By Nick Diamantides
Staff Writer
City Prosecutor Tom Reeves declared war on gangs and graffiti vandals a long time ago. The problem is that not enough people have joined the fight. The result is that graffiti vandalism is out of control in Long Beach and more young people are showing signs of moving toward gang membership.
Reeves spoke last Thursday evening to an audience of about 45 who attended the monthly meeting of the Wrigley Area Neighborhood Alliance at the Jackie Robinson Academy. According to Reeves, the single most effective weapon against gangs and tagging crews is the organized involvement of neighborhood groups that decide they are going to use every legal means at their disposal to stop illegal activities in their neighborhoods.
Reeves warned the audience that quite a few gangs in Long Beach are linked with multi-billion-dollar drug smuggling organizations. “We’re talking about international drug cartels, and we’re talking about our streets,” he said. “If you want to get rid of the gangs, you have to get involved. You can’t just hide behind your locked door and hope the problem goes away.”
He warned the audience that gangs are getting richer and more powerful through drug sales and they are getting more sophisticated in methods of avoiding arrest and money laundering.
He also stated that California gangs have been expanding into other states in recent years. “They go to other places to recruit new members and sell more drugs,” he said.
Another serious problem in Long Beach is graffiti vandalism. Reeves noted that currently the city spends $500,000 per year to remove or paint over graffiti on city-owned property. “The taggers who do this are just kids with spray cans, markers and etching tools and they’re annoying graffiti vandals, but they’re not gangs,” he said. “Wait a minute, let me tell you some true stories.”
He then described a recent incident in which two tagging crews had a disagreement over who had the right to spray paint a wall near Wilson High School. To settle the argument, one tagger crew threw a member of the other crew in front of a moving car, trying to kill him. Reeves also described another incident in which a tagging crew shot a grandmother to death after she ordered them to stop painting her wall.
“I’m telling you these are violent people,” Reeves said. “Be a good witness, call the police, but don’t intervene; let the police handle it.”
Reeves told the audience that some taggers start making graffiti while still in elementary school, but by the time they have entered adolescence, many of them are using and selling drugs and engaging in violence. Many of them also end up joining or forming one of the hard-core gangs that plague neighborhoods throughout the city.
Reeves told the audience that the city has a graffiti abatement team, and the Long Beach Police Department has officers and detectives trained in recognizing gangs and dealing with them. He also mentioned his recent purchase of 10 high-tech cameras that can spot graffiti vandalism and send an email picture of it to a blackberry on a police officer’s belt, along with a description of the location within 30 seconds of the beginning of the act of vandalism.
However, all the efforts of the city and its police department cannot succeed, according to Reeves, unless neighborhood watch groups throughout the city decide to take the streets back from the gangs and taggers. He urged the audience to report all crimes and suspicious activity to the police. He also said that a neighborhood watch group or a neighborhood association like WANA can do something individual citizens would have a hard time doing: asking a court for an injunction against a gang. Reeves said an injunction is a court order prohibiting certain types of behavior by specific individuals in a specific section of the city.
He described an injunction in a West Long Beach neighborhood that prohibited members of a certain gang from associating with each other in public, walking together in public, or riding in the same car. Gang members that violated any of those stipulations were subject to arrest and prosecution, and if they were already on probation or parole, they went back to prison.
“But we can’t get a citywide injunction,” Reeves said. “These types of court orders only apply to areas bounded by certain streets.” He stressed, however, that neighbors organizing themselves into groups can decide the area that the injunction should encompass.
Reeves also told the audience that some law enforcement experts estimate that Long Beach has as many as 6,000 gang members but an accurate number is difficult to gauge. He stressed the need for residents, educators, clergy and law enforcement to work together to fight the graffiti vandalism and gang activity that are straining city resources and making our neighborhoods dangerous places. “Know your neighbor; take back your streets,” Reeves said. “Be involved in your community.”
To find out more about anti-gang injunctions call the city prosecutor’s office at (562) 570-5600. To form a neighborhood watch group, phone the LBPD’s Karen Owens at (562) 570-7229.
