Gang Killings in L.A. County Top a Record 700

At least every other day, on average, Sheriff’s Sgt. Wes McBride adds another name to the bleak tally of gang homicides that has made 1991 a record year in Los Angeles County.

He scrawls the names in grease pencil on a plastic-coated board hanging above his desk, followed by the suspect’s name, gang affiliation and motive--rivalry, robbery, unknown.

Already, two extra sheets of plastic have been added to make room for the overflow of victims. With space for just 11 more names, he fears he may need to extend the list again before year’s end.

“Sometimes, it makes me absolutely sick,” said McBride, a 25-year veteran. “It’s getting worse and there’s no help on the horizon.”

By last week, McBride had recorded 194 gang-related homicides in areas patrolled by the Sheriff’s Department, as compared with 170 in all of last year. The Los Angeles Police Department has topped 330 gang killings, passing its previous record of 329 for 1990.

In all, gang violence in police jurisdictions throughout the county--from Long Beach to Pomona--has already claimed more than 700 lives this year, the first time the level of carnage has exceeded that mark. In the past five years, the number of gang-related deaths has doubled.

“I don’t see how it’s ever going to end,” said Trevon Haynes, 18, a South-Central Los Angeles gang member who estimates that about nine of his colleagues have been killed in the three years he has been with the gang. “Lots of people would like to get out, but your enemies know your face and they’re gonna be there for life.”

Many of this year’s shootings were highly publicized: 11-year-old Alejandro Vargas, struck in the face by a bullet meant for school district police outside a Compton middle school; Cesar Gardea, a 19-year-old Army private just back from combat in the Persian Gulf, slain in a Baldwin Park drive-by; Bobby Chacon Jr., 17, the son of a former boxing champion, fatally shot outside a Panorama City department store.

Others drew less attention: 13-year-old Efrian Ruiz, gunned down as he stood with a group of friends painting graffiti in Long Beach; Anthony Stephanson, 19, shot in the face, allegedly by gang members in the mid-Wilshire area who mistook him for a rival; Michelle Jones, just 14 months old, killed by gunfire from a passing car in front of her family’s Willowbrook home.

Authorities offer no easy explanations for the increase in violence, which they say has often ebbed and flowed unpredictably, depending on the vagaries of the drug trade or other turf rivalries.

But officials also acknowledge that the current wave of bloodshed--rooted in a myriad of social and economic problems--has been on a sharp and steady upswing that shows no signs of slowing.

Part of the increase is being blamed on the gang population, which is estimated to have doubled since 1985. There are now about 1,000 cliques countywide with more than 100,000 members--about the size of West Covina.

“You have lots of children who see no hope, no way out,” said Chilton Alphonse, director of the Community Youth Sports and Art Foundation in the Crenshaw District. “They feel they’re being used, forgotten, taken for granted and they can’t trust anybody.

“So, what are they going to do? They’re down for their ‘hood--their neighborhood set--without realizing there’s a bigger world out there. You’re either going to rob, kill or be killed--that’s the mind set.”

Father Gregory Boyle, who has buried 17 victims of gang violence during his 5 1/2 years as pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, considers gangbanging a form of suicide for urban teen-agers who have little hope for the future.

“I’ve never heard as much despondent talk as I do now . . . of kids saying they want to die,” Boyle said. “We’ve never really addressed any of their problems. Stuff doesn’t stay the same. It festers.”

The largest increases in gang homicides have occurred in predominantly Latino communities, many of which had suffered from widespread gang attacks a decade ago but had managed to control the problem by the mid-1980s.

Around MacArthur Park, just west of downtown, the rise in violence has been attributed largely to disputes between longtime Chicano gangs and newly formed immigrant gangs--many of them composed of Central American refugees who have fled war-torn countries.

The LAPD’s Rampart Division, which covers that area, had recorded 43 gang-related killings by the end of October. That represents a sharp increase over last year’s total of 32 and far more than the eight homicides reported just five years ago.

Similarly, in the area surrounding the sheriff’s East Los Angeles station, officials say many battle-wise veteranos-- incarcerated during police crackdowns in the early 1980s--have returned to the streets to revive their previously inactive gangs.

So far this year, sheriff’s officials in the community have logged 37 gang homicides. In 1988, there were none.

One common factor in all the shootings is that the assailants, more often than not, were directing their rage at the people most like themselves.

In the jurisdiction of the Sheriff’s Department--which serves more than 2 million people in an area encompassing about three-fourths of the county--roughly 75% of the gang homicides this year were the product of black-on-black or Latino-on-Latino crime.

Of the 194 homicide victims, according to sheriff’s officials, 125 were Latino, 53 were black, 10 were white and six were Asian or Pacific Islander. About 76% of the victims were themselves suspected gang members.

“The bottom line is self-destruction,” said Steve Valdivia, executive director of Community Youth Gang Services, a gang-intervention agency. “They’re shooting their mirror image. It’s like putting a gun to their own head.”

Terrible Toll

The number of gang-related homicides in Los Angeles County has more than tripled in the last 10 years. Although there are still three weeks remaining, 1991 is already another record year.

YEAR & HOMICIDES

1982: 205

1983: 216

1984: 212

1985: 271

1986: 328

1987: 367

1988: 452

1989: 554

1990: 690

1991: 700*

* 1991 figure through early December: SOURCE: Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department