Gangs Riverside County

Cora Crawford is weary of the misery brought on her neighborhood by yesterday's children. She's tired of the drugs, the random shootings, the gang members who rule her neighborhood after the young children retreat from the day's play. She's tired of the encroaching blight of abandoned homes and barred windows that frame her street. She indulges the community leaders who champion all the good people--like herself--who live in the tight-knit neighborhood known as Desert Highland-Gateway Estates.

Police searched Wednesday for suspects in shootings that left two teen-age boys wounded at a school in Montclair and a teen-age girl wounded outside a school in Banning. Two reputed gang members also were wounded in the Banning incident. Stunned Montclair High School students watched the lunch-hour shooting Tuesday. Police say the gunman was a former student. Lt. Terry Gibson said detectives know the identity of the teen-age gunman, but refused to release his name.

Riverside County Dist. Atty. Grover Trask and Sheriff Bob Doyle unveiled plans Monday for a new anti-gang task force that they said would apply a "full-court press" to the region's escalating gang crime and violence. The special unit, expected to receive $5.1 million in funding today from the Board of Supervisors, would include an additional 44 sheriff's deputies, prosecutors and probation officers to help monitor and crack down on the estimated 11,000 gang members in the county.