Police Say Gangs Revive After ’89 Crackdown : Crime: The department seeks $149,000 for a prevention program. The chief says he is disappointed there is still a problem.

The Ventura Police Department, which pronounced the local gang problem virtually solved a year ago, now says gang activity has increased and wants $149,000 for a gang prevention program to add a new dimension to its anti-gang efforts.

Just over a year ago, in the wake of a gang-related shooting, Ventura police imposed a “zero-tolerance” anti-gang policy. The ensuing crackdown resulted in more than 100 arrests, and Chief Richard Thomas announced that gangs had been put “just about out of business.”

The chief’s assessment, however, has proven premature. In the past five months, there have been 70 gang-related arrests, 167 gang-related crimes and the city’s first gang-related death.

“I think we’ve been somewhat successful in not having a serious increase of gang activity, but I’m disappointed in that we still have a problem,” Thomas said.

“If anything, over the last year the gang problem has probably grown to some degree,” said Capt. Ken Thompson, who supervises the gang unit.

This year, city officials are trying a different tactic to complement the enforcement crackdown they began last year. As part of the budgetary request to be considered next month by the City Council, the parks and recreation division has asked for $149,000 to begin a gang prevention program aimed at giving teen-agers some recreational alternatives.

Although police and city officials say gangs have been active in Ventura for years, it was the March, 1989, shooting of Anthony Ortega, 14, that led to last year’s crackdown.

Ortega, then a high school freshman in Ventura, was gunned down as he walked along Main Street. The gunfire came from a passing car.

Ventura police said that while there had been drive-by shootings before, Ortega’s was the first in which somebody was hurt.

The youth eventually recovered from his wounds, but the incident changed the city’s attitude toward gangs dramatically.

“Gangs had always been an issue for the police, but after the Ortega shooting it became an issue for the community,” Thompson said. “City officials, in particular, realized we had a problem and that we weren’t going to tolerate it.”

Thompson said that after the shooting police officials consulted immediately with city officials and council members, who approved the creation of a special gang task force and gave him full authorization for a crackdown, which resulted in nearly 100 arrests in its first three weeks.

Since then, gang members have been arrested for crimes ranging from attempted murder to violating the city’s 10 p.m. curfew for youths under the age of 18, Thompson said.

At the time of the shooting, Thompson said, the city had only two police officers assigned part time to the local gang detail. But soon thereafter, the detail was expanded to eight officers working full and part time.

The City Council also provided $145,000 for an emergency graffiti removal program, hiring an Ojai painter to cover hundreds of gang slogans scrawled around the city, and to establish a 24-hour hot line to receive graffiti reports from neighbors.

But while the city’s swift reaction might have prevented a gang explosion, it fell far short of solving the problem, police officials now concede.

“The zero-tolerance policy is still in place, but gang affiliation is still a growing phenomena,” Thompson said.

The level of gang violence seems to be increasing too. Last summer, Tristan Canfield, 23, was stabbed to death on Sheridan Way and Ramona Street. Canfield became Ventura’s first gang-related fatality, Thomas said.

In October, three Santa Paula men were attacked at a party on Denver Street, two of them suffering serious stab wounds in their abdomens. The three were attacked after mentioning that they were from Santa Paula, police said.

In the past month, police say, gang members have broken into and vandalized a church, stealing communion chalices, a parament and a videocassette recorder; beaten up two men on West Harrison Street; and perhaps taken part in another drive-by shooting.

Police detectives are still investigating the April 27 shooting of Stanley Louis Speer, 35, and his brother, William, 33. The police report states that the Speers were shot at from a passing car on Ventura Avenue.

Stanley Speer was wounded in the chest and upper thigh after being asked “Where are you from?”--a ritual that commonly precedes gang executions--police records show. William Speer escaped injury, the crime report stated.

Thompson said detectives initially thought the shooting was gang-related but are now considering other possibilities.

An area of special concern to the local police is the increased activity of Los Angeles-area gang members who move into Ventura to expand their illegal drug-dealing operations.

Less than two weeks ago, two Altadena men, who had been identified as gang members by Los Angeles law enforcement agencies, and a Ventura man were arrested after police raids of apartments on Harrison and Cedar streets.

While no drugs were recovered in the raids, police confiscated two handguns, pagers, cellular phones, scales and other drug paraphernalia, Detective Dennis Nicholson of the narcotics squad said.

A similar operation in March led to the arrest of another Altadena man believed to have been linked to Los Angeles-area gangs, along with two ounces of rock cocaine and more than $3,000 in cash, Nicholson said.

“We’re a close drive from L.A., and there certainly is a market for cocaine here,” Nicholson said. “Somebody is going to tap into that market unless we nip it in the bud.”

Police and city officials plan to step up their gang eradication efforts this year with a gang prevention program aimed at local gang members, families of gang members and youths at risk of joining gangs.

The first step of the program calls for hiring a consultant to conduct a $40,000 study to determine the social and recreational needs of these youths and families. If approved by the council in upcoming budget hearings, the study would be completed by the end of the summer, program coordinator Gary Ray said.

Also included in the budget proposal is a request for $109,000 to start the gang prevention program when the study is completed, and $100,000 to continue graffiti eradication efforts.

Ray said the prevention program will target the Ventura Avenue area, an ethnically mixed, blue-collar neighborhood where most of the city’s gang-related crimes occur.

The program will study the area’s social, psychological, economic, environmental and leisure needs, Ray said. “The kids get bored and we need to find them something to do, other than sit around and watch television or join a gang,” Ray said. “We need to find ways to raise their self-esteem.”

The program will try to take advantage of the area’s resources, Ray said. As an example, he cited West Park on Harrison Avenue, where families gather to watch their children play Little League games and where teen-agers get together for pick-up softball games.

Thomas said the program would complement the increased law enforcement and graffiti removal efforts that began last year.

“It’s the third leg that will round out the police strategy,” he said. “The prevention program is part of the gang eradication strategy we presented to the City Council a year and a half ago.”

He said the program was not started last year because “it took some period of time to have well-defined what we hoped to accomplish. The police side of it was no problem--we just had to refocus our energy on the gang problem and we did that right away.

“But this is a community issue,” he said, “and we have to find a way to get the community involved.”