes have also been used where gang crimes are racially motivated. For example, in August 2006, in a case arising from an investigation conducted by an FBI-led task force, four members of the Avenues, a Latino street gang centered in Northeast Los Angeles, were convicted of a series of violent crimes and murders committed against African-Americans. The evidence at trial showed that these crimes were motivated by the gang's desire to keep African-Americans out of the neighborhood claimed by the gang. These four gang members were subsequently sentenced to life without parole.
Though joint federal-local enforcement efforts have been successful, the scope and nature of the gang problem in the district is such that enforcement alone is not enough. Both LAPD Chief William Bratton and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca have publicly acknowledged that arrests alone cannot solve the city's long-standing gang problem. In January of this year, the Advancement Project, a study group financed by the city of Los Angeles, released a report calling for an initiative similar to the Marshall Plan used to rebuild post-World War II Germany to rebuild gang-plagued communities and provide young people with jobs and other alternatives to gang involvement. The Mayor of Los Angeles has agreed with the report's conclusions, calling for the development of a comprehensive anti-gang strategy that "takes into account prevention, intervention, and suppression."
A number of federal programs already up and running in the district have recognized the need to couple enforcement with prevention and intervention efforts. Of the district's five active Weed and Seed sites, four are based in areas where the primary issue is gang violence. These sites have coupled enforcement with gang prevention programs ranging from gang resistance education for elementary school students to summer job programs for teens. The district is also home to a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) grant-funded Gang Reduction Project that focuses on a portion of the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles, which is home to five violent Latino street gangs. Led by the Mayor's office, the steering committee that oversees this project includes local and federal law enforcement, a variety of community-based organizations involved in gang prevention and intervention, and community residents. Suppression is centered on a gang injunction in place against one of the most violent area gangs, Varrio Nueva Estrada, and a CLEAR Program site that is coextensive with the project's target area. Coupled with these suppression efforts are a variety of prevention programs, including truancy prevention, a teen court, social services, and job programs.
A similar model is used in the district's Public Housing Safety Initiative (PHSI). This program, grant funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and DOJ, is based in an area centered on the Jordan Downs housing development in Watts, which is the turf of the Grape Street Crips, historically a particularly violent gang. Grant funding is being used to install a surveillance camera system intended to deter gang activity in the areas covered by the cameras, which include in particular corridors used by children to walk to and from school. Coupled with this is an increased use of community policing techniques, with a team of LAPD officers specifically assigned to the housing development in an effort to break down barriers of distrust that have developed between residents and officers over the years. In addition, a coalition of social service providers staffs a one-stop location within the housing development to refer residents to a variety of social services, including childcare, tutoring, English as a second language classes, and job training and placement programs. Following PHSI's implementation, violent crime in and around Jordan Downs has continued to decrease, even while violent crime in a neighboring housing development has increased.
Most recently, the district has been selected as one of six sites to implement DOJ's comprehensive anti-gang initiative. The target area for this program is also Watts and includes Jordan Downs and its neighboring housing developments, Nickerson Gardens and Imperial Courts, each of which is home to a violent gang (the Bounty Hunter Bloods and PJ Crips, respectively). Enforcement in this program will build on the PHSI project, with the expansion of a CLEAR Program site from Jordan Downs to encompass Imperial Courts as well; enforcement of gang injunctions already in place against the Grape Street Crips and Bounty Hunter Bloods; proactive investigations by a joint federal-local task force; and expansion of the surveillance camera system from Jordan Downs to encompass other high crime areas within Watts. Prevention and reentry programs intended to complement enforcement are being designed in conjunction with local schools and parks, a variety of community groups, and residents.
This district is proud of the collaboration between federal and local law enforcement and their community partners in efforts to address the district's gang violence. We look forward to continuing these efforts as we strive to make many of the districts most violent neighborhoods safer and better places to live and work.
George S. Cardona
Acting U.S. Attorney
Central District of California