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45–334 PDF 2008

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

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

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

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

DIANE E. WATSON, California

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

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

(III)

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

(1)

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

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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 TemVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:55 Dec 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\45334.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ple 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:]

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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

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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 EduVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:55 Dec 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\45334.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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cation, 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.

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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 techVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:55 Dec 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\45334.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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niques 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

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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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25

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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?

27

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.

28

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.

29

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

30

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

31

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

32

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 decenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:55 Dec 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\45334.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
33

tralized 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 antigang 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.

34

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

35

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,

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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, selfhelp 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? Fiftyfour 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 exoffenders 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.

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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

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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

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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, blackon-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 fulltime 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

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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

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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

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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

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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 reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:55 Dec 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\45334.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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cent 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

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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

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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 threefourths 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

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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

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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

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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.]

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