City plan targets 11 worst gangs

Launching a counteroffensive against organized street thugs, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and police officials took the unusual step Wednesday of identifying the city's 11 worst gangs, then promising to go after them with teams of police, federal agents, probation officers and prosecutors.

Facing 720 identifiable gangs with 39,000 members, the city's plan would target the most dangerous groups, which total at least 800 members. Those gangs are thought to be responsible for a disproportionate amount of mayhem.

The gangs on the list are believed to have committed 6% of the violent crime that occurred in the city last year.

How many local and federal officers will be committed to the anti-gang push remained unclear, however. And given the complexity of what has been a long-standing social problem, some experts questioned whether the plan would be any more effective than past police crackdowns.

Overall, serious crime declined in Los Angeles last year, but violent, gang-related crime increased 14%.

Gang crime was even higher in areas such as South Los Angeles, where it increased 25%, and a section of the north San Fernando Valley where it grew by nearly 160%.

"Street gangs are responsible for the majority of all the murders in Los Angeles and nearly 70% of all the shootings," Villaraigosa said Wednesday at a previously scheduled international summit on gang issues in Universal City. "We must work to address gang violence in a truly comprehensive way."

Although the police had identified certain gangs on occasion, especially when they appeared to be involved in high-profile crimes, the LAPD historically has not called out their names "because of the widely held perception that doing so elevated the criminals' influence and standing in the gang community," the mayor's plan says.

"This new strategy abandons the earlier posture and challenges these menaces by exposing their corrosive behavior to the scrutiny of a more informed and confident community," the plan says.

But Wes McBride, executive director of the California Gang Investigators Assn. and a retired Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, said he was "not sure" that identifying the gangs was a good idea.

"These guys keep the clippings, and I don't know if you can really say which are the most dangerous gangs on any one day," he said. "It is the kind of advertising you don't need."