[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMBATING YOUTH VIOLENCE: WHAT FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS ARE
DOING TO DETER YOUTH CRIME
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 3, 2006
__________
Serial No. 109-265
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.house.gov/reform
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
45-334 PDF WASHINGTON DC: 2008
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DIANE E. WATSON, California
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
DARRELL E. ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JON C. PORTER, Nevada C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina Columbia
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania ------
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio (Independent)
BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
David Marin, Staff Director
Lawrence Halloran, Deputy Staff Director
Benjamin Chance, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
PATRICK T. McHenry, North Carolina ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DAN BURTON, Indiana BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN L. MICA, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota DIANE E. WATSON, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
CHRIS CANNON, Utah C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio Columbia
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Marc Wheat, Staff Director
Dennis Kilcoyne, Professional Staff Member
Kimberly Craswell, Clerk
Shaun Garrison, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on October 3, 2006.................................. 1
Statement of:
Jackson, Rev. Jesse.......................................... 91
Loosle, Robert B., Special Agent in Charge, Criminal
Division, Los Angeles FBI; and John A. Torres, Special
Agent in Charge, LA Field Division, ATF.................... 9
Loosle, Robert B......................................... 9
Torres, John A........................................... 19
Trejo, Danny, film actor and former gang member; Chief Ronnie
Williams, Los Angeles Sheriff's Department; Jerald Cavitt,
former gang member; Captain Regina Scott, patrol commanding
officer, Southwest Division, Los Angeles Police Department;
Charlotte Jordan, CEO, Mothers on the March; Dan Isaacs,
chief operating officer, Los Angeles Unified School
District; Eddie Jones, president, Los Angeles Civil Rights
Association; and Rev. Dr. Clyde W. Oden, Jr., senior pastor
at Bryant Temple AME Church, board member of the African
American Summit on Violence Prevention..................... 35
Cavitt, Jerald........................................... 49
Isaacs, Dan.............................................. 69
Jones, Eddie............................................. 78
Jordan, Charlotte........................................ 62
Oden, Rev. Dr. Clyde W., Jr.,............................ 81
Scott, Captain Regina.................................... 54
Trejo, Danny............................................. 35
Williams, Chief Ronnie................................... 37
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Baca, Leroy D., sheriff, Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department, prepared statement of.......................... 40
Cavitt, Jerald, former gang member, prepared statement of.... 51
Isaacs, Dan, chief operating officer, Los Angeles Unified
School District, prepared statement of..................... 72
Jones, Eddie, president, Los Angeles Civil Rights
Association, prepared statement of......................... 80
Jordan, Charlotte, CEO, Mothers on the March, prepared
statement of............................................... 63
Loosle, Robert B., Special Agent in Charge, Criminal
Division, Los Angeles FBI, prepared statement of........... 11
Oden, Rev. Dr. Clyde W., Jr., senior pastor at Bryant Temple
AME Church, board member of the African American Summit on
Violence Prevention, prepared statement of................. 83
Scott, Captain Regina, patrol commanding officer, Southwest
Division, Los Angeles Police Department, prepared statement
of......................................................... 57
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 4
Torres, John A., Special Agent in Charge, LA Field Division,
ATF, prepared statement of................................. 21
COMBATING YOUTH VIOLENCE: WHAT FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS ARE
DOING TO DETER YOUTH CRIME
----------
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2006
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Los Angeles, CA.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
the F.A.M.E. Renaissance Center, 1968 West Adams Boulevard,
Suite 400, Los Angeles, CA, Hon. Mark E. Souder (chairman of
the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder and Watson.
Staff present: Marc Wheat, staff director; Dennis Kilcoyne
and Jim Kaiser, professional staff members and counsels; Scott
Springer and Mark Fedor, congressional fellows; Kimberly
Craswell, clerk; Tony Haywood, minority counsel; and Shaun
Garrison, minority professional staff member.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will come to order. Good
morning and thank you all for coming. This is actually the
second hearing our subcommittee has had this year on the topic
of gangs. The first focused on illegal immigrant gangs and was
over on the East Coast, while today's hearing focuses on the
problem of gangs and youth violence in general and what
government, community groups and private citizens should do and
are doing to discourage crime and prevent young people from
being caught up in the culture of violence and despair.
For many people, where the subject of gangs is raised,
particularly in expressions of popular culture, images of Los
Angeles streets come to mind. Fair or not, the city and its
surrounding communities are at times associated with gangs,
particularly the ``Bloods'' and the ``Crips'' from the 1970's
onward. And as immigration--legal and illegal--swells the
numbers of adolescents in this country, the southern California
gang picture is becoming more diverse, as violent gangs like
Mara Salvatrucha--MS-13--and the Latin Kings take root.
A ``gang'' has been defined as ``a group that forms an
allegiance based on various social needs and engages in acts
injurious to public health and safety.'' More broadly speaking,
gangs of crime-prone young people are more likely to form in
areas that are blighted economically and where healthy
community ties of family, school, culture and religion are
weak. The need for kinship and belonging draws young people
together where such ties are loose or non-existent, making them
vulnerable to pressures to surrender to a culture of
selfishness, greed, violence and rampant materialism.
If they do surrender to joining a gang, they are drawn
deeper into crimes such as drug dealing and abuse, assaults,
robbery, theft, rape and even murder. When individuals fall,
law enforcement at all levels of government must step in to
cope with the consequences. But the entrance of government at
this point is an acknowledgement of failure and by itself can
never be a satisfactory response.
Given the nature of the discussion of late on the subject
of gangs, many will be surprised to find that the most recent
government statistics point--since the mid-90's--to declining
levels of crime involving youth. This is so even where numbers
of young people are rising, including in poor Hispanic areas.
Notable exceptions include a curious and disturbing level of
crime by young girls, as well as an increase in the number of
children arrested for drug abuse. We are concerned with a
seeming recent rise in violent gang activity.
Law enforcement at all levels of government must be
assertively and judiciously applied to cope with youth crime in
the here and now. That involves investigation, arrest and
punishment of crimes that have already occurred, as well as
active efforts to dismantle entire gang networks, rather than
just picking off individual gang members one at a time.
But law enforcement is no more than a third of any
comprehensive anti-gang effort. Any credible strategy to deal
with youth crime must also involve intervention and prevention.
Law enforcement responds with traditional strategies of
investigation, arrest, disruption and prosecution.
But families, churches and community associations must
intervene and provide young people a safe and reliable way out
of crime and gang ties. The most difficult--and most
important--element of an anti-gang strategy is prevention.
Stronger families and communities must exist in order to
deprive gangs of their oxygen of greed, selfishness, despair
and lack of hope.
This hearing will explore the progress of government and
private-sector participants in coping with the problems of
gangs and youth crime in Los Angeles, and will explore their
efforts at preventing the lure of gang culture from taking root
in the hearts of vulnerable young people.
We have a very promising group of witnesses with us today.
On our first panel, we have Robert Loosle, who is the Special
Agent in Charge of the FBI's Criminal Division here in Los
Angeles. He is joined by John Torres, Special Agent in Charge
of the Los Angeles Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms.
For our second panel, we will hear from Danny Trejo, an
accomplished film actor and former gang member; Chief Ronnie
Williams of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department; former gang
member and community activist Jerald Cavitt; Captain Regina
Scott, who is the patrol commanding officer of the LAPD's
Southwest Division; Charlotte Jordan, who is the CEO of Mothers
on the March; Chief Operating Officer Dan Isaacs of the L.A.
Unified School District; Eddie Jones, president of the L.A.
Civil Rights Association; and the Reverend Dr. Clyde W. Oden,
Jr., who is senior pastor at Bryant Temple A.M.E. Church and
board member of the African-American Summit on Violence
Prevention. Thank you all for coming, and we are looking
forward to your testimony.
Now I yield for an opening statement to our host and good
friend, Congresswoman Watson.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5334.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5334.002
Ms. Watson. Mr. Chairman, I want to personally thank you
for convening this subcommittee hearing in my congressional
district. You are in the heart of the district now and as far
north as you can see is the 33rd Congressional District. You
can locate its boundary lines by seeing that Hollywood sign. We
go over to the ocean. We go around the boundaries of Culver
City. Then we go all the way over to Glendale and through
Griffith Park.
I even go up into Ferndale. I have all two houses up there.
And I go down and take in USC and go all the way down to where
old Pepperdine was. You are right in the heart of the 33rd
District and you are going to find that there is a lot of
information you can glean from people who know this community
and this city well. It is an honor and a privilege to bring
Capitol Hill to Los Angeles so not only my constituents but
those across the Nation can see the ongoing problems in our
communities stemming from youth violence.
It is also an honor to have this outstanding and
knowledgeable panel of Federal, State, and local witnesses here
to discuss from the horse's mouth, if we want to say that, what
is occurring on a daily basis in our neighborhoods of Los
Angeles and find out what Congress can do to make our citizens
feel safe in them.
I would also like to thank F.A.M.E. Renaissance, the
building that we are in now, for their support in helping
coordinate this event and their continued support and uplifting
they give the city of Los Angeles and beyond. Violence in
American society has reached pandemic levels. Los Angeles has
for many years suffered from serious levels of youth as well as
gang violence.
While many experts on youth violence believe there are
encouraging signs that youth violence, at least when you look
at the statistics, is on the decline, everyone in this room
knows that youth violence in general directly impacts our
quality of life.
Let me briefly cite some statistics on youth violence that
underscore and dramatize the nature of the beast we are dealing
with. Of the estimated 23 million youth in the United States
age 12 to 17, the national household survey on drug abuse
showed that more than 5 million of those youth reported
participating in serious fighting at school or work and almost
4 million took part in a group against group fight.
In a single year in California nearly 6,000 young people
are hospitalized for some form of violent injury including
assault, child abuse, domestic violence, and rape. In Los
Angeles County alone, between 1981 and 1992, 15,000 people died
of AIDS but 22,000 died as a result of homicides.
In Los Angeles County, the use of semi-automatic handguns
in gang-related killings has more than quadrupled to more than
40 percent. These statistics are indeed startling. What is even
more scary is the fact that school, a place where kids are
supposed to learn how to become better contributors to society,
is no longer a safe haven. Murders and crimes have haunted many
schools in areas around the Nation.
Crenshaw and Jefferson High School in my congressional
district have been and have seen death and violence at a rapid
pace in 2006 alone. Just today you are hearing what happened
back in Pennsylvania in an Amish community detached from the
regular world. To think someone can come in and kill innocent
children boggles the mind.
We can see by what occurred yesterday how violence can
occur in an academic setting where no one expected it. When you
look at the Amish school and the fact that these youth don't
even watch television, they don't listen to radios, they don't
go to the movies, and they could be visited by that violence,
we have a problem. The culture of youth and gang violence must
stop.
Our panelists today, along with Congress, should be working
together to find solutions that endure and that ensure that
effective resources to deter youth violence are working and
those programs are made available to all youth caught up in
this epidemic of violence and crime. The key to preventing or
stemming the increase of youth violence is to understand where
and when it occurs, what causes it, and what strategies for
prevention and intervention are most effective.
In the not too distant future, the very youth we are
discussing we hope will be business leaders, employees,
parents, civic and community leaders. Our children indeed are
the future of our Nation and we must continue to teach them
well by example that violence solves nothing and good
communities work together, not against one another.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you again for holding
the hearing and I would like to thank our witnesses for taking
the time out of their very busy schedules to show the United
States how violence has affected Los Angeles and what we are
going to do together to address this problem. I yield back and
thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. Maybe I will take just a
couple minutes to explain a little bit the format of a
congressional hearing and what our subcommittee is. There are
basically three types of committees in Congress. An authorizing
committee defines, for example, in No Child Left Behind, what
education policy should be.
The Appropriations Committee then funds what the
authorizing committee would say the most you could spend in
that and basic policies. The Appropriations Committee funds it.
Government reform and oversight, which is the part of Congress
that this committee is part of and this subcommittee, then sees
that the executive branch is implementing the policies as
intended, that the moneys that went to State and local are
being implemented as intended to look at what things are being
done that are positive to start in the oversight another
process that then goes back to the authorizing committee and
starts the process over.
For example, on gangs the authorizing committee would be
the Judiciary Committee, Appropriations would fund it. Our
committee has oversight over criminal justice and all things
related, so we would do oversight on gangs and then take the
findings that we have at a hearing like this and kick them back
to the authorizing committee. All Members of Congress sit on
all types of committees. That sounded nice and pure.
In fact, we are an authorizing subcommittee on narcotics as
well as broader. This particular subcommittee has wide
jurisdiction for a number of reasons, partly because we deal
with narcotics and terrorism, but we also have oversight over
the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human
Resources, any program in the Department of Justice, anything
anywhere to do with narcotics and with the Department of
Housing and Urban Development, partly because when we got into
justice policy and into narcotics policy, we realized that we
needed to look at all the agencies and what they are doing
relative to that.
In the way it has evolved in Congress, our subcommittee
spends about 50 percent of our time on narcotics because we are
the primary committee for authorizing oversight on narcotics.
Clearly, when you get into subjects of youth violence, of
gangs, of all this type of thing, you are going to get into the
narcotics question as well.
Now an official congressional hearing is chaired by the
majority party. I am a conservative Republican from Indiana.
Contrary to popular suspicion, we don't all claw each other's
eyes out all the time. In fact, we have an excellent working
relationship. Generally speaking, we agree on a lot of the
problems. Sometimes we have differences on the solutions.
I don't want to hurt Congressman Watson by implying she
agrees with everything but, at the same time, she has been a
very active member of our committee and has been an active
leader and advocate for Los Angeles for those who are often
dispossessed in the political system. I appreciate her
leadership and that is why I am here even though I have an
election in Indiana right now. This issue has been increasing
in pressure.
One other thing: you'll see our witnesses are each given 5
minutes and then we do questions to them. This is not a
participatory event. If anybody wants to submit statements
afterwards, you can either go to the committee or Congressman
Watson. We are the only committee that directly does swearing
in of the witnesses that you will see today. Probably the
most--well, we did lots of investigations on Bureaucracy. We do
it all the time on a wide variety of subjects. Probably the
most well known in this past year was the steroids
investigation.
Mr. Loosle, you are sitting where Jose Conseco sat on that
side. Mark McGuire was roughly where you are, Mr. Torres, when
he said that he didn't want to talk about the past. Today we
are here hoping you will talk about the past and discuss it
because we can't learn how to correct things if we don't, in
fact, talk about the past.
I wanted to do just a little outline. The results of today
will go through a period of checking for grammatical errors and
getting additional questions, because we will supply probably a
number of questions to the different people involved and others
who weren't here today. Then it gets published in a form of a
book about 6 months later so this becomes part of the permanent
record of the U.S. Congress and the Library of Congress.
Anybody who wants to do gang research will be able to come back
to today's hearing.
With that background, I have two procedural matters. Before
we hear testimony we need to take care of some procedural
matters. First I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5
legislative days to submit written statements and questions for
the hearing record; that any answers to written questions
provided by the witnesses also be included in the record.
Without objection it is so ordered.
Second, I ask unanimous consent that all exhibits,
documents, and other materials referred to by witnesses and
Members be included in the hearing record and that all Members
be permitted to revise and extend their remarks. Without
objection it is so ordered.
Finally, I ask unanimous consent that all Members present
be permitted to participate in the hearing. Without objection
it is so ordered.
What that says, by the way, is all witnesses will have
their full statement put in the record automatically and any
information that you want additional to provide.
As I mentioned, it is the rule of this subcommittee to
swear in all their witnesses so, Mr. Loosle and Mr. Torres, if
you will stand and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that both the witnesses
responded in the affirmative. We thank you very much for
coming, and now be recognized for your opening statements.
STATEMENTS OF ROBERT B. LOOSLE, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE,
CRIMINAL DIVISION, LOS ANGELES FBI; AND JOHN A. TORRES, SPECIAL
AGENT IN CHARGE, LA FIELD DIVISION, ATF
STATEMENT OF ROBERT B. LOOSLE
Mr. Loosle. Good morning Chairman Souder and Ranking Member
Watson. I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you
today about combatting violent gangs in Los Angeles. I want to
thank you again for providing me the opportunity to appear
before you and speak on the issue of violent gangs in Los
Angeles. Los Angeles has long been recognized as the epicenter
of gang activity nationwide.
Recent estimates place approximately 1,350 street gangs
with as many as 175,000 members in Los Angeles area. In
addition, many gangs which today have a nationwide presence,
such as the Bloods, the Crips, Mara Salvatrucha--MS-13--and
18th Street, can trace their roots to Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles, street gangs comprise the primary violent
crime challenge to the area's law enforcement agencies.
Although law enforcement has been effective in reducing the
criminal threat posed by gangs in the Los Angeles area,
recruitment efforts by gang members have continued in recent
years. Local neighborhoods, prisons, the Internet, and schools
have been targeted as ``hot-spots'' for gang recruitment.
In an effort to address the violent gangs in Los Angeles,
the FBI's Los Angeles Division, in conjunction with a number of
Federal agencies, State and local partners, realized early on
the need to attack the problem as a unified force. In the wake
of the Los Angeles riots of 1992, the FBI formed the Los
Angeles Metropolitan Task Force on Violent Crime [LAMTFVC], a
nationally known Safe Streets Task Force.
The FBI has also established a National Gang Strategy to
identify the gangs posing the greatest danger to American
communities. Targeting gangs identified within the National
Gang Strategy, the FBI is utilizing the same statutes and
investigative techniques that have been traditionally used
against organized crime groups.
Some of the gangs being addressed under the National Gang
Strategy in the Los Angeles area are the Bloods, the Crips, MS-
13, 18th Street, and the Mexican Mafia--EME. The gangs targeted
by the Los Angeles FBI have gained notoriety for their extreme
level of violence, their flexibility, their high-level of
organization, and their willingness to participate in a wide
variety of criminal activities.
Although the level of sophistication in their criminal
activities may vary, these gangs remain consistently violent.
These gangs are primarily engaged in retail drug trafficking,
specifically involving powder cocaine, rock cocaine,
methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana. These gangs are also
involved in a variety of other types of criminal activity,
including murder, assault, extortion, robbery and, for the
Hispanic gangs, alien smuggling.
On September 12, 2006, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Task
Force on Violent Crime executed 15 search and arrest warrants
upon individuals associated with the 18th Street gang and the
Mexican Mafia. In fact, Federal search and arrest warrants were
executed at two residences associated with a ``shot caller'' of
this organization within blocks of the location where we sit
today, located at 2630 South Harvard and 3016 South Dalton,
both of which are located within three blocks east and south of
this center.
Although I have spent considerable time discussing the
significance of gang violence and gang influence in Los
Angeles, I would be remiss if I did not suggest that more could
be done. If we are going to win this battle, we need to be more
proactive in preventing our youth from engaging in gang
activity, and rehabilitating those who choose to leave. I would
like to suggest a three pronged approach to achieving this
goal: prevention, intervention, and rehabilitation.
Prevention: First and foremost we must prevent future
generations of youth from falling into the entrapments of gang
culture. As law enforcement officers, we must work closely with
community, schools, and churches to find ways to dissuade our
youth from joining gangs. We must show them gangs are not a
glamorous or attractive lifestyle and definitely not an
educational or vocational alternative.
Intervention: We must work together, with local, State,
Federal, and international law enforcement to identify and
target the most violent gangs, and then we must focus on
disrupting their activities and dismantling their
infrastructure.
Rehabilitation: We must ensure there are programs in place
to rehabilitate those who seek to change their ways. We, as law
enforcement, need to work with these groups to ensure a
successful and enduring change in these individuals.
Once again, I appreciate the opportunity to come before you
today and share the work the FBI is doing and I would be happy
to answer any questions.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
Mr. Torres.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Loosle follows:]
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STATEMENT OF JOHN A. TORRES
Mr. Torres. Good morning Chairman Souder and Representative
Watson. Thank you for the invitation to testify on behalf of
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. I
would like to acknowledge our outstanding partnerships with the
FBI, the LAPD, Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, DEA, U.S.
Marshals Service to dismantle gangs and investigate violent
crime.
ATF is keenly aware of the nationwide gang problem that
plagues our communities. We understand the urgency of reducing
gun violence committed by and against youth and we are
dedicated to making America safer. ATF initiatives are designed
to identify, arrest, and prosecute those offenders responsible
for crippling our community and also to deter young people from
joining violent gangs.
ATF's core jurisdiction--enforcing laws that prohibit the
criminal misuse of firearms and explosives--has placed us at
the center of gang investigations involving Los Angeles groups
such as the Avenues, Diamond Street, Bloodstone Villians, and
Fruit Town Pirus. ATF has unique statutory authority over the
``tools of the trade'' that make gangs a threat to public
safety.
I would like to share with you some brief examples of how
ATF gang-enforcement activities are having an impact and making
our communities safer. In Los Angeles, ATF conducted an
investigation involving Crips gang members trafficking weapons
and narcotics. This gang was also involved in armed robberies,
homicides and drive-by shootings. To date, 37 individuals have
been charged with conspiracy to violate Federal firearms and
narcotics laws. As a result of the investigation a total of 19
firearms, cocaine, methamphetamine, and $50,000 in counterfeit
currency have been recovered.
Recently, in Northern Virginia, ATF conducted an 18-month
undercover investigation where an MS-13 operation was disrupted
and dismantled. The investigation resulted in the purchase of
over 80 firearms, cocaine, and marijuana. To date, 20 of the
defendants have pled guilty or have been found guilty in jury
trials. Three of these defendants have been implicated in the
murder of an individual who was scheduled to testify against an
MS-13 member. One defendant was sentenced to 30 years
imprisonment and 2 additional defendants are facing the death
penalty.
Chairman Souder, our Fort Wayne, IN, office investigated a
firearms trafficking conspiracy consisting of 24 persons in
which 156 firearms were purchased utilizing a multitude of
straw purchasers from local firearms dealers. The serial
numbers were obliterated, and the guns were then delivered to
gang members throughout Fort Wayne and Chicago.
Many of these firearms were recovered from notorious
Chicago gangs. The firearms recovered had been used in the
commission of serious felonies including aggravated assault,
robbery, and narcotics trafficking. The two ring leaders were
sentenced for ATF violations and served 52 months and 110
months in Federal prison, respectively.
Our efforts to combat gang violence nationally are a major
part of the Project Safe Neighborhoods or PSN initiative. PSN
is the President's violent crime reduction initiative for the
prevention and prosecution of gun and gang crime. Since the
program's inception, ATF has led enforcement efforts by working
closely with our State and local partners to investigate gangs
and other violent firearms offenders.
In fiscal year 2005, ATF investigations resulted in the
conviction of 8,353 defendants on firearms-related charges. In
the past 2 years more than 12,000 firearms linked to gang
activity have been recovered in crimes, leading to a variety of
criminal charges, including CCE and RICO.
The Attorney General describes gang-related violence as the
second most critical domestic crime priority behind only the
war on terror. Combating violent crime is such a priority for
the Attorney General that he has announced a new anti-gang
initiative. ATF plays a critical role in these initiatives
through our enforcement efforts, and also through our
prevention strategies such as the Gang Resistance Education and
Training [GREAT] program.
Firearms trafficking, the illegal diversion of firearms out
of lawful commerce and into the hands of criminals, is often
the method by which gangs and youths arm themselves. By tracing
the origins of firearms recovered in crimes, patterns emerge
that allow investigators to identify gun traffickers. Since
2000, convictions in ATF trafficking cases have increased by
more than 150 percent.
Chairman Souder and Congresswoman Watson, on behalf of the
men and women of ATF, I thank you for your time and interest in
the work performed by our agency to reduce juvenile crime and
gang violence. Historically, we have worked to stop those whose
violent and criminal behavior threatens the peace of our
communities. We are determined to succeed in our mission of
preventing terrorism, reducing violent crime, and protecting
our Nation. Thank you again. I will be happy to answer any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Torres follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Let me start with a couple of basic groundwork-
laying questions. Knowing these things are about impossible, do
you have any idea of the estimated national number of gang
members at this time? At various times in the last 20 years,
Los Angeles has been seen as the center of 25 to 40 percent of
these. Do you have any idea of the LA region's percent of the
national?
Mr. Loosle. I know that one of the figures that has been
quoted as a national number of gangs is 800,000 members and
these includes all gangs, not just Bloods, Crips, Mara
Salvatrucha, or 18th Street. These are all gangs. I do not know
what the percentage is in the LA area of that 800,000, but I
can get those figures for you.
Mr. Souder. Have you had an estimate in the Los Angeles
region how many gang members there are; 100,000; 50,000?
Mr. Loosle. The figures I gave were 175,000 in the Los
Angeles area.
Mr. Souder. That would suggest almost 20, 25 percent. We
understand those figures are just estimates. Particularly when
you are dealing with illegals, in many cases it is hard to
estimate. It is not like they have a membership card.
Mr. Loosle. Yes, sir. They are estimates.
Mr. Souder. Twice when I was a staffer, once in the House
and once in the Senate, in Los Angeles, once in the mid 1980's,
once right after the riots, I met a number of individuals who
were working particularly with getting activity at that time.
One man was B. J. Guinness and one of the things that he
told me was that often the violence occurs when there are turf
battles where you would see Hispanic, Anglo, Asian, and African
American gangs as the neighborhoods would come into conflict,
or if there was a structure much like drug cartels when one new
gang arises after an old gang or the absence, death, arrest of
a leader, a turf fight.
Is declining violence a sign that--first off, do you agree
that violence in LA has declined? I kind of got that impression
from your statements that the violence had declined. Although
arrests are up nationally, the implication was that violence
has declined here some.
The second part of that is is it because some gangs have
now been able to stake out their turf and have, in fact,
control and the violence is down even though the membership is
high because they have effective control of certain areas?
Mr. Torres. As far as the violent crime reducing, it has
gone down and part and parcel of that is, quite frankly, Chief
Bratton's COMPSTAT approach as far as dedicating resources to
hot spots. Actually, ATF has taken a step toward implementing
COMPSTAT also.
As far as the control of the actual geography that they
claim is theirs, without getting into specifics, I mean, there
are still a lot of gangs out there attempting to obtain
firearms to protect their area and they are doing so
aggressively. Yes, you are right; it is reducing, but they are
still out there trying to attempt to get the arms that they
need to protect themselves.
Mr. Souder. Do you believe that the violence is, in fact,
most likely to occur where there are turf wars or border
conflicts?
Mr. Loosle. I think that is one of the many areas in the
case of MS-13. Because of the numerous cliques that make up MS-
13 both locally, nationally, and internationally, you will have
again attempts to control areas by the different cliques in MS-
13. Of course, their rivalry with the 18th Street. As long as
you have this loose confederation of cliques out there, there
will be still some type of rivalry.
Mr. Souder. My understanding is one of the other big areas,
and if you could comment a little bit on how we handle
prisoners. I was also told in the mid 1980's and early 1990's
that one of the goals to break gangs was to try to disperse
them so they weren't all concentrated in Southern California
prisons. Part of the Bloods and Crips went to Kansas City and
then to Chicago and then into my hometown via Chicago. What is
the movement through the prison improvement?
Are you tracking that? Are you looking at prison re-entry
programs? Not just prison re-entry programs but actually
programs in prisons are critical here because if the prisons
turn into a gang expansion activity, it is a multiplier effect
rather than a reduction. Could either of you address that
question?
Mr. Torres. As far as any of the Hispanic or African
American gangs, I can't talk about that. However, I can talk
about the strategy that the prison department has had with the
Aryan Brotherhood. They have concentrated in a certain prison,
in the Federal system anyway. As you may or may not know, there
is a big trial going on with the Aryan Brotherhood now where
two have just recently been convicted. To answer your question,
I am not sure if that is helping very much as far as
concentrating them in one area.
Mr. Loosle. I can't speak for the Bureau of Prisons, but I
do know they are tracking a lot of this and this is one reason
in the counter-terrorism aspect we are so concerned with
Islamic radicalization in the prisons. We have the same type of
radicalization or recruitment by area nations, KKK, Bloods,
Crips. All the groups have that aspect to them so it is a
concern and I do know the Bureau of Prisons is tracking that. I
just can't speak to the specifics of it.
Mr. Souder. I may have a few more questions but I will
yield to Congresswoman Watson.
Ms. Watson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Loosle, can you discuss the new national gang strategy
and how it differs from previous strategies which date back, as
you know, to the early 1990's, and how it informs the FBI
approach to gang investigations and related efforts in Los
Angeles, nationally? And then let's zero in on Los Angeles.
Mr. Loosle. Actually it's sort of a multi-layer approach.
What we are doing nationally is trying to identify those gangs
that are most violent. In fact, I believe Mr. Torres referred
to Gang Tech, which is also a new component within the
Department of Justice that does target the most violent gangs.
What we do with information that we get from local, State,
and, of course, our Federal agencies is put that together and
try to see where the hot spots are geographically and then what
gangs are the most notorious or most violent in those hot
spots.
We also gain a lot of information from our colleagues
overseas internationally and try to track members of gangs that
are floating back and forth transnationally to see what type of
gangs we need to focus on.
Ms. Watson. When Representative Simpson Brenner, Chair of
Judiciary, had his bill on the floor that would identify the
hot spots of gang activities, I had the bill amended to consult
with local, State, and Federal elected officials. These are our
districts. We know them well but we don't get this dialog
coming between your agency and us. We hear on the ground. We
are in our districts all the time.
Representative Souder goes back and forth to his and I fly
all the way out to my district every weekend. We don't have
that much exposure. We have to call the FBI in to share with
us. We can share information with you. I would ask that you be
sure that we are kept informed and we need to have a
statistical base so we can enter into this debate in a positive
way. I would appreciate you taking that back to your agency.
Mr. Loosle. Thank you and I will, Congresswoman. I agree
with you that we do need to have both law enforcement and the
community to talk closer together on prevention, on our
intervention techniques, and on rehabilitation programs on this
three-pronged approach. I believe if we all do it from the
grassroots level all the way to the top for decisionmaking, we
can be more effective.
Ms. Watson. This is why I am so pleased that we are holding
this hearing, Representative Souder, right here in the center
of these activities. We need to do more information sharing.
To Mr. Torres, what provisions are in place to ensure that
firearms dealers are complying with their Federal firearm
license and that their guns aren't ending up in the hands of
children? I am going to get very personal with this. I have a
firearm dealer right in the center of my district around the
corner from two high schools, around the corner from a middle
school, in walking distance of four elementary schools. We have
been trying to close them down.
I have gone to ATF. I said they are out of compliance. ATF
gave them their license again. We have an ordinance that was
passed 3 years ago that prohibited gunshots within that
corridor, Crenshaw corridor. It is being ignored by the city
attorney. I have gone to the mayor. I have gone to the Attorney
General and no one has gone in and investigated this.
Where are our young people getting the guns? We do not
manufacture AK-47s. I do know as a witness, I live right up the
street from the shop, that there are automatic weapons that are
prohibited for sale here in the State of California. I do not
know why ATF renewed their license. I was told by the owner
that they sell to LAPD, to foreign nations, and to the
military.
I saw a lot of activity going on during the 38-day war
between Lebanon and Israel. We have two ordinances. They were
given a phony license and it says, ``No ammunition.'' They sell
ammunition. They bought up property across the street that used
to be a restaurant. It is called Total Experience. They have
that place stocked full with weapons.
Next-door to them was a 98 cent store owned by some
Jamaicans. They wanted to buy the property. The guy wouldn't
sell. He comes back several days later and his store has been
conveniently fired bombed. I called the chief of police. No
feedback. What is going on? There is not a gun manufacturer in
my district, but the guns are located here. Can you respond?
Mr. Torres. Yes, ma'am. I would be glad to. For the record
I share your concerns. As a parent I do share your concerns.
The licensee that you are referring to, when it was brought to
my attention last year, we pursued an inspection vigorously,
vigorously. Our inspectors did everything they did within their
power in that inspection. We are obligated and mandated under
the provisions of the Gun Control Act if that licensee follows
all the mandates that they are required to, i.e., not convicted
of a felony, 21 years old, subject to a background check, we
are obligated to give them a license.
However, if the city had found that they were out of
ordinance, we could have pulled their license and that didn't
happen. They were still zoned correctly within the city of Los
Angeles to be a Federal firearms licensee, so at that point we
really had no choice but to give them the license. We were
obligated. We had to under the rules passed by Congress.
Ms. Watson. Let me tell you the facts. They are out of
compliance with the Crenshaw corridor specific plan which
outlawed gun shops and porn shops. They are out of compliance
with the city's pavilions for locating. They never had a public
hearing to let the community know that what was a bank and then
a pawn shop, Collateral Lenders, is now a gun shop.
They never had that so I don't know what kind of
investigation ATF did. We've got the laws on the book. I am
going after the mayor on this one. I am going after the city
council on this one. I am going after you. I have been on this
for almost 3 years now and every time I call ATF I get a
different story. They told me in the beginning, ``Oh, you are
right in time because we haven't given them their license.''
I said, ``They are out of compliance. Come and check it
out.'' I have the records. I have a chronology. I have eye
witnesses. OK? The guy wears a yamika. He hires locals to come
out and tell me that we are prejudiced and we don't want them
doing business in our community. It has nothing to do with
that. They are operating illegally. The community wants them
out. The gang members know they are there. They are right at a
park. We have shootouts in that park. The local ordinances are
being violated. I would like to go with ATF to do an
inspection.
I would like to have the city attorney, someone from the
mayor's office and the police commission with me when I do
that. And you. You are responsible. You are allowing somebody
who is not being truthful to sell guns out of our community
that kids use to kill each other. I will not tolerate it. Take
that.
Mr. Souder. Under congressional rules applause or boos or
audience participation is not part of a hearing. We wanted to
open up the hearing, but I am not going to object to the ``all
rights'' and ``amens.'' I realize that may be cultural, but if
you could, because we are trying to have an important
discussion about how to tackle these issues, I would appreciate
the audience following that rule.
Do you have any other questions?
Ms. Watson. One more question and this is for ATF again,
Mr. Torres. Child Access Prevention, called CAP laws, to guns
have been enacted in approximately 15 States. What impact have
these laws had on reducing youth violence and illicit guns from
being on our streets?
Mr. Torres. As far as the State statistics I couldn't tell
you, because each State keeps their own statistics on that. The
Federal Government, however, did pass a law last year on having
gun laws sold with each firearm and those statistics are
starting to come out now and they look promising, because
anytime you give one lock on one gun, that is a safer gun and
that is always a good thing to have a safe gun.
Ms. Watson. If you can tell me right here in the State of
California the impact. I just want to know what you think would
be the source of all the guns that our people use to kill each
other. We just had a shooting last night, a gentleman and a 5-
year-old. Where are those guns coming from? I don't know of a
gun manufacturer in this area. Where do the guns come from?
What are your thoughts on that?
Mr. Torres. There was a law passed in 2005 that prevents me
from giving you the trace information.
Ms. Watson. You don't have to give me the trace
information. Off the top of your head where do you think?
Mr. Torres. Off the top of my head from my experience the
guns are coming from gun shows and from straw purchasers.
Ms. Watson. Let me ask you at gun shows, at swap meets I
understand a lot of them are sold. Are your people out there to
monitor and to give oversight?
Mr. Torres. We actively pursue any and all information we
get on firearms trafficking going on, be it a gun show, be it a
swap meet. We actively pursue those, yes.
Ms. Watson. When you say actively pursue, if you know guns
are being sold, or are to be sold, are you out there or do you
wait until someone tips you off or calls you to move in? How
does that work?
Mr. Torres. I mean, we have priorities. As far as if we
know a gun trafficker is working there, we get information, we
get tipped, we get trace information, we will dedicate
resources to that area, to that person to investigate to make
sure that he gets arrested, or she gets arrested, and no
firearms are hitting the street.
Ms. Watson. Just last week Congress passed--I didn't, but
Congress did pass out a bill to relax the requirements on gun
shop owners to make it more difficult to sue them when their
weapons are being used in a crime. What this bill requires is a
showing of malicious intent to sell that gun. Now, what it
does--it is sponsored by the NRA--it relaxes the laws relative
to the selling of weapons.
In the early 1970's there was a boxcar stalled on the train
tracks filled with ammunition, filled with guns. If you want to
destroy a community you do two things. You take drugs in there
and you take weapons and ammunition in there. Come back in 10
years and you will have destroyed a community and that is what
is happening.
I don't see enough activity on the part of the ATF in this
area. You don't get in touch with us. We have to call you and
then I get people coming into my office who can't answer any of
these questions. I said, ``Why did you come?'' I haven't been
able to talk to you directly but I would like to sit down and
talk to you and tell you what I know about my district, what I
see every day, what parents come and tell me about their kids
being killed with guns and you don't talk to me so something
has broken in terms of your responsibility over the guns. To
say, ``We can't find anything wrong. We let this guy operate.
We gave him his license,'' when he has violated.
LA Times did a story on the city attorney taking money from
one of the partners of the guy who owns the gun shop. You know,
underneath the table some things are going on. I am not making
accusations. I am describing what I know. ATF needs to be a
partner with us to try to get the guns off our streets. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. I have just a couple additional
questions I want to pursue. Isn't it illegal to sell a gun to
somebody who has a criminal record?
Mr. Torres. Somebody who is prohibited and that could be a
convicted felon. That could be illegal user of narcotics. That
could be someone who has been dishonorably discharged from the
military.
Mr. Souder. Are juvenile records considered as part of
that?
Mr. Torres. No, usually not.
Mr. Souder. So a juvenile at a game could continue to get a
gun even though they have a criminal record?
Mr. Torres. It depends how the court gave him or her that
felony conviction. If they are a convicted felon, they cannot
have it.
Mr. Souder. So it depends how they chose to prosecute it
because this kind of directly gets into the gang question
because many juvenile records are sealed, which if they had
been an adult would have prohibited the gun purchase. Is that
correct?
Mr. Torres. That is correct.
Mr. Souder. I wanted to make sure for the record also
because we have had discussion of some of the Hispanic and
African American as well as Anglo gangs. My understanding from
the time I have been here before was that some of the Asian
gangs are among the most violent in this area. One of the
things that was a little bit unusual, and I wonder if this is
still correct, is that some of them are specialty gangs as
opposed to necessarily neighborhood gangs.
I heard of one cases where there was one that specialized
in diamond or jewelry store robberies, that they had been hired
in San Francisco or other places, even in other cities because
of the expertise, much coming out of the violence of Vietnam
era and some of the Asian violence.
Then, most recently, in relationships with the I-5 corridor
to British Columbia where we see this huge influx of B.C. Bud
coming down, cocaine and guns going north to Canada, Washington
State being a big transit zone going into the midwest, largely
because of Vietnamese gun activity in British Columbia. Do you
see that here? What are your comments on that for the record,
not only on that particular type but any other type of Asian
gangs?
Mr. Loosle. On the Asian gangs we have worked a number of
cases on Asian gangs as criminal organizations. The structure
of the Asian gangs is somewhat different from those of MS-13 or
the Bloods or the Crips, but the criminal activity they engage
in sometimes is similar. They are engaged in some narcotic
trafficking, gun smuggling, and home invasions obviously within
their community.
When you say ``specialty'' I can't give you that
information. I don't have it with me right now, but the
structure of the Asian gangs is very different, but we do
target Asian gangs also. We have had a number of very
successful cases in targeting the most notorious Asian gangs in
this area.
Mr. Souder. As a pattern, are they more violent, about the
same? More guns or less guns?
Mr. Torres. As far as the arms that the various gangs
collect, I mean, it seems the higher caliber the better. They
all do that across the board.
Mr. Souder. It is not by accident that the violence in the
1980's coming out of the Vietnam gangs is partly related to
these kids grew up where there was violence in Vietnam and fled
to here. It is not an accident that the Salvadoran gangs are
particularly that way because of the conflicts in Central
America and it got exported into here. The question is when it
starts happening in the second generation, then you wonder what
has happened here as opposed to the first generation coming in.
I just wondered if you had any comments on that and where
the next place may be. That is why the radical Islamic movement
is of a particular concern because that is where the developing
violence is around the world and the young people who flee that
are likely to come in more violent than the existing gangs.
Mr. Torres. As far as historical information, we have seen
a pattern. Personally, I have not looked at it but I can get
back to you on that.
Mr. Souder. Do you and ATF have jurisdiction over IUDs?
Would you consider that a firearm?
Mr. Torres. Under the Gun Control Act it is a considered a
firearm. That is correct.
Mr. Souder. Have you seen any of this type of activity
which we all fear on our shores?
Mr. Torres. As far as the statistics, it is about the same
but we are working closely with the FBI and the State and local
agencies to address it as far as from a task force approach
from the JTTF, etc.
Mr. Souder. My understanding is that a lot of the pattern,
other than the Salvadoran gangs, MS-13, is much more
decentralized in their structures around the country, which
makes tracking harder and some of our traditional FBI and other
tactics in breaking them up much more difficult, particularly
as they move into illegal narcotics.
As we see meth labs shut down as we control precursor
chemicals we are hearing there is a rise in that coming across
the border. It is often protected by these Hispanic gangs that
are very decentralized and it challenges, if it is true, our
Federal presumption of being able to break up networks. Would
you agree on that?
Mr. Loosle. Yes. The Hispanic gangs, particularly MS-13,
because of their structure are a little bit more difficult to
track. I, myself, have spent at least 8 years living and
working in Central America, 5 of those years were in El
Salvador, watching how this has evolved.
The danger for the United States and also for Mexico and
the Central American nations is the possibility of these gangs
being for national security reasons part of wittingly or
unwittingly smuggling aliens of special interest into the
United States or into their countries or becoming part of a
disaffected political group that might hire them to conduct
terrorist acts in their countries or also in the United States.
They don't have a structure like the Mafia or the Cosa Nostra.
They don't have that central pyramid because of their loose
confederation, but they are associated with each other. In
Central America recently we have seen where some of the cliques
have actually gone together to commit criminal acts.
I recently returned from El Salvador where the Department
of Justice including ATF, DHS, and a number of other Federal
agencies, met with and had a seminar with police officers,
prison officials, prosecutors, individuals involved in
prevention and rehabilitation met for 2 weeks. The seminar just
concluded last week and many of these issues were brought up.
Mr. Souder. Does the Federal Gang Initiative recognize the
fact that the different gang challenges in the United States
are fairly different in their origin and potential solution?
Mr. Loosle. What we are trying to do, actually, is look at
the commonalities to see what the best practices may be in both
prevention, rehabilitation, and intervention.
Mr. Souder. Let me try that question again. In the African
American community, historically the gangs have risen out of
areas of high poverty, and with radical Islamization that isn't
necessarily true. In London they came out of middle class
families. In Asian gangs they seem to have a little bit
different origin and there seems to be more idealogy in some of
the Hispanic gangs. Would you disagree with any of those
statements?
While there might be commonalities, that would suggest if
income isn't there and if idealogy is inserted in, that the
same anti-gang approaches that would be critical here in an
African American community might be different than trying to
tackle kids who went to Wahhabi school or education or a
cluster of Hispanics who feel that the United States has stolen
their territory.
Mr. Loosle. I think the first level of prevention is the
family and absent the family then individuals their first
instinct is for protection and that is how many of these gang
structures have arisen is to protect themselves from other
gangs. It really varies as far as the level of poverty.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Do you have any additional questions?
Ms. Watson. I just want to ask a question, Mr. Chairman,
and this is to Mr. Loosle.
Can you discuss the importance of Federal, State, and local
cooperation in gang investigation?
Mr. Loosle. Cooperation among all these agencies is
critical and essential. Additionally, not only in intervention
but prevention and rehabilitation. There needs to be a balance
among all those areas because if we put all our efforts into
intervention, that is not going to solve the problem. We need
to have a balance for prevention and rehabilitation, but we
need to work together, Federal, State, and local agencies, law
enforcement, and community groups together in each of these
areas.
Ms. Watson. And just to followup on that one, Mr. Chairman.
It will take me a second.
There were efforts to put together a gang truce between
major rival gangs. Can you tell me if that is working, if that
is in place? And do we have the various individuals as part of
that discussion?
Mr. Loosle. I apologize. I don't have information on the
gang truce. I am being told that there is no overriding or
high-profile truce. There is nothing to prevent gangs from
entering into truces with each other whether it be Crips,
Bloods, MS-13, or 18th Street. At this time I am not aware of a
truce.
Ms. Watson. Do you know anywhere in the country where there
have been truces established among violent gangs themselves,
originating with themselves, or with the input of some
organizing agency? We are going to have some witnesses that
might be able to address this in the Los Angeles area. I was
just wondering what you can tell us in terms of nationally.
Mr. Loosle. I can't cite the exact instances. I know
nationally there have been truces between gang members. There
have also been I guess you could call a truce between law
enforcement and gangs for having a nonviolent or staking out a
nonviolent area. I know that in El Salvador the 18th Street and
MS-13 have come to an agreement that they will not fight with
each other if confronted by the police; they will fight the
police first. In that sense, I guess you could say it is not so
much a truce but a unified effort. I don't know of any specific
truce. I know they are out there. They have been used and I
believe some have had some success.
Ms. Watson. Thank you very much to the witnesses. I yield
back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. I want to thank you both. We may
have some followup questions. I presume that the subject is
going to continue to expand over the next couple years. This is
kind of the home base, as both of you said, of a lot of the
original gang activity and the spread of the national gangs. I
would appreciate you being responsive to those questions. Also
thank the agents in the field for taking risks as we try to
figure out these organizations. It is not an easy challenge and
I thank you for it.
I do want to add on a personal note that a number of years
ago at multiple forums I heard a man named Leon Watkins who
negotiated the most well known of the Blood and Crip truce in
the 1980's and then a second truce with them and he made
multiple presentations. Then once at an informal forum with
major foundations, and this was when I was a staffer,
legislators in the administration, he said that in reality in
spite of what he had been saying publicly, one of the key
things was one of the leaders, I forget which group, became a
committed Christian.
I know this isn't politically correct, but he gave his life
to Christ and decided he was going to change. He went back to
his gang and they negotiated an agreement. A lot of this takes
changes of hearts and you've got to work at it. We need to do
the law enforcement side. We need to do what we can to help in
the communities, but a lot of this is reaching people's
individual hearts. When we have seen these major impacts, when
we get to the bottom of it, that tends to be there.
I thank both of you for coming and if the next panel would
start to come forward, we will get you seated and we will go on
to panel two. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, off the record.]
Mr. Souder. The meeting will come back to order. This panel
now I will read each of their names. Mr. Danny Trejo, film
actor and former gang member; Chief Ronnie Williams, Los
Angeles Sheriff's Department; Jerald Cavitt, former gang
member; Captain Regina Scott, patrol commanding officer,
Southwest Division, Los Angeles Police Department; Charlotte
Jordan, CEO, Mothers on the March; Dan Isaacs, chief operating
officer, Los Angeles Unified School District; Eddie Jones,
president, Los Angeles Civil Rights Association; and Rev. Dr.
Clyde W. Oden, Jr., senior pastor at Bryant Temple AME Church,
Board Member of the African American Summit on Violence
Prevention.
For those of you who didn't hear, as an oversight committee
we require each witness to be sworn in, so if you would each
stand now that you are all seated, raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that each of the witnesses
responded in the affirmative. We thank each of you for taking
time from your schedule to participate in this hearing and we
are looking forward to your testimony. We'll start with Mr.
Trejo. Each of you need to pull the microphone so the
stenographer can get all the words and so that people in the
back can hear as well.
STATEMENTS OF DANNY TREJO, FILM ACTOR AND FORMER GANG MEMBER;
CHIEF RONNIE WILLIAMS, LOS ANGELES SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT; JERALD
CAVITT, FORMER GANG MEMBER; CAPTAIN REGINA SCOTT, PATROL
COMMANDING OFFICER, SOUTHWEST DIVISION, LOS ANGELES POLICE
DEPARTMENT; CHARLOTTE JORDAN, CEO, MOTHERS ON THE MARCH; DAN
ISAACS, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL
DISTRICT; EDDIE JONES, PRESIDENT, LOS ANGELES CIVIL RIGHTS
ASSOCIATION; AND REV. DR. CLYDE W. ODEN, JR., SENIOR PASTOR AT
BRYANT TEMPLE AME CHURCH, BOARD MEMBER OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN
SUMMIT ON VIOLENCE PREVENTION
STATEMENT OF DANNY TREJO
Mr. Trejo. Good morning distinguished Members of Congress,
committee, and everybody else who is here. My name is Danny
Trejo. I am an actor as well as Director of Western Pacific
Rehab in Glendale. We detoxify drug addicts. I was born in
Maywood, raised in Temple Street, Echo Park, Lincoln Heights,
and Pacoima, California.
I became involved in drugs and criminal activities and
gangs at a very early age landing me in juvenile hall, forestry
camp, and Youth Authority. That is the prep school for the
State penitentiary.
After a small stint in Youth Authority I graduated and
ended up in the State penitentiary. I attended almost every
single penitentiary in the State of California that was in
operation during my incarceration including Gino, Soledad, San
Quentin, Folsom, Vacaville, Tracy, Susanville, and Sierra. At
this time there were different types of rehabilitation for
inmates such as school, self-help groups, numerous athletic
activities, group counseling, and one-on-one counseling.
You could go to Alcoholics Anonymous, meetings, and attend
church services. I myself helped to start one of the first NA
meetings in Soledad. My title was Inmate Social Catalyst. I
would help counsel new inmates about the pitfalls that they
might encounter living life on the inside. Now, due to prison
reform, we have limited resources in the struggle to help
rehabilitate inmates. Our prisons have become factories that
turn young men into animals, instead of what they suggest by
their name, ``correctional facilities.''
Our prison guards make more money than our teachers. Yet,
the California Department of Correction has a budget of over
$7.4 billion. How many prison facilities do we have in
California? Fifty-four youth and adult facilities. We send our
youth to prison and youth authorities. When they come out they
are hardcore gang members running the streets and calling the
shots.
They no longer have to be jumped into the gang. They are
the gang. We would like to form a committee of ex-offenders
with law enforcement who have solid reputations who are
respected in both prisons and in communities. Believe me, we do
have people in law enforcement that are well respected in both
prisons and the community.
In order to provide an alternative lifestyle not only to
those who have yet to encounter the system but those who are
already incarcerated in hopes that we might veer off the path
of destruction that has kept so many of them in prison for
their entire lives. These ex-offenders are viewed as the Ph.D.s
when it comes to gang subculture. They have lived it, thrived
in it, survived it, and are now productive members of society
trying to save our youth.
One of our first priorities would be to secure the safety
of our students in school, which has long been a breeding
ground for both gang and racial tension. For whatever reason,
thank God, Mayor Villagosa has taken the bull by the horns and
is now going to make the Los Angeles City School Board
directors accountable to those they serve. Maybe some day
instead of saying, ``Where you from?'' students will greet each
other with, ``How are you doing?''
When law enforcement and community can start working
together, we can come to a positive solution that will save our
youth and will help prevent cases like Manuel Rilrahas who at
the time of his arrest was an 18-year-old skateboarder and a
non-gang member who is at present facing murder charges that he
did not commit.
Any ex-offender with any type of street knowledge could
have worked with the police and would have come to the
conclusion together that this young man, now one hung jury
later, at 20 years old his second trial starts tomorrow. Let's
start looking for justice instead of a DA conviction rate and
filling our prisons with young people. I am here with my
associates to extend our hand in order to not only work with
you but also let you use our expertise to help youth in our
communities.
Councilwoman Watson, I believe that I first worked with you
awhile back with Project Heavy and the Narcotics Prevention
Project. I am glad to see that you are still in the fight
because we need more people like you championing our cause. I
was listening to the dialog and our Police Department of Los
Angeles, our Sheriff's Department, they are doing a great job
of taking the guns off the street.
Somebody please tell me how are those guns getting here? We
don't have any gun factories in Los Angeles I don't think. I
don't think in any community. I know they have one in Pacoima.
I know there is not one in Venice. I know there is not one in
Compton. Please, somebody tell me how can our police
department, how can our sheriff's department keep getting AK-
47s off the street if they keep coming?
I have never seen a gun show run by African American or
Mexican American people ever. We have gun shows in Utah. We
have gun shows in Montana. Somewhere along the line we had
better start putting barbed wire around these gun shows instead
of building more prisons in California. God bless you all.
Thank you very, very much.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Williams.
STATEMENT OF CHIEF RONNIE WILLIAMS
Mr. Williams. Good morning. I thank the esteemed panel for
inviting the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. I am here
on behalf of Sheriff Lee Baca. I will tell you I am a native of
Los Angeles, Watts, California, I like to say. I was born and
raised here. This, too, is personal for me as well as business.
I have had two nephews killed in gang violence that weren't
gang members. I also have a nephew in Lancaster State Prison
for being involved in a ride-by shooting, so I have come full
circle on all ends of the spectrum.
I would like to start off by making a statement by William
Edward Burkhardt Du Bois who said in his book, ``The Souls of
Black Folk 1903,'' that ``The chief problem in any community
cursed with crime is not punishment of the criminals but the
preventing of the young from being trained to crime.'' Very
prophetic 1903 that it refers to what we are experiencing in
2006.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department believes that
our youth are the future of our county. It takes an active role
in providing programs to assist our youth with obtaining a
successful future.
In 1985, the Sheriff's Youth Foundation was created based
upon the belief that crime prevention programs focusing on the
youth are key to developing safer communities. The foundation
works with young people throughout the county for tools of
success, and empowers them to utilize these tools while having
some enjoyment and fun.
The programs exist to offer LA County youth a safe and
supportive environment where they can interact with positive
role models, interact with law enforcement officers. They
receive life guidance, factual information, educational
tutoring, the opportunity to participate in after-school
activities, and esteem-building exercises.
The Sheriff's Department believes overall success in
combatting youth and gang violence resides in a three-pronged
approach: prevention, intervention, and suppression. Prevention
by education of our youth before they make the choice to become
involved in criminal activity. The Sheriff has several programs
under prevention. A couple of them, the Youth Activities
Leagues, called YALs. Of the 21 Sheriff's Stations throughout
the county, more than half offer YAL activities. They are
viable alternatives to drug involvement and gang membership.
More than 20,000 children and teenagers participate in this
program each year.
Another program, Success Through Awareness and Resistance,
STAR, discusses drug, gang, and violence prevention. Education
classes are co-taught throughout Los Angeles County by
specially trained Sheriff's deputies assigned to the unit. The
STAR program is at work in 370 schools within 50 school
districts and 30 contract cities and the unincorporated areas.
The program reaches more than 100,000 youth a year.
In addition to these programs, I have several programs
involved under the focus of intervention. First and foremost is
the VIDA program, Vital Instruction Direction Alternative, run
by COPS Bureau, Community Oriented Policing Service. VIDA is a
16-week community assisted re-directional program facilitated
by the LA County Sheriff's Department that focuses on
addressing juvenile delinquency issues related to gang
involvement.
Youth who have been identified as being involved in a gang
lifestyle are referred to the VIDA program through the use of
VIDA referral forms. Referrals to the program are made by
parents, the court, other law enforcement agencies, social
services, school districts, and religious institutions.
Currently we have two VIDA sites, one in Antelope Valley and
one in Century. We just started another one in Century station
last month.
Another program is in operation through our Operation Safe
Streets Gang Bureau, a better LA program. OSS personnel are
part of a collaborative effort with the Pacific Institute. It
provides transformational education and cognitive thinking
skills. The institute made a commitment to assist South Los
Angeles in reducing gang violence.
It has the support of USC football coach Pete Carroll.
There is a custody component attached to the program for adult
offenders called New Direction to Success and a youth program
called Pathways to Excellence. In all, the Sheriff's Department
has over 38 programs designed to provide for our youth.
Last is suppression and suppression, is what police
departments do. We direct our resources into reducing crime and
increasing the quality of life in areas. For this I have a
small example. The Sheriff's Department tasked me with having a
task force in the city of Compton. This task force has been
involved in Compton since January, but I am going to take a
small slice of this for you.
Since August 6, 2006, we have made 158 felony arrests. We
have recovered 170 guns. Distinguished panel, that is about 20
guns a week. These are the guns. These are weapons of war.
These are weapons that my son uses who is in the U.S. Army.
Twenty guns a week in a 10 square mile community.
As Mr. Trejo said, I don't know any manufacturer of guns in
LA County. When you look at 10 square miles and 170 guns since
August, imagine another 10 square miles some place else. We
don't know how to stop this. We can have all the programs we
want and in law enforcement we deal with statistics and anytime
we deem ourself successful when we have a lowering of crime or
violence in any community that we police, we look at our
statistics and we can enjoy that for a minute, but these
statistics don't matter to victims of violent crime. These
stats don't matter to survivors of violent crimes. It doesn't
matter to them. For us one shooting, one murder is one too
many.
Congresswoman Watson referred to a homicide last night in
the city of Compton. A 10-year-old boy, and a male, African
American adult was killed virtually for no reason. That is the
life in communities. That is what happens in these communities
that has these guns. As long as we have a proliferation of
firearms, we are going to have an issue.
Also, I would be remiss if I didn't tell you gangs have
crossed over. Not just gang-on-gang crimes but in the hate
crimes, black-on-brown. Gang crime is in the upsurge. I had
five black-on-brown shootings in the past week in my division.
I don't even want to ask my friends in LAPD how many they've
had or Englewood Police Department has had. Just five in the
last week, so they have crossed over not just in gang-on-gang
robbery but into hate crimes and it is impacting the
communities in LA County. That needs to be dealt with.
We also, in LA County, have a thriving clergy council and
some of the people in the audience. Chairman Souder, I didn't
bring them but they are out here in the audience, part of our
burgeoning clergy council of African American and Latino
pastors that want this issue addressed. They met 2 weeks ago at
USC and they are about to memorialize a document on how they
want that addressed. It is a serious problem that needs to be
tended to. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Cavitt.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Baca follows:]
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STATEMENT OF JERALD CAVITT
Mr. Cavitt. Yes. Good morning. My name is Jerald Cavitt. I
thank everybody for allowing us here on this conversation that
has to be dealt with. Too many heads being turned. Maybe
happening in the wrong areas and wrong neighborhoods makes it
all right. These guns don't pop up in Beverly Hills like this,
Bel Aire. For some reason we can shake a gun trail in South
Central LA, this gun trail that leaves a trail of bodies every
day.
My name is Jerald Cavitt and I was born here. I got
involved in gangs at the age of 15 in the early 1970's, maybe
1970. Went to prison and came back after doing a nice choke in
prison. I knew that something different had to happen. With
that I became involved in this work effort. With intervention
and prevention we save lives every day.
Our kids are the next gang members. We save them first but
we must put the fires out along the way. We put fires out every
day. Every day there is a trail of bodies. Just in the
surrounding city is the worst but it is across the country,
almost across the world. We have Bloods and Crips and 18th
Streets, Matavillas all over.
I want to say a couple of things before I go on here. I
work full-time trying to return and restore peace to the city.
Today I represent the hardcore gang intervention specialists
and the work we do to handle gang violence. For 2 years I have
worked for Unity T.W.O., a gang prevention and hardcore gang
intervention group.
Unity T.W.O. is part of the Unity Collaborative, which is
made up of the following groups: Unity One, Unity T.W.O., Unity
Three, Venice 2000, JUSH, Unity Two Chapter Two, and Toberman
House. We work with all the other gang intervention agencies
that work this city. Everybody does a lot of work.
We work under the LA Bridges program. We've got a collab
leadership that we help structure from a level above the work
that is being done.
We have Tony Massengale, Bill Martinez and Howard Uller
that helps us do this. We work out of South Central or wherever
we must go. Sometimes we must tell the parents that the kids
won't make it home today.
I work in schools. The high schools are not the worst. The
middle schools carry weapons. We keep hearing weapons here on
these panels that Congresswoman Watson brought up. We keep
hearing weapons of gang members at high school level, middle
school level with guns. Is that too easily accessible? Is it
overflow? Is something wrong with that picture here and abroad
now that we can't seem to do anything about that just goes on
and on and on and on?
We also have a committee called the Cease Fire Committee,
which was formed from the best of the Unity Collab. We formed
this committee of a non-profit organization and we work
together to stop gang violence and promote positive social
change. Our primary mission is to obtain a cease-fire and
maintain a cease-fire between rival urban gangs.
I am proud to say that I have founded Unity Two Chapter Two
as a part of the collab which will provide assistance and peace
among the Crips and the Bloods. The plan is to establish a
nationwide communication line to talk to gang members all over
the world that are interested in sharing their ideas for
promoting peace all over the world.
This gang violence started here in Los Angeles and we of
the Collab and Cease Fire Committee intend to fix it here. With
these issues resolved locally, we can spread our actions across
the world to stop the violence.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Cavitt, if you could start to summarize.
You are over your time limit.
Mr. Cavitt. OK.
Mr. Souder. You can summarize it.
Mr. Cavitt. OK. Right away. We had a breakfast recently and
we had a breakfast over 18 rival gangs that shoot at each other
every day, that kill each other every day. We did mediation
work and last week we got them all to a table at a breakfast.
They came in the name of wanting to hear peace. Some of them
are just tired of what is going on. Some of them want the
better for the communities at large. If we don't stop this now,
then we have no future later.
With a combined effort with suppression and gang
intervention, and not only suppression being the only ones with
100 percent of funding and gang intervention 25 percent of the
funding that sounds like is just enough to fail. We have no
intentions on failing and we will not fail. We will work
closely with law enforcement. Law enforcement in the
communities can vouch for the things that we do.
We deal hand in hand with activities and the peacemaking
process. Right here with local law enforcement, LAPD and the
Sheriff, we can and will bring this problem to an end with
resources that can be given to us because we fight our war in
Iraq every day and we don't speak of the war that is going on
right here in South Central LA every day. Thank you very much
for your time.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Scott.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cavitt follows:]
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STATEMENT OF CAPTAIN REGINA SCOTT
Ms. Scott. Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to
appear before you today and speak on behalf of the Los Angeles
Police Department about this very important issue of combating
youth violence. The LAPD shares the committee's concerns about
this troubling problem and we hope today by discussing these
issues that we will develop some effective solutions that will
have a lasting impact on the problem.
For LAPD gang violence is the single most important problem
that we are facing in this city. The problem of crime and
violence among our youth are directly connected to the
affiliation, association, influence, and direct involvement of
gang activity. For us to have any meaningful or lasting impact
on combating youth violence we have to find a way to commit our
collective resources to significantly reduce, if not eradicate,
gang violence and the negative influence that gang members have
on our youth.
To be effective, these programs have to include public
safety, which we are willing to be there for, but you can't do
it with just public safety if you don't have education and you
don't grab those families, and you don't provide them with
employment in the intercity. In the intercity there is
practically no safe haven for our youth.
I mean, the police officers get there and they tell them,
``Hey, you've got to leave,'' but where do these kids go? Every
part of the city is infested with some type of gang activity.
Our schools are not safe. Our parks are not safe. Our
residential communities are not safe. Then we even have to
question that some of these kids are not even safe in their own
home and we understand that.
I am going to give you some data here that will help you
shed a light on the problem that we face but then the
overwhelming thing that LAPD has to face every day. In just
LA's intercity we have 700 violent gangs that have been
documented and we estimate about 60,000, and this is 60,000
that we have documented, gang members are in the city of Los
Angeles. If you will include the associates, the affiliates,
the gang wannabes, you can almost quadruple that number.
Now, you take that number and you realize in all of LAPD we
have a little bit over 300 gang officers to deal with that
problem. In just my area alone we have about 6,000 gang members
that are documented. If you take that I employ about 24 gang
officers to deal with that problem, we are putting a band-aid
on a sore that is cancer and it is not working and we
understand that and we recognize that.
If you look at it, approximately year to date right now
21,472 juveniles have been arrested for various criminal
offenses. Year to date we have had about 4,000 drive-by
shootings and of those 4,000, 1,600 victims have been actually
shot in the head. Year to date we have lost 356 souls to
homicide and of those 356, 167 of them are gang related. That
is about 50 percent of all homicides are gang related.
Just in the South Los Angeles area 72 of them are
accredited to us.
It talks about parolees and what Mr. Trejo talked about.
There are 35,000 parolees in the city. That's 35,000 people
that went to jail and are out on parole for some criminal
event. About 50 percent of those are just in the intercity of
Los Angeles. There are 3,400, approximately, juveniles that are
in juvenile hall or in California youth camp. As he said, that
is preparatory for prison.
We have about 20,000 juveniles who are currently right now
being supervised by the Los Angeles County Probation
Department. What we realize here today as LAPD is we cannot
arrest our way out of this problem. We look at that and LAPD
along with the Sheriff we do have youth programs that help to
prevent that. We have our LAPD Explorers. We have Safe Passage
in our schools where we collaborate with the community.
We have an LAPD Jeopardy but we only have 404 youth in that
program and of those 404 youth, only eight of them are in the
south area. We have the Los Angeles Police Activities, PAL. We
have about 1,500 kids in that. If you look at that, in South
Los Angeles we have a hard time getting the kids in the small
amount of programs that we have. We have initiatives in safer
cities.
We realize Baldwin Village in that area was just a safe
haven for crime and we went in there with an initiative of safe
haven looking at other entities or other initiatives throughout
the city and we put in resources. We were able to fix that
problem. I am proud to say, and also sad to say, that since we
went in there since this year we had not had a murder in
Baldwin Village until a couple of weeks ago when we lost
Kaitlyn, the 3-year-old who was shot in a gang-related type
incident.
We have a collaborative which we are really proud to say we
are working with the Urban League to try to hit those four
elements that I talked about: public safety, education,
housing, and employment with the Urban League. We will be
bringing that out shortly.
Gang intervention. I sit here today at the table with
Jerald and one of the things I have to say about Operation
South Bureau, we realize that we can't do this by ourselves.
What we have done is we have a coordinated effort to ensure
that the officers assigned to our gang units work closely with
the school police and our gang intervention groups to help
reduce involvement in juvenile gangs.
Now, I am sitting here and I am thinking if you had asked
me 5 years ago when I was in law enforcement would we ever work
with gang intervention, ex-gang members? I would tell you no
way. We have the solution. We will just put them in jail. But
today I am proud to say that one of our success stories is the
King Day Parade. We went to that King Day Parade with red and
blue, seas of red and blue, and we had no incidents. The reason
why is because we could refer to our gang intervention and they
handled that problem.
The collaborative that we are trying to build----
Mr. Souder. Ms. Scott, you need to come to a summary here,
too. We are going to put your full statements in the record and
any additional materials.
Ms. Scott. I just want to mention the gang intervention
collaboratives because although they are not snitches, they
don't come to us and tell us who is doing who, but they come to
us and say, ``Better look at the 40's. Look at the 30's. There
may be a problem, Captain Scott.'' We say, ``Help us.'' They go
out underground, undercover, and they bring them together and
they help. That is something that we couldn't reach. We could
tell them all day long to stop shooting and killing each other,
but they need to reach out amongst themselves to do that.
I just want to recognize Unity One and Amer-I-Can, the Los
Angeles Civil Rights Association, A Place Called Home,
Community Build-A-Safe-Passage Program, and the Unity
Collaborative--2nd Call, Unity One, Two, and Three--initiatives
on that. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you for your testimony.
I want to say to each of the witnesses, too, that I have
been giving just a little over. I am trying to keep it roughly
even. I know and appreciate your passion and probably each of
you could do a couple hours here. We have a time agreement to
adjourn at 12:30 and I know Mr. Isaac said he has a 12:15
appointment but that is why I am trying to keep it moving. I
apologize because I know you all are very passionate. We want
to make sure everything gets in the record.
Ms. Jordan.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Scott follows:]
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STATEMENT OF CHARLOTTE JORDAN
Ms. Jordan. Good morning. Thank you for inviting us to this
very important issue. My name is Charlotte Austin Jordan. I am
the founder of Mothers on the March and Save our Future. I can
directly tell you what violence will do to you. I had a 13-
year-old daughter, Jamee Finney. In 1988 she was shot 15 times.
Fifteen times. My son in 1996 was shot by a 41-year-old gang
member.
My family, my immediate family has lost 14 children under
the age of 21. That is one family. One grandmother. I was put
in this fight not by choice. I was forced in it. I have been
out here for 18 years or better. Mothers are part of the
solution. We live it, we think it, we sleep it, we eat it. We
sit on a daily basis trying to figure out what happened to our
child, how did this happen, how could it happen, how did we
allow it to happen, and we come out with real solutions.
Los Angeles Police Department recognized the importance of
mothers at this table. I am going to say one thing. Every last
one of us in here have one thing in common. We have a mother.
Our mothers are important in this battle. They can unite. I
have been myself in the presence through my charter school in
front of a 17-year-old young man trying to shoot another one.
Because I was in his face and begging him not to shoot that
gun, he was trying to shoot around me saying, ``Ma'am, please
move.'' He wanted to shoot that child, but because I was there
he gave me enough respect. You need to help us. These young men
at the table, these organizations, it's not going to come from
your FBI. Like law enforcement said, they can't do it
themselves. It is going to take the community.
It is going to take mothers who have these children and in
Los Angeles it is not uncommon to have a mother to have a child
in prison for murder and one in the graveyard, so we know from
both ends. When you are looking to find out about a bullet
wound, how does it feel to be shot, you don't go and ask a
person how does it feel who has been stabbed. We can tell you.
We can tell you from just sitting and thinking, working with
the collaboratives.
We build the collaborative. Eighteen years there has been
programs that came in, got funded, walked out the door. Guess
what? Project Cry No More, Mothers on the March, Stevies,
Justice for Murdered Children, Drive-by Agony have been here.
We are not going away. For you guys today you go home and you
forget about this. For me tonight I go home and pray that I
don't dream about my children. I had a birthday just a few
weeks ago and I was sad. I should have been celebrating because
so many don't make it but I wanted to see my children.
I wanted to see my children. But nothing can stop us. These
mothers are here. We are asking whatever we can do. We get
respect. We get the ear of those children. We get the ear of
our husbands. We need your ear. We need your help. Funding is
needed. Eighteen years and no one has funded us. Guess what? We
are still here and we're not going. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Isaacs.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Jordan follows:]
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STATEMENT OF DAN ISAACS
Mr. Isaacs. Thank you, Chairman Souder, Congresswoman
Watson. I would be remiss if I didn't express our appreciation
for the years and actual decades of support that Congresswoman
Watson has provided our school system.
I am a graduate of LA Unified. So is my wife and so are my
two kids. We believe very strongly in public education. Los
Angeles Unified School District has many initiatives in place
that address the issue of safety on our campuses. Rather than
focusing on youth violence, we commit ourselves to ensuring
that our campuses remain safe havens for our students and
staff.
For example, in the city of Los Angeles in 2004 the primary
crime rate per 1,000 was 36.4 occurrences, whereas within the
LAUSD the crime rate was 3.3 occurrences per 1,000 students and
employees. Our schools are far safer than any community in
which they are located.
LAUSD has its own School Police Department made up of over
600 sworn and civilian personnel including in excess of 300
police officers. During the past year the department responded
to 62,356 calls for service; issued 30,000 plus parking and
traffic citations around schools impacting traffic safety;
filed over 13,000 criminal/arrest reports related to students
or staff from LAUSD. We share all of these reports with our
police department, LAPD, as well as the Sheriffs and other
neighboring city police agencies.
Thirteen hundred crimes were investigated against students
and staff. We obtained $468,000 in restitution judgments;
coordinated and facilitated 2,000 students obtaining clothing
and supplies at Operation School Bell; mentored almost 1,500
students in the Police Activities League and the Junior Police
Academy Programs; developed and implemented and maintained safe
school collaborative partnerships; successfully managed and
resolved several major campus demonstrations and protests
involving thousands of student without serious injury.
The District is unique in the establishment of a Youth
Relations and Crime Prevention Unit. This unit does not provide
security services, per se; yet contributes dramatically to
maintaining an environment conducive to learning. It is
comprised of 16 Youth Relations Assistants plus one
Coordinator. The staff members are utilized at schools
throughout the city based on need.
Their goals are to promote good human relations and
positive intergroup activities between students. They work
closely with the city and county Human Relations Commissions,
Department of Justice, s well as the Probation Department.
Youth Relations Assistants have developed an exemplary human
relations program known as HEART, Human Efforts at Relating
Together.
Another unit which focuses on safety is the Crisis
Counseling and Intervention Unit. It has several proactive
initiatives as well as being galvanized when there is a
traumatic event which impacts our schools. Its main functions
are to create and execute the District-wide Crisis Team
training, conduct threat assessment training for District staff
members, and provide crisis intervention training to all of our
local districts and, in turn, their staff.
Some of our key safety initiatives over the past 2 years
include $9.3 million which our superintendent and our board
authorized to increase the number of campus aide positions to
provide supervision on our secondary campuses from before
school until after the end of the school day. These aides
receive 24 hours of training from our own school police
department.
Doubled the Youth Relations and Crime Prevention staff
which I referenced earlier. We have initiated a collaborative
safety working group composed of representatives from LAPD, our
own school district, City Attorney, State Attorney General,
Probation Department, Housing Authority, MTA, LA Mayor's
office, County Office of Education and others which have
undertaken a number of tasks in a collaborative fashion to make
our schools safer.
For example, 10 school mapping, assessment and action plan
based upon school community crime data so we can determine
where it is safe and where it is unsafe both within the school
community and on the way to school and on the way home from
school.
Moving of MTA bus stops that are heavily utilized by
students to more secure locations nearer to the school sites.
Collaborative efforts between the city, county and district to
address specific school safety measures such as designating all
schools as Safe School Zones under Penal Code 626 where our
city attorney has enhanced penalties if a crime is committed
within 1,000 feet of any of our school sites.
All of our LAUSD crime reports are shared with LAPD and
other police agencies. We have an emphasis on the use of
portable metal detectors at secondary school sites and renewed
training and distribution of a CD to help reinforce the
training at the school site. We have requested our principals
to meet with students in their classrooms to address the values
of diversity, racial tolerance, multi-ethnic sensitivity and
the means to settle disputes in a nonviolent fashion.
We have installed additional safety enhancements at key
schools such as security fencing, dense shrubbery, surveillance
cameras, and an increase of night lighting. We have a District
Parent Handbook which is issued to every parent and student in
all of the languages spoken within the LAUSD. I have a sample
here for the committee if they wish.
Fifty-eight of our secondary schools have a probation
officer assigned to the school sites. We have a large number of
Violence Prevention/Human Relations Programs that are currently
in place at our school sites. Let me just mention a few. We
have a Second Step Program which is a K through 8 violence
prevention curriculum. We have Youth Relations HEART Program,
which I mentioned earlier. We have LA Bridges. We have a
program with Rampart Division of the LAPD Middle School
Intervention Project at selected middle schools. We have Youth
Lead gang intervention program at selected middle schools. We
participate in the Los Angeles County Interagency Gang Task
Force.
This year we have initiated a priority staffing program to
ensure that schools with the greatest need have fully
credentialed teachers and all positions are filled including a
judicial stable substitute force at each of these schools. We
have a focus on selected high and middle schools to address
immediate facilities and staffing issues.
Let me just close, if I may, by quoting some statistics
which reflect a decrease in crime from the 2004/2005 school to
the most recent school year that has closed, 2005/2006. We have
a decrease of assaults with a deadly weapon in excess of 11
percent; decrease in batteries by almost 5 percent; decrease in
homicides by 75 percent; decreased bomb threats almost 38
percent; decreased robberies by 20 percent; decreased sex
offenses by almost 22 percent; decreased criminal threats by 16
percent; decreased threats against school employees by 42
percent; decreased arsons a little over 6 percent; decreased
burglaries by 20 percent; decreased thefts by 25 percent; and,
decreased incidents of vandalism by almost 6 percent.
Our opinion is that it is critical to reduce the plethora
of weapons that are found in this community and create an
environment that is much more difficult for our students to act
as weapons. Obviously we are looking to all of our
collaborative agencies with whom we work to enhance our safe
passages and our safe quarters to and from school. Thank you
very much.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Now Mr. Eddie Jones.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Isaacs follows:]
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STATEMENT OF EDDIE JONES
Mr. Jones. My name is Eddie Jones, President of the Los
Angeles Civil Rights Association. We have a bad cancer in our
community and we are trying to find ways to cure this cancer.
This cancer is shooting, killing, stabbing, beating,
harassment--physical and verbal--and is very, very heated in
South Central Los Angeles. I am hoping and praying each day
that Congress will maybe look at a program that I have been
looking at that used to be called the Team Post a long time
ago. It was a great after-school program for kids.
I was a product of the Team Post. Rather than reinvent the
wheel, I thought about calling it the Basic Training Center for
Life Skills for Youth. In this building, that I'm sure the
Government has funds to fund, you put a classroom environment
which has a library, law library, medical library, whatever
type of books these young people want to read. It has a
theater, it has a basketball court, pool table.
Then on the other side it has the basic training side just
like they have in the military. You have the tires and you have
the wall with the ropes. You have all the exercise apparatuses
and everything for the kids to learn. You have computers and
technology so they can advance their minds and maybe even a
media center inside the Basic Training Center for Life Skills
for Youth. I think it would be uplifting, motivating.
It would give the kids dignity. It would give them self-
worth. Not only that, it will teach them a lot about respect
and honor. A lot of our older people in the community are
afraid to walk to the store. They are afraid to walk their dogs
at the park. They are afraid to walk down the street after a
certain hour. That is not the way it should be. It should be
that we all should be able to walk and talk and share with one
another in our community.
No matter if you live on this side of the street or the
other side of the street, we all have something in common; we
are human beings. When we wake up in the morning we have to
wash our face and brush our teeth all the same, but we can't do
it if we have to walk outside and be worried about, ``Where are
you from? From city are you from?'' It is intimidating to be
asked a question, ``Where are you from?''
A lot of kids want to go to school, but a lot are afraid to
go to school because they don't want to be asked that question.
A lot of parents are so afraid with all these school shootings
and all these shootings in the community. I can't name alone
how many candlelight vigils I have went to myself and other
organizations.
Recently here with the 3-year-old myself along with the
LAPD and all the other organizations, Unity One, Ministry Tony,
Herb Wesson. Everybody was there at the press conference. I
wish that would have been a press conference for the Basic
Training Center for Life Skills, not a press conference for a
3-year-old that was shot and a father that was laying there
almost dead and the doctors don't want to tell him that his
daughter is dead because that might kill him just finding out
that his daughter is dead. How terrible is that?
The four young boys that were shot on Central with AK-47s
in front of their house out there just playing. How in the
world does an AK-47, and I mean they have taken a lot of them
off of our streets, 9 millimeters, 380's, Desert Eagles,
Glocks, Glock 17, Glock 18, Glock 19. All these weapons are on
our streets and they have lots of ammo.
This botox store, which I had a privilege to work with
Congresswoman Watson on, this botox store is a serious
situation. If something goes down in our community or if the
wrong people get in there and get those guns out of there and
they are just sitting there and, trust me, these G's, like back
in the day they called them G Men, that was the FBI, but these
G Men are gangsters. They know what they are doing.
They know how to get those guns. If they really want to get
them, they shouldn't be in South Central Los Angeles because if
they were in Beverly Hills or in the Valley or anywhere like
that, the people would fight and that gangster would have been
gone a long time ago.
We have a very, very serious fight here. We can't do it by
ourselves. I thank Congresswoman Watson because she is putting
her heart, her life, her soul into this fight to stop this gang
problem that is plaguing mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers,
aunts, uncles, grandparents, and the entire community.
Today I leave with you this. On behalf of the Los Angeles
Civil Rights Association I want to thank Honorable Diane Watson
and other members of the congressional committee for holding
hearings on the crucial life and death issue of gangs and gun
violence in our inner cities. This is a deeply troubling issue
that I have devoted my time and energy to for the past 5 years.
I just want to say in closing if you think about this Basic
Training Life Center for kids, for young people, when they get
out of school, instead of seeing them hanging on the corner and
throwing up signs to each other because I can't tell you how
many shootings I have been to myself, how many funerals I have
went to. I didn't know the kids but I felt like they were mine
because each one teach one. It takes a village to raise a
child. I get phone calls at 3 in the morning. I cry like a
baby.
I thank God for Skip Johnson. Where are you, Skip? He is
the Gang Intervention, Unity One, and he keeps me up on what is
going on in the community along with Unity Two and other
organizations that are out here fighting this problem. We
cannot do it by ourselves. We need the Government. We need the
President of the United States to allow funds to come in for us
to build after-school programs that will help these kids stay
alive. Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. Our next witness is Rev. Oden. Thank you very
much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jones follows:]
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STATEMENT OF REV. DR. CLYDE W. ODEN
Rev. Oden. Thank you and good morning to the Honorable Mark
Souder, chairman, and to Congressperson Diane Watson. It is a
privilege to be able to present this morning.
I am the Senior Pastor of Bryant Temple A.M.E. Church
located here in South Los Angeles, as well as a founding member
of the African American Summit on Violence Prevention. I want
to share with you the summary of the work that we have done
over the last 3 years.
The full testimony has been presented to you so I am just
going to deal with the highlights. The fact is that we came
together some 3 years ago when Kerman Maddox had challenged our
community to stop just wringing our hands about the problems
but began looking at solutions for the problems. We had a 2-day
summit meeting at USC to begin looking at a number of those
issues.
Several hundred African American leaders, parents, and
activists joined together to begin that important conversation.
Since then the summit has had door-to-door survey of the
community in which we talked directly with the community. We
have had workshops. We have conducted workshops. We have
participated in cultural forums. We tried to make certain that
we could hear many of the voices of the African American
community. What we have come up with is this.
No. 1, our community very much wants to see this problem
resolved but the problem is greater than just the African
American community. There is a culture of violence that is part
of America and until we admit it ourselves, we are in a state
of denial the same way the White House is in a state of denial
with respect to the war in Iraq.
The problem of violence is not just a young people problem.
It is not just a problem of African Americans. It is not just a
problem of people of color. It is a problem of all of America.
There could be no peace without social, economic, and political
justice. Let me say that again. There can be no peace without
social, economic, and political justice and that is where we
ultimately have to be.
In my prepared remarks there are 24 recommendations that we
have that we think are important in order to change the culture
of violence that we have. It begins with our school system,
which touches every one of our young people. We have to admit
that the LA Unified School District has failed our children.
When we have a 50 percent dropout rate of our young men after
the 9th grade, that is a problem because they drop out from
school and then going off to the streets and then to the
prisons. Something has to be done about that.
Something has to be done about the curriculum because there
needs to be persons who are, in fact, involved in trying to
change things. They need to talk to the young people in the
schools in terms of a curriculum of prevention so that our
young people can hear and see and feel that is going on. There
is nothing more impactful than to have a mother stand before
you and say, ``Look, my child has died as a result of
violence.''
This is no fun thing. This is no game and that needs to be
said. There needs to be community survival training sessions so
our young people as well as our adults can understand how to
survive the streets of Los Angeles. There needs to be more
organized forums for youth and parents around the issues of
personal responsibility and violence prevention.
Our foster care system needs to be overhauled. Within 24
months of the emancipation from a foster care program more than
three-fourths of the young people that come out of the program
are then involved in the criminal justice system. We are
training our young people in the wrong way.
Our street intervention specialists are valuable resources.
There needs to be more resources available, more funding for
those persons who are specialized in getting out into the
streets and getting out into the alleys and getting out into
the nitty-gritty of our community. We need to support more
mentoring programs directed at African American youth in
particular.
It takes a man to teach a man. Our young people don't
understand what it is until they have a role model. We need to
promote role models. We need to also have more community forums
for racial dialog and not pretend like it don't exist in terms
of problems between black and brown youth and black and brown
folk in our community. We have to have conversations about
that.
We also have to promote more role modeling for both our
young men and young women. We also have to teach our faith-
based communities how to have more effective programs. We
cannot say just because we are a faith-based church or
organization that we know what the best practices are. We need
to promote what is working out there and there are many
churches and faith-based organizations that really want to get
involved.
Then we have to deal with diversion of our young people
away from the court systems. We sent too many of our young
people to those basic training courses for the university of
prisons. We need to keep them outside of the prison system.
Then, finally, we need to make certain that our families have
some place to call when they have a young person in crisis.
Right now who do you call? Who do you call if you have a
young person who needs to talk to somebody? There are no
resources now. There needs to be resources. All 24 of our
recommendations we provided to you in terms of testimony. We
thank you for the opportunity to share. We thank Congresswoman
Watson for her leadership that she has given to our community
for a long time. Thank you so very much and God bless you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. I know Mr. Isaacs needs to go and
anybody else who needs to. We have added one additional
witness, somebody who is almost as well known as Congresswoman
Watson. Will the Rev. Jesse Jackson please come forward.
Whether you are a cabinet member or whoever, everybody needs to
be sworn in in an oversight committee so if you will raise your
hand.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Thank you for being willing to speak on this
important subject. I look forward to hearing your words.
[The prepared statement of Rev. Oden follows:]
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STATEMENT OF REV. JESSE JACKSON
Rev. Jackson. Let me express my sincere thanks to
Congresswoman Watson for giving us this platform of giving us
the chance to express ourselves and for the testimonies I have
heard already today. If I close my eyes I am in Kansas City, I
am in Newark, I am in Atlanta. As we fight this arm of the
crisis, it is not unique to Los Angeles. We are facing the
devastating impact of an abandoned urban policy.
Urban America has become the Valley of Death because of
schemes of protracted genocide. We take various anecdotes or
examples and act as if that is the problem or the solution.
What do I mean by that, Sister Watson? I do not know of a gun
shop in America owned by blacks. From LA to New York to Miami
there is not a single black-owned gun shop in America or gun
manufacturer. So where do the guns come from? Most cities ban
the sale of guns, but the suburbs encircle the city with guns
and make a profit off of the insurgents as it were. Make a
profit off of bringing guns to where people kill and are
killed, the flow of guns.
We use satellites in Iraq. We know where guns are
manufactured, where they come from, and we stop the flow of
guns. We stop the insurgency. We have lost about 3,000 soldiers
in 3 years in Iraq. We lose about 26,000 a year at home. We
know where the guns come from and so to use this military
language let's stop the supply line of the insurgents.
You can't find a single ghetto in America that grows
cocaine or heroin. We know the heroin comes from Afghanistan on
the U.S. military occupation. We know that. We know the cocaine
comes out of Colombia and Peru right down the Pan American
Highway and is unloaded in Long Beach. We know that. We know
where the guns and the drugs come from and who they prey upon
and those victims at the caboose of that train end up in jails
for profits now and in the street.
I would like to say three things. Since I have been here
working the last 3 days, No. 1, All Saints Church is under
attack for freedom of speech. It is not just All Saints. It is
all labor organizations are now facing IRS investigations. All
civil rights groups are facing IRS investigations not unlike
Dr. King leading the cry in 1955, indicted by the IRS in 1957
for income tax evasion. The use of the Government to intimidate
and try to nullify the free conscious of pulpits and labor and
civil rights.
Last night we watched as they threatened to close the
hospital. If you look at a certain geographic area and you
cutoff job training, cutoff Section 8 housing, you reduce the
school budget, you cut access to hospitals, you have, in a
sense, engaged in the hemorrhaging and the slow death of those
who live where the water is cutoff or where the blood is
cutoff.
I guess my point is, (a) don't look at this issue through a
keyhole but look at it through a door. It is a bigger issue.
Some people are profiting from our misery. I would take this
case, if I had to make a case, in the Valley of Dry Bones, and
these bones are dry. At some point the bones have to get
reconnected with a massive dose of unity and a will to fight to
break the cycle of the killing.
The fact is that music and media has not given us a comfort
zone in our death, in the pseudo-religious music of pop
culture. We are glorifying death to the generation. We are
dancing our way to the graveyard and recycling a quality of
life and lifestyle that is hemorrhaging us. I would make this
case, Congresswoman, I don't know how many jobs it would take,
just using, for example, in that area.
How many jobs are we short? I don't know what the number is
but whether it is 20,000 or 12,000, we need to know (a) how
many jobs we need. How much skill, trade, training do we need
so we can build where we live? If they gave all of us a house,
we couldn't fix the spigot because we are not trained to build
where we live. If we need 27,000 jobs, whatever that figure is,
if we need trade skill training in every high school, that is
what we need. If we need computer trade training in every high
school, that is what we need.
Then let us fight for what we need once we determine that.
But I am finding in these ghettos around the country as I am
traveling a combination of a rap sheet where you, in fact, need
to be expunged, your record expunged. The combination of a rap
sheet on the one hand and low credit score on the other and
lower education on the other and unregistered voter you can't
break out. You all follow me now?
A combination of low education, low registration, a rap
record, and a low credit score you can't work your way out.
Thus, we need a massive commitment, a massive plan. If the
magic number is 27,000, and I don't know where that figure
comes from, it could be 50,000, let us fight for what we want,
not cry about what we don't have. Right now we are basically
complaining about what we don't have and explaining, ``Here is
how I died. Here is how I got shot. Here is how I went to the
funeral. Here is how my cousin got crippled. Here is how my
uncle got killed.''
We are describing how we are dying. We are not describing
how we are going to live. So if the mail comes to us, if the
Government comes to us, we have to be able to say what we want,
what we are fighting for. We are describing how we are dying.
We are not defining how we plan to live. I would make a case
that we need to have a major dose of defining the content of
our agenda.
We have never, Rev. Oden, fought about what we lost and we
have never lost a battle that we fought. We never won one we
didn't fight. One more time. We have never lost a battle that
we fought. We fought slavery and we won that battle. We fought
Jim Crow and we won that battle. We fought for women's right to
vote and won that battle. We fought for workers right to
organize and won that battle.
We have never fought a battle that we lost. We never won a
battle that we didn't fight. Are we fighting for our share of
jobs, job training, computer training? If we define what that
number is, then we can rally around that number like Katrina.
Our own tsunami. We have our own Katrina right here in South
Central LA. Am I right about that? Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mr. Isaacs, I have some additional
questions.
Congresswoman Watson, would you like to question?
Ms. Watson. Yes. I just want to thank not only the
panelists but the audience for coming here, for being patient,
for remaining here, and for gathering the information that I
hope you will take back to your neighborhood, your household,
your loved ones. I want to thank all the panelists who have
spent their time to share with us their ideas, their actions.
What we are going to do working through the Chair, I hope, is
formulate some policies.
We know more now than we did before we came into this room.
When you see this panel sitting here, the followup will be that
we take this and we talk to ourselves as a committee and we
have staff. May I say that I would like to thank your staff,
Chairman Souder. Would they stand up, and my staff too. Just
stand up. They will go back and they will process this
information. We hope this will lead to some policy.
I would like to thank Bishop Bryan who is a presiding pre-
lay for the 5th Episcopal District of the AME Church. I would
like to thank Denise Hunter who is standing right over there at
the wall who is president and CEO of F.A.M.E. Corp. Most of
all, John Hunter, the senior pastor and CEO here at the
F.A.M.E. Church Inc.
Michael, I see you there. Yes, thank you. And Rev. Lorna.
Thank you so much, all of you. I think we have possibly a
direction to go in. You heard from law enforcement. You heard
from the FBI. You heard from gang members. You heard from
former gang members. You heard from the Sheriff's Department.
You heard from community organizations and you heard from one
of the most renowned civil rights leaders that is recognized
around the globe.
In closing, because I have to go on, Congressman, to the
hearing that we are going to have with the Federal
Communications Commission over at USC, the Davidson Center. You
are all invited to come there. I want to say to you, Rev. Jesse
Jackson, a group of us have been talking about a peace team.
You, Bishop Tutu, and other renowned fighters for the rights of
all people around this globe, to go to Darfur and to see if we
can establish peace there. We are all emanating from that
topic.
Homeland security means that we protect not the land but
the people on the land. You have your history, your experience,
your ideas, but most of all the vision. I would hope that you
would commit to being on the team that can assist our Secretary
of State in trying to bring some peace and stop the genocide of
our brothers and sisters thousands of miles away and stop the
internal genocide that is going on in our streets across this
country.
With that I want to say thank you, all of you, the
audience, the panelists, our chairman, Mr. Souder. This was
something for you to bring the operation here and be patient to
hear from all of us. I must make my exit. I am hosting the
other meeting and it starts at 1. Thank you to all of you,
staff, presenters, and audience.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. In conclusion, we will have your
full statements in. We have some additional questions. I wanted
to let you each at least get your say and I am sure you would
have had much more. I have had to hear a couple of things I
didn't want to hear today as a Notre Dame grad. I heard Pete
Carroll's name and USC twice and that is really hard. I very
much appreciate your passion, your commitment to this. We will
continue to work together and it has been very helpful.
I think one of the important things about a hearing like
this, even where we may not completely agree, I agree it is
absolutely important that people in neighborhoods have the
ability to speak to their Government. Congresswoman Watson
arranged this and this is very important for everyone to speak
out.
Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones. Mr. Chairman, will you take under consideration
the Basic Training center for Life Skills for Youth in the
Community as an after-school program where kids can go when
they get out of school?
Mr. Souder. I am on the Education Committee and we can look
at the category and a particular grant would go through an
individual Member of Congress.
Mr. Jones. You would save hundreds of thousands of lives.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. The subcommittee stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m. the subcommittee was adjourned.]