But nobody wants to get serious about what to do about it.
We get mad about it. We study it. We politicize it. We see an endless parade of innocent lives lost and vast areas of the city living in terror.
And yet we lack the political will to take the kind of action needed.
Here's some steps that could be taken right now without further debate:
Go through the lists of the thousands of gang members already identified as criminals under the 30 or so gang injunctions and determine with federal immigration authorities which of them is in America illegally and deport them.
On a small scale, Valley Chief Michel Moore is doing that with ICE agents, referring about 100 gang members for deportation.
Then, end the haphazard system of checking immigration status of suspects jailed for serious violations. Illegal immigrant criminals ought to be given the boot, surely we can all agree on that much even if we are incapable of agreeing on a workable national immigration policy or what to do about LAPD's Special Order 40.
As a journalist in L.A. for nearly 30 years, I've seen whole forests toppled to produce the newsprint needed for all the coverage that has been given to the street gangs that run so many neigbhborhoods and ruin so many lives.
Yet, I haven't seen City Hall or the schools do anything significant to do anything about the problem. Of course, they haven't done anything effective about any of the city's problems.
The senselss mu
rder recently of Jamiel Shaw II has created a political moment and energy to do something about this scourge of the city. The murder allegedly by an illegal immigrant criminal who is a member of the 18th Street Gang, one of the city's largest and most violent has enflamed a torrent of anger against L.A.'s sanctuary policies and the LAPD's Special Order 40.
Unless the silenced majority wakes up, the debate will continue down to the road to polarization and inaction. The gang problem is not the same as the immigration problem.
Commissions, reports, studies all say the same thing: L.A. needs tougher law enforcement policies, a vast expansion of intervention programs and a real prevention effort in the schools, parks and playgrounds.
It's not a mystery. But a few million bucks here and there isn't going to solve it which is all City Hall has done.
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
They are not getting the message, Ron. Nor is the Fed understanding that THE BORDERS MUST BE CLOSED.
Because they do not have a plan, my suggestion is three link fences one and a half feet apart and topped with the meanest barbed wire that can be manufactured especially for this project. That way the tiny animals can get through but the murderers, drugs and gangs can stay out.
We are not cutting out ordinary people who can come through the gates with their ID'S. TeddyH
It's human nature to adapt rather than to change, solve problems. Solving problems is hard and perilous. And, the resistance to change is great so the need for change must be urgent. Regarding gang violence, most Angelenos don't personally feel the urgent need to address this.
If there is a need, then our leadership aren't adequately expressing this. Our major newspapers, the LATimes and LADaily News, aren't adequately expressing this. The blogs aren't adequately expressing this. Neighbors aren't adequately expressing this. Religious institutions aren't adequately expressing this. The confusion, or cover-up, is significant.
Truth is, most people don't believe that gang violence is a significant risk to their lives. Either that or people don't feel sufficient responsibility to those person's who are effected. Jamiel's Law needs more media exposure. If the coalition supporting Jamiel's Law were larger, then perhaps it may enacted. Instead, it appears that the gangster collaborators at the City Council will pay off the criminals with millions of tax dollars, in a foolish effort to appease them.
Unfortunately, it will take the kind of senseless murder that took the life of Karen Toshima in Westwood in 1988 to mobilize our elected officials, most of whom probably don't even remember who she was. If Jamiel had been gunned down at the Century City mall, it would be a very different story.
Heard you interviewed on KABC Radio this morning.
Am alarmed by what I heard!
What can the "average" person do? Believe me,
we "average" people are out here, and not just waiting for the other shoe to drop! We want to
make a difference. Voting; writing letters to TV stations and newspapers--as well as to city, state, and national officials; circulating recall and referendum petitions...you name it! But what we concerned, well-meaning "average" people do is nothing more than an antiseptic drop into the proverbial sewer of violence and corruption these days. From the bottom up, L.A. City Council to Washing-ton, D.C., nobody's listening and nobody cares.
I think you are putting the proverbial carriage in front of the horse. Let's make this hoodlums serve their time THEN deport them. After all, you know they will be back soon after being deported - that's the nature of the border. Secondly, you fail to address the what-to-do issue about gangsters who are born in the U.S.
I disagree with last comment that we shouldn't deport gang members until they serve time -- they've all already done that in the first place, or they wouldn't be on the gang lists. It didn't do any good, obviously, and our jails are networking ops for gangbangers, including to get close to their bosses/ shot callers at La Eme, and it gives them street cred.
Jail for illegals costs us a huge amount of money we can't afford, one main reason Arnold wants to raise taxes by $7.5 million just to provide mental and healthcare, and drug rehab programs for inmates to comply with fed orders. With 1/3 the jails being full of illegals, if we get rid of them we could be more humane to citizen inmates and common criminals and addicts.
What we should do is require their home countries to incarcerate them, or deny them federal and state aid. At the recent "Western Hemisphere" summit of Police Chiefs, the rep from Salvador griped that they didn't like getting back THEIR OWN ILLEGAL GANGBANGERS, since they were too dangerous, and they had to build two big jails just for them, and it's too expensive. BOO HOO.
Deal with them, instead of sending them over here. There IS a serious problem of recrossing the border -- and that's supposed to be 20 years added on to any sentence, but isn't enforced. At that point we have no point but to enforce it
But fingerprint them, do eye recognition and other fail-proof ID checks on them upon deportation, so that if they're ever seen back here, they can be ID'd for sure and do that time.
The Sierra Club is chicken-sh't for not following through on their half-hearted motion to demand border enforcement for environmental reasons: the border for miles is trashed from garbage and human feces, to destroyed vegetation by good and especially the off-road vehicles and trucks of the thousands of human traffickers. Many illegals camp out in the desert for days or weeks. Sadly, some die -- there are finally some individuals in their home countries bringing home to them these realities, to discourage them, along with the reduced work for unskilled once they get here. But not from their governments, who want the foreign currency they send home.
We need to put pressure on their governments to give them this education and discouragement, and provide for their needs at home. Mexico is an oil-rich country which COULD do so if it wanted.
It's me again.
Janet, let me see if I got this straight. You are saying that we should force other countries to deal with a problem we ourselves cannot find a solution for? Is that right?
Nobody 'sends' their criminals to the US. They come here on their own - and in many cases, they are not criminals when they leave their home country. The become criminals when they come here and join the already-established gangs.
I stand by my assessment that they should face American justice first - hence, here lies the problem. American justice is too lenient. Let's start applying the death penalty - some of them certainly deserve it.
Yet Another, Give me a break! "They are not criminals when they leave their home country. The become criminals when they come here and join the already-established gangs..." That's exactly what the Mexican and Salvadoran and Columbian governments say by way of getting out of THEIR obligations to deal with yes, THEIR nationals.
Other countries' immigrants who come legally have to go through extensive criminal checks, EVEN JUST TO GET A VISA IN THE CASE OF EASTERN EUROPE, and this injustice and disparity makes them angry (our government is starting to address this, after three years of complaints from the "New Europe). But still, some 20% of prospective visa applicants from there are denied -- and that's AFTER they must go to their capitol city to apply for a visa IN PERSON and be fingerprinted. These are TOURIST VISAS designed to ensure no criminals or those without legitimate ties drawing them back "home" will come even for a visit.
Back to specifically the Central American criminals: they ARE often criminals before they come, their economies depend heavily on drug dealings, so the criminals decide to come to the source where the laws are much more lenient, and dumb liberals like you justify and excuse them, and blame their criminal activity on the U.S.! Pretty unbelievable. Others were weaned on the political violence in those countries, growing up in militias and without an understanding of what it means to live in a democracy.
We do get the dregs of their societies in most cases, that their oligarchs are happy to get rid of. ONLY ONE example, the excellent series by the L A Times (whose Sam Quinones is an exception to lazy, PC reporting) documents how most of the residents of Glassell Park moved there from ONE EXTREMEL VIOLENT, CRIMINAL INFESTED VILLAGE IN MEXICO, because they found that here, instead of being prosecuted, they were coddled with projects and all kinds of affirmative action programs even though they were illegal and involved in drugs, arms and human trafficking and murder. They knew how to use the PC anti-cop attitudes against our society by banding together to accuse cops of abuse, in order to protect their gangbangers, and this worked very well, too well, until just a couple of months ago. Others from Columbia are even worse: they come here specifically AS A GANG prepared to engage in follow-home robberies (e.g., working in the jewelry district and following marks home to the VAlley), and many deal drugs. MS and Florencia 13 and others are 80% illegals, and learned their viciousness at "home."
People like YOU are the most dangerous of all, because your ignorance and leftist bias in actually blaming US in the U.S. for the criminals is really sick.
Calling you "PC" wasn't quite right, when you want to apply the death penalty much more generously. THAT isn't something that would endear us to the world at large, where we're accused of already having more death row inmates except for places like China or the brutally Koranic Middle East.
We're also the only country that allows illegals to have "anchor babies" with full citizenship; Europe's "guest workers" don't have this privilege, which causes its own problems with disenfranchised youths who are neither citizens nor foreigners, so they're also wanting to tighten the borders. But one advantage we DO have is a delineated border, so the fence and patrols are much more feasible here. And the other measures suggested are also feasible and overdue.
To Anonymous on May 6, 2008 1:31 PM:
First of all, you misquoted me - and yes, it's here for all of us to see.
What I said was "In many cases, they are not criminals when they leave their home country."
Get that? MANY CASES, not all.
Secondly, it's about time to stop slapping labels on people - especially the "liberal" one you just slapped on me. True, many of my views are liberal, but you'll also notice that I endorse the death penalty - a view you would otherwise most likely associate with Texans - the absolute opposite of 'liberalism.'
I'm gonna have to skip many of your non-warranted assumptions about me and skip to the last one - me being an ignorant.
Quite the opposite.
I do plenty of reading from all types of sources. I keep up with the news - again from all type of sources and not just FOX News. I have a college degree and stay away from that trash we have come to regard as "Reality TV"....
Can somebody tell me why the city refuses to deal with gangs, why the schools ignored the problem? The teach sex education but not social responsibility!