Long Beach Police Have Tough Task Rooting Out Gangs
By KELLY PUENTE | kpuente@scng.com | Orange County Register April 2, 2014 at 3:26 p.m.
Charles Bell was leaving the downtown Denny’s restaurant on Long Beach Boulevard at about 3 a.m. March 23 when he and three friends were shot in the parking lot.
Three of the men survived, but Bell, 33, of Compton, died at the scene in Long Beach’s fifth gang-related killing of the year.
Police were still searching for suspects last week.
In February, concerned residents of North Long Beach gathered for a town hall meeting to address three gang-related killings that occurred within less than two weeks.
Police have since beefed up patrols on the north side.
“This is more than just a police issue, this is a community issue,” Councilman Steve Neal said at the meeting. “We want to convene everyone and talk about how we can work together to solve the problems.”
Meanwhile, in central Long Beach, residents gathered in January for a meeting to address two gang shootings in the McBride Park area near Poly High School.
Neighbors at that meeting said children were afraid to play in the streets.
While violent crime in Long Beach is at a 41-year low, gang-related killings were on the rise last year after three years of record lows.
Officials said the spike in gang violence could be due to several factors, including cuts in police staffing and more newly released convicts on the streets as a result of the state’s prison realignment.
As gangs remain an ongoing problem in the city, law enforcement is increasingly using new technology and techniques to reduce the violence.
SCALE OF PROBLEM
Los Angeles County has long been called the “gang capital” of the nation.
In Los Angeles alone there are an estimated 450 gangs and 45,000 gang members, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Long Beach is home to about 55 known gangs and 6,000 gang members, according to the Long Beach Police Department.
In a city of roughly a half-million people, that means about 1 in every 100 is affiliated with a gang.
In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed five-year data from large cities in 17 states and named Long Beach as one of the country’s top five cities with the highest number of gang homicides.
Other cities included Los Angeles, Oklahoma City, Oakland and Newark, N.J.
In Long Beach, about 40 percent of all homicides are classified as gang-related, according to Long Beach Police Department data.
The 1990s were an especially violent era, with an average of about 26 gang killings each year.
Between 2003 and 2013, gang killings declined.
In 2010, the city saw 12 gang-related homicides, its lowest number in two decades; but by 2013, gang slayings had climbed 36 percent, to 19.
Long Beach police Cmdr. Don Wood, of the Gangs and Violent Crimes Division, said cuts in police staffing could be a reason for the increase.
In a round of budget cuts in 2012, the city slashed the department’s gang unit by more than half, from 44 personnel to 20.
Today, there are 26 personnel in the gang unit, including seven officers funded through one-time money designated for fiscal year 2014, the department said.
Wood said the cuts mean fewer officers on the streets.
“Gang members and criminals recognize the lack of coverage and are more active,” Wood wrote in an email. “The visibility of officers in the field is a powerful deterrent from committing crime.”
Despite the rise last year, Long Beach today is a much safer city than it was in the 1990s, police said.
KEEPING LOW PROFILE
“Ten years ago you wouldn’t drive down this street without backup,” said Long Beach police Detective Chris Zamora as he drove through the once-infamous Carmelitos housing project in North Long Beach.
On a recent Wednesday afternoon, the public low-income complex, once a hot spot for violence, was quiet as a trio of small girls rode scooters on the sidewalk.
Zamora, a local gang expert who has served in the Police Department for 10 years, said fewer gang members congregate in the streets and parks today thanks largely to the city’s gang injunction, which was strengthened in 2010.
As a result, he said, the streets are much quieter.
Three main gangs dominate the Los Angeles County landscape – Bloods, Crips and Sureños, who are controlled by the Mexican Mafia.
In Long Beach, dozens of smaller clique gangs are mostly under the umbrella of either Crips or Sureños.
The largest and oldest include East Side Longos, Barrio Pobre and Insane Crips.
Zamora said much of the conflict comes from the city’s diversity and location.
Outside gangs from Los Angeles and other cities frequently try to infiltrate Long Beach because of the city’s density and young population.
“We have a lot of different gangs in Long Beach, not only because it’s a diverse city, but also we’re a midway point to a lot of other cities,” Zamora said. “This is an area that’s very popular. A lot of people would love to claim Long Beach as their territory.”
Though many of the gangs are under the Sureños, they constantly fight each other over resources and territory, Zamora said, adding that Mexican Mafia bosses prefer it that way.
“The people at the top don’t care who’s fighting as long as they’re getting their money,” he said. “It’s almost encouraged because it’s that divide-and-conquer mentally.
“The Mexican Mafia is just brilliant at it,” he said. “Few organizations control so many people.”
In a disturbing trend, police said many gang members are keeping a lower profile, choosing not to get tattoos or wear clothes that would identify them.
Gangs also are becoming more innovative in the way they operate, moving from auto theft and robberies to identity theft and forgeries, police said.
A report released last week by California Attorney General Kamala Harris said criminal organizations are becoming more sophisticated, leading to a rise in trafficking, money laundering and cybercrime.
Mexican drug cartels are now collaborating with prison and street gangs to maximize profits.
SOLUTIONS
As gangs evolve, law enforcement also evolves, using new technology.
Wood said his team frequently uses social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to monitor possible threats, gather information and stop violence before it starts.
Another tool – gang injunctions, which are court orders preventing known gang members from participating in certain activities – has long been established in Long Beach and other cities in the county.
In a gang-injunction zone, gang members identified on a list are barred from associating with each other or owning cellphones.
Critics, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, say injunctions foment racial profiling and violate the civil liberties of non-gang members.
Advocates say injunctions prevent gangs from congregating and recruiting new members.
In 2010, Long Beach City Prosecutor Doug Haubert expanded the city’s gang injunction program to include any gang under the Sureños umbrella.
The program got a boost from new technology developed by Long Beach-based Laserfiche that allows all patrol officers to access the gang-injunction list through their car computers.
Previously, only gang-unit officers had access to the gang-injunction list.
As a result of the effort, gang-injunction arrests rose from 35 in 2009 to 140 in 2010.
Last year, 230 people were arrested for violating a gang injunction, Haubert said.
Zamora, who helped design the gang-injunction map, said the city goes through a two-step screening process to identify only the most active gang members. More than 500 people are identified on the list.
The injunction also includes an “Opt Out” program where people can work to get off of the list through community service and other efforts.
So far, seven people have gone through Opt Out, with 20 more in the process.
Haubert said he believes the gang injunction has been an effective tool in Long Beach.
“We can’t arrest and prosecute our way out of a gang problem,” he said. “As long as it continues to work, I’m going to keep doing it.”
As for police staffing, city officials said they might consider expanding the gang unit now that Long Beach is out of its fiscal crisis.
Vice Mayor Robert Garcia, who chairs the City Council’s public safety committee, said the city might expand the gang unit in the next fiscal year.
While Long Beach occasionally will see a “bumps in the road” when it comes to crime, the city today is a very safe place, said Garcia, who’s running for mayor.
“The city is absolutely moving in the right direction,” he said. “We’ve had to scale back and make some very tough choices, but we want to look into making our gang unit whole again.”
Contact the writer: 562-221-8798 or kpuente@lbregister.com