Stemming the Tide of Violence

In another drive-by shooting last weekend, this time in Placentia, one teen-ager was killed and three people were injured. Police described the attack, as they have many others, as “gang-related.” This classifies but hardly explains the violence that is becoming too commonplace in many Orange County communities.

Consider these stories carried in The Times in recent weeks:

--A 17-year old boy was shot in the stomach by an unknown assailant who fired into a building in Garden Grove where a dance was in progress.

--La Habra police arrested five people who fired at four family members outside their home. Police said that the shooting was “gang-related, although the targets were not gang members.”

--A 16-year-old youth was shot to death and his companion wounded by bullets fired from a passing truck in Anaheim. The police have made four arrests in the case, and say that they do not think the suspects knew the victims.

--After being ejected from a party in Newport Beach, four teen-age boys fired 11 bullets from an automatic weapon into the front door of the house; no one was hit.

--A young man walking along a Santa Ana street was hit by one of three bullets fired from a passing car.

--A 16-year-old boy was shot at a Santa Ana sandwich shop in what police believe was a gang-related incident.

--A bullet was fired during a confrontation between two groups of teen-age students in Garden Grove.

Those are just some of the recent stories about guns, gangs and drive-by shootings involving innocent victims as well as gang members. Police files are full of many more.

Police investigate such incidents and sometimes can gather enough evidence to make arres ts. That’s fine. But it’s not enough. In addition to rounding up shooting suspects, authorities have to begin devoting much more effort to preventing the violence in the first place.

That’s not easy to do, but Anaheim, to its credit, is making an attempt.

The city council has unanimously voted to establish a task force that will try to “steer street youths away from gang activity” through educational and vocational programs. The emphasis will be on reaching what the city has called “borderline” youths--those who aren’t hard-core or committed gang members. That doesn’t get at the root causes that must be identified and dealt with before there can be significant social changes, but it is a good place to start.

The important thing is that Anaheim has officially recognized that it has gang problems and is taking steps to control them. Other communities should do so, too. If real progress is to be made, assaults are to be reduced and innocent people are to be protected from indiscriminate shootings and the proliferation of guns on the streets, there must be close supervision of gang members, more anti-gang efforts by police throughout the county and tough prosecution from the district attorney’s office against gang members.

But there also must be more of the diversion efforts like the one being launched in Anaheim, where the city wants the only “gang” in town to consist of Mickey, Donald, Pluto and the rest of the crowd that hangs around in the Magic Kingdom on Harbor Boulevard.