The results of a recent Los Angeles Police Department report brought unwelcome news: drive-by shootings are occurring more frequently in Los Angeles than last year, about a seven percent increase from 2009.
“We need to keep a handle on this,” said Lt. Commanding Officer Sean Malinowski. “We have talked to the areas the shootings are most prevalent. They are putting together strategies currently.”
This news -- that drive-bys numbered 183 in the first six months of the year, compared to 146 in the same months in 2009 -- has also given many gang-violence activists and nonprofits a platform to advocate for the importance of prevention and intervention as a crucial step in not just getting a lower statistic, but stopping the violence for good.
Many of the shootings occur in what LAPD calls its
South Bureau, which runs from roughly Interstate 10 west to the Harbor area and encompasses USC, Watts Towers, the Harbor Gateway, the Port of Los Angeles and the Exposition Park museums, according to the department. Malinowski said he suspects more resources will be put into car searches, traffic control in these areas, and officers will be told to search more thoroughly for hidden weapons and signs of suspicious activity.
This COMSTAT report shows a reverse in trend. Before drive-by shootings were dropping in popularity because police were cracking down and administering harsher punishments for those convicted in drive-by cases. But some pointed out that the drop in drive-bys over the past 10 years simply allowed for a rise in “walk-up” shootings.
And now it seems the suspects are changing their tactics once again. Malinowski speculated the change stems from pressure of increased police presence causing shooters to no longer feel safe on foot.
So as the shooters change their tactics, so do the police.
But there are some who believe LAPD can only do so much. Stopping gang violence will require both police and violence-prevention groups to work to change habits.
“Drive-by shootings are a symptom to a deeper problem,” Semark said. “Unless you take care of the deeper problem, drive-by shootings will continue to happen. Solve the problem and don’t spend a whole lot of time trying to put a Band-Aid over the problem.”
Getting policymakers to commit to long-term programs to effect changes is a problem, Semark said.
“From a public-policy standpoint, many politicians are interested in the quick fix. They want to do something that will make them look better in four years,” he said. “In reality what we have is a yo-yo type behavior. Get a lot of police and put everyone in jail. They relax and send the police somewhere else. Then everything explodes again, and it didn’t solve the problem. They are more worried about the short-term solution to try to change a symptom rather than have a generation grow up with a different perspective.”
The first step is community involvement. Many community leaders said success comes with education and prevention programs to keep children out of gangs. Others said the answer is getting the community involved to cooperate with LAPD and teaching them to remain safe while on the streets. And accountability also can reach as far as the media.
Ansar “Stan” Muhammad, executive director of the
HELPER Foundation -- a gang-prevention and intervention organization in Venice -- said media must also play a role in snuffing out gang tensions.
“A lot of these murders don’t ever get on the news. If media really got behind this issue they could really shed some light on it,” Muhammad said. “High-profile media coverage is another tactic to reduce crime. If they [potential shooters] knew its was going to be on TV and they would be investigating it then…”
A recent report titled
Drive-by America(PDF) proves his point. The Violence Policy Center recorded all news articles appearing on a Google search with the words “drive-by” in them for the first six months of 2008. They found that the entire state of California had the most -- with 148 drive-bys -- a number far below reality.
LAPD reported 218 drive-by shootings during the first six months of 2008 in Los Angeles alone. But of the drive-bys that reached LAPD, only a handful ever reached the ears of the public.
Officer Karen Rayner of LAPD‘s media relations section also acknowledged that number may be even higher considering many drive-bys happen without even the attention of LAPD or neighborhood watch programs.
“The number of drive-bys are difficult to determine because who knows how many shootings there were where no one was hit,” Rayner said, “and if they were, a lot of times we don’t even know about it until they get to the hospital because gangs don’t want to cooperate with us.”
But LAPD and the media do not carry sole responsibility. Many gang-prevention and intervention organizations play a vital role in answering the call of increased drive-by shootings.
“The main purpose in training the community is to empower the community. If you’re not teaching the community and empowering them to have peacemaking skills, then you are really do a disservice to them,” said Aquil Basheer, executive director at
Maximum Force Enterprises. “The community needs to learn how to be self-sufficient.”
Training the community in education and safety seems to be an increasingly common approach to dealing with gang violence.
Basheer said his group has a program that prevents the crimes to take place but also trains, prepares and empowers the community to defensively protect themselves when drive-bys happen.
“At a bus stop, don’t have your back to the street. When crossing the intersection look for some sort of cover,” Basheer said. “Look for the coloration of the vehicle, the movement of the vehicle, are there tinted windows, has the car circled two or three times…”
Basheer splits his training into categories of how to “interpret,” how to “manage” and how to “survive.”
Other programs like
Big Homies or
A Better LA use intervention tactics to settle disputes peacefully between gangs and comfort victims and the victims’ families to prevent retaliation.
But many of these programs lack funding, and some even go as far to say they don’t get the credit LAPD does while being just as important.
“City officials have to look at this particular public safety wing [gang prevention and intervention] as a legitimate profession and fund it adequately,” Muhammad said. “This is a national crisis that must and needs to be addressed by every city and government official, every activist and community organization, and every member of society.”
At least one group sees the progress.
“I feel that it is going very well. Homicide rates in Los Angeles are at a historic low. They have gone down several years in a row.” said Brian Center, executive director of A Better LA. “Obviously they are way too high still. But we have seen great improvement.”
