L.A. Calls on Feds for Help with Gang Violence

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By Gina Keating

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, describing Los Angeles' notorious street gangs as "a threat to national security" called on Tuesday for federal help in crushing the crime organizations, which he likened to the Mafia.

"Your gang situation in this city is unlike anything else in America," Bratton, a former New York Police Commissioner, told reporters.

"It will devour this city. It scares the hell out of me how sophisticated, how entrenched they are. The federal government better recognize that and put the same resources into fighting this that they did with the (Mafia) crime families."

At a news conference at a police station in a gang hot spot in south Los Angeles, Bratton and Mayor James Hahn declared a virtual state of emergency over a spike in gang violence that has claimed 35 lives since Nov. 15 and driven the city's murder rate past 600 this year -- a six year high.

"We cannot and will not let gangs control our streets," Hahn said.

The police chief said he planned to ask federal prosecutors to use the racketeering and tax evasion laws against gang kingpins, who, he said, direct nationwide drug, prostitution, kidnapping and extortion rings from Los Angeles.

"I would argue that these gangs, if left unchecked, are a threat to national security," he said.

Bratton was set to meet next week with Debra Yang, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. "She is looking forward to hearing his ideas and working ... to further improve our strategies in dealing with this significant gang problem that continues to plague portions of Los Angeles," Yang's spokesman, Thom Mrozek, said.

NO 'OCCUPYING ARMY'

City leaders planned to redeploy the department's 9,000 officers to the most crime-ridden areas and to ask federal and state law enforcement agencies for help in breaking up gangs whose numbers have soared past 100,000 and whose grip has reached national proportions, they said.

Police also planned to focus on a group of recently released parolees who hit the streets in the past 18 months eager to reassert their authority, said LAPD (news - web sites) Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell.

On the job for just 35 days, Bratton appeared well aware of the tightrope he walked with minority communities still wary of the scandal-plagued police department he inherited.

The LAPD's gang enforcement units, known as CRASH, were yanked off the streets after revelations in 1999 that some CRASH officers engaged in drug dealing, framing and even shooting suspects and planting guns on them.

Bratton acknowledged that he had to be cautious in moving large numbers of officers into problem areas "like an occupying army."

"We are working with neighborhoods to prepare them," he said. "We have come in and tried to surgically remove the individuals we think need to be focused on."

Bratton said he has enlisted community and church leaders to encourage citizens to point out suspects to police via an anonymous hotline.

"The community knows who is doing the shooting," he said. "The strength of the gangs is that they can intimidate the communities."

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2002


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