THE GANGS OF NORWALK : Clamping Down on Gangs

The young man said it seemed only natural to join a neighborhood gang along with many of his friends. His father was a gang member, and so was his grandfather.

“We all try to take care of each other, watch everybody’s back,” the youth said in a recent interview at a Norwalk park. He asked that his name not be used.

Gangs have been a part of Norwalk for generations. But they have come under increased scrutiny from law enforcement officials and community leaders because of the May 9 shooting death of a high school football star, a gang-related shoot-out that left two wounded on May 28, and other recent incidents.

Officials say Norwalk’s gangs--which operate primarily in Latino neighborhoods and involve youths battling over turf--are far less violent than the groups that fight over drug profits in other parts of Los Angeles County.

Still, statistics provided by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department show gang crime is on the rise in the area served by its Norwalk station. Gang-related crime incidents in the area, which includes Norwalk, Santa Fe Springs, La Mirada and an unincorporated county area near Whittier, exceeded the 2,000 mark for the first time last year.

City officials, fearing that gangs will become more violent and threaten the city’s economic and cultural future, recently approved Norwalk’s first comprehensive anti-gang program.

“We could very easily become the slum area of Southeast Los Angeles,” Councilman Marcial (Rod) Rodriguez said in a recent interview.

Gang activity in Norwalk dates back to the 1940s when Councilman Rodriguez was a teen-ager.

“You’d see the guys out there then, just like today, walking the streets, standing on the corner,” said Rodriguez, who ran with members of a local gang but never considered himself a member.

The councilman was 13 years old in 1945 when his family moved into an area known as Varrio Norwalk, a pocket of working-class Latino families in a predominantly Anglo area. Today, the mostly Latino neighborhood of modest homes and corner markets stretches north from 166th Street to Hopland Street, and east from Pioneer Boulevard to Norwalk Boulevard. It is the largest barrio in Norwalk and one of the most active gang areas. It was about one-fifth as large in the 1940s, Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez became friends with Varrio Norwalk gang members shortly after he entered the seventh grade. He began hanging around with them, and later, partying and fighting alongside them.

“You’re part of it. You’re part of the environment,” Rodriguez said.

Then, as today, the battles were turf oriented, fed by neighborhood pride and youthful bravado.

“A guy from Norwalk starts dating a gal from (Varrio) Carmelas and that would set it off,” Rodriguez said.

The city’s oldest rivalry, which has existed for decades, involves gangs from Varrio Norwalk and Varrio Carmelas, a small enclave of homes on the southwest corner of Carmenita Road and Rosecrans Avenue. Locals do not remember exactly when the rivalry started between the city’s two oldest barrios.

Rodriguez recalls jumping into a fertilizer truck with about 20 other youths and heading into Carmelas--a turf violation. Not much happened that night, but two days later, youths from Carmelas paid a return visit.

“We were knocking on doors telling everybody ‘There’s Carmelas. They’re invading our turf,’ ” Rodriguez said.

Varrio Norwalk youths pelted several carloads of Carmelas with rocks. Carmelas answered with gunfire, Rodriguez said. No one was hurt.

Looking back, the councilman denounced the violent, destructive actions of the gangs.

“I came that close to going that way instead of this way,” said Rodriguez, who is an insurance broker as well as a councilman. “I look back today and it was scary. How stupid it is, so senseless.”

The longtime resident said the number of gang members has grown over the years, as has Norwalk’s population. And he said he considers contemporary gangs to be more dangerous because of the availability of guns and increased drug use by gang members.

But Rodriguez said the gangs fill a need, one common to virtually all people.

“You belong to the Rotary, the Kiwanis, to the PTA,” Rodriguez said. “We all have a sense, a need of belonging. What makes these kids so different?”

Grew Up in Neighborhood

Several youths, who were hanging out on a street corner in Varrio Norwalk on a recent afternoon, said they were members of a local gang.

Their turf is in the “One Ways,” an area of Varrio Norwalk north of Alondra Boulevard, between Pioneer and Norwalk boulevards. Most of the youths said they grew up in the neighborhood, where narrow streets are restricted to one-way traffic and graffiti is plentiful. They spoke of partying, girls, pride in their barrio and defending their turf. “You just don’t let anybody walk over you,” one said. They also spoke of the periodic, aggressive strikes at other gangs.

Casper, 19, who gave only his gang nickname, said he will be a gang member for the rest of his life. But he said his violent days are behind him now that he has a 3-month-old son and a construction job.

Things were different several years ago when Casper was younger and wilder, and before he served a year at a county probation camp in connection with a foiled drive-by shooting.

Casper said he was arrested by sheriff’s deputies when he drove into another barrio with a .38-caliber handgun looking for several rival gang members. Casper said he would have emptied the gun into the gang members, whom he did not know personally, if he had not been stopped.

“The gang (had) just started up,” Casper said. “I wanted to make a name for myself. That’s what everyone wants.”

None of the gang members older than 18 said they had earned a high school diploma. They told of being kicked out of one high school, and then another, before dropping out.

“I got kicked out of every school for fighting,” said Rascal, 18, who said he is a couple of credits shy of a high school diploma.

Several children stood by, watching the gang members. One boy, who said he was 12 but looked younger, had gang lettering penned on his arm and on the back of his neck.

Varrio Carmelas Youths

Across town, in Varrio Carmelas, three young men sat at a table at the local park. They were a few feet away from a memorial plaque by a young tree that reads, “This tree planted in the memory of Steven Razo by his many friends.” Razo was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1985.

Like other gang members, those from Varrio Carmelas said they are highly protective of their turf.

“It’s like going into your house, someone breaking into your house,” said a 20-year-old, who asked that his name not be used. “If they (rival gang members) hurt somebody, then we become our own judge.”

But gang members have mixed feelings about their barrios, where some families have been rooted for generations.

The 20-year-old recounted how the house of a relative had been raked with gunfire. The youth said he now lives with his grandmother in a nearby city but returns to Varrio Carmelas to be with fellow gang members.

“If I had a family, I wouldn’t bring them back over here,” said the gang member, who drives a forklift for a living. “I don’t want my little boy, if I have one, growing up with what I went through.”

Eight Known Gangs

There are eight known gangs with about 2,000 members in Norwalk, a city of about 90,000, said Sgt. Grotefend, gang detail supervisor.

The gangs are loosely organized alliances of cliques within Norwalk’s various barrios. They do not force youths to be members, although there is peer pressure to join, officials and gang members said. Most Norwalk gangs “jump in” their members--a prospective member must fight several gang members in order to join.

Law enforcement officials say Norwalk’s gangs are not involved in the organized narcotics trade, which causes much of the violence in areas such as South-Central Los Angeles. But some of the Norwalk area gang members commit robberies to pay for drugs, gang investigator Richard Orosco said.

“It is nickel-and-dime stuff with some gang members robbing fast-food places or liquor stores to get money to support their drug habits,” Orosco said.

Sheriff’s deputies said the fatal drive-by shooting of Juan Enriquez on May 9 was the first gang-related murder in nearly three years in Norwalk. Enriquez, an honor student and football star, did not belong to a gang. But sheriff’s deputies believe he was shot by a gang member. No one is in custody in connection with the shooting.

Non-Gang Attacks

Norwalk’s gangs usually fight among themselves and with members of gangs in surrounding cities. Strikes against non-gang members in Norwalk have been rare, but they seemed to increase last month.

On May 28, gang members shot up the Pontlavoy Avenue home of a non-member, who had been involved in several past confrontations with his attackers. The victim came under attack after he confronted a youth who was vandalizing his car, and reported the incident to sheriff’s deputies, officials said. Two people were wounded in the shoot-out. Six adults and five juveniles have been charged with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.

Before the Enriquez killing, the last gang-related killings occurred in Norwalk when two groups feuded in May, 1986. Two men from each gang were shot or stabbed to death.

There were three gang-related killings in the larger Norwalk station area in 1982, one in 1983, five in 1984, six in 1985, the four in 1986, none in 1987 and two in 1988.

Last year’s high of 2,000 gang-related incidents surpassed the previous record of 1,546, reported in 1985. The number of gang crimes for the first three months of this year is running at about the same rate as last year, according to sheriff’s statistics.

Sgt. Al Grotefend, supervisor of the gang detail for the Norwalk substation, said part of the increase can be attributed to the discovery of more gain-related crime by more and better trained deputies. But he said there has been an actual increase in the number of gang crimes--mostly nonviolent--committed in the area over the years.

Gang activity in the station area has increased in several crime categories since 1981, when the department’s gang unit began working the area, according to department statistics. The department does not break out crime statistics for individual cities, Grotefend said.

Assaults, Robberies Up

The number of felony assaults jumped from about 80 a year to 101 in 1985, and to 103 last year. Robberies, which average 50 to 60 a year, jumped to 91 in 1985 and to a high of 93 in 1988. Weapons violations reached a high of 65 in 1988. The previous high was 46 in 1986.

Burglaries also reached a high of 190 last year. There were 114 in 1986, the second highest annual figure.

Narcotics violations have risen steadily over the years, reaching a high of 786 in 1988. There were 661 in 1986 and 613 in 1987.

Incidents in which gang members shot into inhabited dwellings reached a high of 32 in 1988. Also up in 1988 were misdemeanor assaults (93) and auto thefts (49).

Vandalism, however, decreased to 114 incidents last year, compared to a high of 150 incidents in 1985.

Despite the increase in overall incidents of crime, Grotefend said Norwalk’s gang problem is relatively small compared to an area such as South-Central Los Angeles; there were 18 gang-related homicides in the Los Angeles Police Department’s 77th Street station area in the first four months of 1989, Officer Don Lawrence said. The station covers a portion of South-Central Los Angeles.

But Grotefend endorses Norwalk’s new anti-gang program.

“If nothing’s done, the small problem they have now will turn into a larger problem down the road,” he said.

Neighborhood Barrio

In a barrio called “Neighborhood,” longtime resident Richard Rios spoke of the reasons underlying much of the gang activity, including discrimination and the alienation it creates, and the inability of local schools to reach some students.

Varrio Neighborhood is centered at Angell Street south of Firestone Boulevard. It is one of Norwalk’s newer barrios. But many homes, including Rios’s, have bars on the windows. Rios is a welfare worker and former gang counselor who still tries to channel neighborhood children away from gang activities.

Rios, 32, was a senior at Norwalk High School in the mid-1970s when about 20 Latino youths from the area formed what they thought was a social club and called it Neighborhood Boys. Rios said the members were youths who did not do well in school and were not brought into school activities.

“They didn’t belong to varsity football,” said Rios, who became a member. “They made their club to belong to something.”

The school administration immediately became suspicious of the group, which liked to hang out at the Norwalk High pool, Rios said. Tensions between the Latino and Anglo students quickly grew to the point where more than 20 youths fought and were arrested in front of the high school in April, 1974, according to a local newspaper account. The Neighborhood Boys were quickly labeled a gang and started drawing attention from established gangs, Rios said. He said school officials should have worked harder to include the Neighborhood Boys in constructive activities.

“When the majority saw you as a gang instead of a club, so it became,” Rios said.

Rios said the city has neglected the gang problem as well as its barrios--many of which contain dilapidated housing.

Pool Became ‘Bull Ring’

He points to a spray pool at the Neighborhood’s Vista Verde Park that was finished about a year ago.

The spray pool, which youngsters run through as they would through lawn sprinklers, sat uncompleted for years and became known as the “bull ring,” Rios said.

“If you wanted to become a member of Neighborhood, you had to stay in the bull ring and (fight) five guys,” he said.

Rios, Rodriguez and other community members said improvements are needed in school and city programs to ensure involvement and future job success so youths won’t feel the need to join gangs.

Parents must also be educated to help children stay out of gangs, they said. Some veteran gang members may encourage their children to join. But other parents know little about gangs and feel powerless to keep their children from becoming members.

One woman, whose son has been a long-time gang member, said she did not discover his involvement for years. She kicked him out of the house in desperation. The woman, who asked not to be identified, became teary-eyed at the thought of the Enriquez slaying.

“Why did it happen to a good kid?” she asked. “Why didn’t it happen to mine, who brought so much danger to my home.”

To curb gang activity, Norwalk officials recently approved spending as much as $275,000 on the first city-funded anti-gang program.

In the past, the city has participated in multiagency, anti-gang programs that fell short. “The feeling was that everything was being done that was possible, kind of a false sense of security,” Rodriguez said.

Program Starts in July

The new program, which is expected to start in July, will use neighborhood counselors and a psychologist to steer youths away from gangs and toward jobs and recreational activities. At least one sheriff’s deputy will be hired to run an anti-drug and alcohol program in the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District.

An anti-gang program for third- and fourth-grade students also will be started in the public schools in September, officials said.

The city is planning to build a gym to provide a variety of recreational activities, including boxing and weightlifting, said Ernie Garcia, deputy city manager.

The Norwalk-La Mirada district also has been working to reduce gang activity, said Johnna Moore, director of secondary education.

The district has various counseling and drug-and-alcohol-abuse programs at its schools. Eighth-grade students, for example, receive some anti-gang instruction in a course called “Students and the Law,” she said.

Proposal for the Board

Moore said she will present a proposal for new anti-gang programs to the Board of Education on June 19.

“We’ve been taking a look at everything,” Moore said. “If we were where we wanted to be, we wouldn’t have the (gang) problem.”

The city’s gang program is part of an overall effort to revitalize Norwalk, which has areas of aging housing and a limited tax base, City Administrator Richard R. Powers said.

The city has several redevelopment projects under way, including a hotel, commercial and residential project just south of City Hall. A consultant also has recommended that the city work to establish a modern regional mall and office complex to create more jobs and tax dollars for the city.

“I think that the city is really at a crossroads in its future,” Powers said. “I believe that Norwalk, left unattended with gang problems, extensive neighborhood deterioration and a weak tax base, could spell a lot of problems.

“We have to kindle the spirit so the community feels there’s hope--and there is. We will deal with these problems, and there is a way to solve them.”

GANG-RELATED CRIMES

Annual statistics of selected crimes committed by gangs in the sheriff’s Norwalk station area, which covers Norwalk, Santa Fe Springs, La Mirada and an unincorporated county area near Whittier. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department began keeping gang statistics in 1981, when a special anti-gang unit started working the Norwalk area.

*1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 Homicide 1 2 0 4 6 5 1 3 Felony assault 24 103 84 87 101 82 83 72 Robbery 23 93 53 85 91 43 62 48 Weapons violations 22 65 10 46 24 22 33 41 Burglary 26 190 70 114 108 60 57 82 Auto theft 15 49 29 32 21 21 8 22 Narcotics violations n/a 786 613 661 584 446 451 376 Rape 0 4 4 4 7 4 4 7 Vandalism 65 114 70 136 150 71 43 50 Shooting at dwellings 0 32 10 10 8 9 10 13

1981 Homicide 1 Felony assault 111 Robbery 56 Weapons violations 48 Burglary 81 Auto theft 13 Narcotics violations 145 Rape 9 Vandalism 73 Shooting at dwellings 15

* The 1989 figures include crimes committed through March.

Source: Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department