Operations-Valley Bureau ... a long way to go, but headed in the right direction
Police Commission told of concerted efforts to curb gang violence
September 17, 2002

Chief of Police Martin Pomeroy has asked the Commanding Officers of the four LAPD Bureaus to make presentations to the Board of Police Commissioners one at a time at concurrent weekly Commission meetings. As he prepares to leave office, Chief Pomeroy wants to offer the Board a current Status Report from each quadrant of the Department -- the South, Central, West and Valley Bureaus.

Deputy Chief Willie Pannell, Commanding Officer of Operations-South Bureau, was asked to come to Parker Center first, appearing on September 10th (click here to read about the 9/10/02 South Bureau Status Report).

Deputy Chief Ronald Bergmann, Commanding Officer of Operations-Valley Bureau, reported downtown next, on September 17th, and Assistant Chief David Gascon, who was sitting in for Chief Pomeroy, introduced him to the Police Commission. Valley Bureau's assistant commanding officer Commander Michel Moore was on hand to help Chief Bergmann make the presentation. Valley Bureau is home to five LAPD Divisions, Devonshire, Foothill, Van Nuys, North Hollywood and West Valley, and serves a population of roughly 1.25 million people, covering an area of over 220 square miles.

Deputy Chief Ronald Bergmann

Chief Bergmann told the Commission that homicides in Valley Bureau continued to be a problem -- 87 have occurred this year to date as opposed to 70 the year before. He said 62% of them were gang related, and that many were hard to solve. There have been a rash of "backyard murders" lately, and it has been difficult to get witnesses to come forward.

Then, year to date and by Division, he gave the number of homicides that had occurred and how many were gang related:

Gang related crime is up less than 2% since last year, and the number of rapes dropped 13%. Auto theft is up 10% but the arrests for this category were up 35%.

Valley Bureau burglary rates, usually the highest of the four Bureaus, have fallen significantly, by 70%.

Gangs continue to be a big problem in the Bureau, so the Special Enforcement Units (SEU) work closely with the Bureau's two CLEAR units in targeted areas. There are four gang injunctions in Valley Bureau, and they are working on getting a fifth. Recently there have been 10 homicide arrests, 138 violent crime arrests and 125 guns have been taken off the streets.

The focus in Valley Bureau is to use LAPD forces in collaboration with a variety of groups to combat gangs. These multi-jurisdictional task forces include, among others, community based agencies, local prosecutors, the LAUSD (schools), Parole and Probation.

Chief Bergmann noted that a major article had appeared in the Daily News about this recently. It featured, among other things, the work of "Blinky" Rodriguez.

A sub committee has come up with a unique plan which will go into effect in Foothill Division around November 15th. This is considered a pilot project, and is called the "Community Advocacy Program (CAP) Inter-Agency Partnership."

CAP has three tiers, each with three modules. A flow chart, created for the August 1, 2002, San Fernando Valley Coalition on Gangs Community Meeting, was provided to the Commission, along with contact information and an agenda:

There are an estimated 80 gangs in Valley Bureau with about 15,000 members. The street leaders tend to be those who are older and have spent time in prison.

Valley Bureau is the only Bureau that's partnered with Parole and Probation at its monthly meetings. Once identified as gang leaders, individuals are targeted by a monthly task force of Detectives.

They also take advantage of their Volunteer Surveillance Teams.

Understanding that suppression is only one part of the solution, programs are being created that are designed to reach kids in middle schools (6th, 7th, 8th grades). Bergmann said these programs, some of which use role-play, were first seen in Central Bureau, and have made a difference that he described as night and day.

For example, during the first session, children are given a questionnaire where they are queried on a number of topics about police. Responses, he says, are often "very, very negative."

Later, when asked to try again, the kids reveal a completely different outlook, expressing among other things a greater appreciation about how hard it is to be a cop.

The Bureau is now in the process of training teachers to become the co-ordinators of the program.

Suppression continues to be a prime tactic, and since the beginning of July a Zero Tolerance Task Force convenes weekly in surprise locations across the Bureau. Valley Traffic officers work a high crime area supported by the geographic Senior Lead Officers (SLOs), with the following results in the last 10 weeks: