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Two Day Gang Summit at USC attracts Lee Baca and William Bratton By Alex Alonso for Streetgangs Magazine January 19, 2004 ????????????? A violence prevention summit was held at the University of Southern California Davidson Center on January 8 and 9th, with the purpose of reducing black on black violence and overall violence on Los Angeles. The conference brought together community groups, church organizations, law enforcement officials, elected politicians, and grass roots groups that were concerned with the escalating violence impacting black youth in Los Angeles. The two-day workshop was spearheaded by an article that Kerman Maddox wrote on October 28, 2003 regarding a series of killings that have occurred in Los Angeles, specifically a murder involving one of his former students. After his article was published in the Los Angeles Times, what followed was the organization of this summit. ????????????? In that article, one of the strongest points that Maddox expressed and what perhaps prompted so many to come together at USC, was made when he stated, "[what] we need now is a comprehensive blueprint for action that goes far beyond press conferences, rallies, and candlelight vigils and weekend marches." We have seen many groups come together on the issue of LA's gang problem, but the various entities that are concerned with violence, are to far fractured to work together. Maddox's vision to bring these various groups together and his frustration with the lack of outrage that blacks and others should have over the homicide problem motivated this two day conference. The conference mission statement; Prevention Strategies to Reduce Gang Violence, was designed to achieve the goal of reducing gang violence in the black community. The blueprints for this goal, were organized in several breakout sessions that focused on the role of different entities that can impact Los Angeles. infamous gang situation collaboratively. Each of the committee sessions at the summit were organized into several small groups that focused on prevention issues from different perspectives. The groups included faith based, law enforcement, elected officials, labor industry, and education to name a few. It was an extremely proactive gathering on the subject with the main objective of identifying good proven programs that have yielded positive results in the past, and to build on those methods. On the second day of the conference, all the committee groups came together and discussed their recommendations and created a tentative plan to follow through with activities, events, and workshops, that the committees felt were relevant in bringing attention to LA's gang and crime problem. John Hill, directed the discussion that outlined specific plans and activities from February to December that will bring more attention to Los Angeles. violence, geared towards attracting media attention in an effort to shine a brighter light on violence in Los Angeles. ????????????? Sheriff Lee Baca, told streetgangs.com that Kerman Maddox is a great leader in the community that genuinely wants to make a difference and that the Sheriff's department in completely behind the vision of this conference. Baca hopes that this conference can bring new ways to deal with at-risk youth to make them more effective thinkers and better decision makers that are less prone to resorting to violence. According to Baca, one of the reasons why crime has been on the rise in recent years is because of the budget cuts that eliminated $166 million from the Sheriff's Sheriff.s Department spending, which resulted in 1,100 less deputies. Baca stated, "In today's environment, gang members can be dealt with so long as we deal with them it in a respectful way, we know we can catch the shooters and the violent ones...but the majority of gang members are not violent." Paul Hernandez, of the California Endowment, expressed support for the conference and his organization provided some of the funding for the event. The California Endowment, being a health foundation understands the public health ramifications of gang violence, which has brought more attention to the issue of violence in recent years. Gang violence is not usually associated with public health, but because of the lack of safety communities have experienced, the mental conditions of gang members, incarcerated youth, and adolescence in foster care systems, this can effect the behaviors that can influence violent behavior, and according to Hernandez, "this is a public health issue." ????????????? Chief Bratton addressed the audience and congratulated the participants for their hard work with focusing on gangs as he congratulated Maddox.s effort on conducting the conference.. The beginning of the solutions must come from the community Bratton stated. He provided some striking statistics about blacks in Los Angeles that comprise of 11% of Los Angeles' population, but 50% of the murders occur within that population, 50% of Los Angeles' homicides victims are black, and 50% of the assailants are black. Bratton stated that he was going to focus more effort within the Black community to combat violence but that resources were limited and that Los Angeles has a very small police department population and the geography of Los Angeles is considered. He took credit for a 23% drop in homicides from 2002 to 2003, which attributed to 139 less murders. He conveyed that it was important to attract national attention to Los Angeles' gang problem in an effort to get assistance from the Federal Government. According to Bratton, when he took the Chief position in November 2002, no one was paying attention to the gang problem, including to the politicians, the LA Times and the State. In 2003 there were 11 major terror attacks around the world that killed 400 people as opposed to 519 deaths and 3,000 shootings in Los Angeles during the same time period. Bratton believes that the Federal government should also invest resources into dealing with the gang problem in Los Angeles. He called gang violence a "growth cancer" that is being exported all over the United States and that Washington D.C. should pay attention. In an interview with Streetgangs.com Bratton attributed the 23% drop in homicides to smarter policing, community cooperation, and intelligence gathering. In addition, efforts by gang czar Hillman and Assistant Chief Paysinger were given credit for the 53% decline in homicides in the 77th Division of the LAPD that saw 120 murders in 2002. He continued to state that LAPD is short staffed and would need to double the size of the force (9,000 to 18,000 approx.) to be equivalent to New York City.s 40,000 officer force. Kenneth Bell (KB), an intervention gang worker from Stop the Violence Increase the Peace Foundation, was present at this event. He has worked with the Crenshaw Mafia gang (CMGs) in Inglewood and as a member of the Darby Dixon Cease Fire committee has negotiated a cease-fire among the CMGs, and he is currently working with other gangs in the area to increase the cease-fire. KB works on cease-fires as a way to mitigate gang violence as opposed to gang truces that brings rivals together at functions such as parties, picnics and barbeques. His main goal is to get the gangs to stop shooting at each other as a way to settle their differences by using cease-fires. ????????????? KB thought that the 2-day gang summit was ground breaking because of law enforcement participation. He also stated that it was unfortunate that it took many years to see an LAPD Chief and an LASD Sheriff dialogue at an event that focused on gangs. "If we would have had something like this back in 85 or 86, we would not be where we are at now." He continued to state, "that we need more interaction with officers and we need more officers from the neighborhood." He felt that, good officers from the community could get the respect from the streets. Being from Inglewood, KB knows about the gang injunctions, and he claimed that the injunction that was filed against the CMGs in 1997 did absolutely nothing in the bottoms, the area of the CMGs. He believed that it was passed purely for political gain. The council member behind that effort, eventually lost his seat, but the City of Inglewood was able to attract businesses along the Century corridor. All those changes took place, tens of thousands of dollars were spent on the injunction and the CMGs are still there. During the entire injunction, KB stated that 5 arrests were made for minor offenses and all cases were eventually dismissed. News Topics | Home | Research | History | Blood Gangs | Crip Gangs | People| Life in a Gang | Gallery | Iraqi Cards | Memorial | Migration | Graffiti | Resume| Injunctions Homicides | Maps | California Prisons | Contact

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