Leaders react to shooting

A day after the Costa Mesa City Council voted down funding a gang-intervention specialist in local schools, a reportedly gang-related shooting on the Westside led to the arrest of eight people, six of them under 18.

On Friday, the two council members who supported the intervention program said Wednesday’s shooting just illustrates the need for such a program. No one was hurt in the incident, but some of the alleged gang members — one apparently 13 years old — were allegedly armed with knives and baseball bats.

But Mayor Allan Mansoor, who voted against the intervention specialist, said it’s parents and teachers who need to make sure kids stay out of gangs.

“In my personal opinion, it boils down to having a strong, two-parent family that really spends time with their kids,” Mansoor said. “I understand there are hardships where single parents are doing the best they can. I’m just talking about what I believe is the best-case scenario for a child.”

Mansoor said he couldn’t support the $65,000 grant proposed by police for an interventionist because it would have gone to the Newport-Mesa Unified School District’s Project ASK, and he hasn’t seen any proof that it’s effective.

“It’s already in place to the tune of $8 million, and where are the tangible results for that? I believe the public has a right to see them,” he said.

The council on Tuesday unanimously approved an overall gang-fighting plan, but split on the intervention segment.

Councilwoman Linda Dixon, who supported the intervention program, said the shooting “illustrates the need for us to get in to the schools and to work with young children to make certain they realize there is an alternative to becoming a gang member.”

But Mansoor said the Police Department’s anti-gang efforts, some of which are already in place, seem to be working, despite the shooting.

“I think the fact that we pretty much immediately had about five gang members in custody [Wednesday] shows what a great job the officers are already doing,” he said. “To me that’s results.”

Council members Eric Bever and Wendy Leece could not be reached for comment.

Councilwoman Katrina Foley, who voted with Dixon for the intervention, said while the majority on the council may not think intervention programs are an appropriate role for police, the city’s top police officials — including the chief — disagree.

The anti-gang plan the council approved will add several more officers. Foley said that although she supported that, two officers already have been added and it didn’t prevent the young people arrested in the shooting from getting involved in gangs.

One of the kids involved was in seventh grade, she said.

“They ask for results — what results do we have to show that adding more police officers prevented this happening?” she said. “You’re not going to solve that problem with more cops.”

Another intervention program could be proposed because the funding was already approved in the 2006-07 budget, with Mansoor and Bever voting against it.

Costa Mesa Police Chief Christopher Shawkey said $65,000 isn’t enough money to hire a full-time city employee, so he’ll have to research other intervention programs and then ask the council to approve a contract with one.

In the meantime, he said, “we’re still going to be out there enforcing the law and going after the gang members just as we have been.”

The intervention specialist “was just one piece of the puzzle, and we’ll just work without that piece,” Shawkey said. “I think long-term, it’s still important that we add an intervention piece at some point.”