New Gang Violence Strategy In Salinas

3 now to this…### you can’t arrest your way out of the gang problem— but slashed budgets— mean more people are “buying” into th philosophy. despite all that — gang members still terrorize the community.. central coast news reporter **cassandra arsenault learned about a strategy the community hopes will have a *long term impact on the violence… she has this “center for investigative action” report 3 3 *trt: 5.45outcue:doc:21-:26 :47-1:00 2:21-2:327:58:13 he would kiss me on my forehead, and say i love you sister and that’s the last thing he told me when i dropped him off.when yvette’s brother was killed he had already tried to distance himself from the gang lifestyle…but his past caught up with him one night when he was walking home. he was shot in the head from behind.the murder is still unsolved and i asked her what she thought about the justice her brother’s killer should face if caught… 7:59:52- i think justice is to just rehabilitate them. 3 in 2009 salinas saw the deadliest year in the city’s history — 29 murders, all gang related. us map with salinas point that put salinas at four times the national average for homicides per capita. it was at that point, with the public’s fear at it’s highest that community leaders started looking for more solutions than just catching the bad guys and locking them up.police chief13:16 i think it’s very easy for people to think of a gang member and say we will just throw him in prison and we will be done with him, but the reality is when you throw a gang member in prison you aren’t done with him because that gang member is eventually going to get out. so salinas looked to a program known as ceasefire, created to fight major gang problems. the big difference in this message to gang members: police chief 1:00 it’s a combination of very strong enforcement towards the most violent groups in salinas while at the same time trying to offer young men who go towards violence an opportunity to get out of that.graphic shootings in salinas fell from 151 in 2009 to 131 in 2010 they dropped even 3 further in 2011 to 49. homicides dropped from 29 in 2009 to 20 in 2010 to 12 in 2011. but then in 2012 salinas saw the murder rate start to spike again with 18 homicides it’s around that time that money spent toward this layered approach to stopping gang violence started to dry up. graphic3 full time police sgt program manager, gone full time crime analyst, gone the violent supression unit, cut almost in half the undercover narcotics unit, cut in half and the school resource officers who can be the most important source of gang intel, gone. nats of stockton pd chatting or sting map to stockon i went to talk to the stockton police department, it also had major cuts but still advocate for the group violence reduction strategy. the strategy is highly-reliant on relationships between law enforcement, community & faith based outreach and service providers. those partnerships are used to send a serious message to violent groups. 9:02:46 first step is they put their guns down. there’s no compromise on that. we know what you do we know how you’re group works, we know you are doing the shooting. it’s not acceptable put your guns down. ralph womack is a 32 year police vet. he said at one time even when stockton’s gang violence was going through the roof, he didn’t buy the strategy. 8:54:46 initially i was skeptical because 3 pretty much like most officers they will tell you they come on the job looking to do enforcement so it was a cultural change.but he’s seen it work first hand. he said it just makes sense. 9:11:38- well often times people will look at what you are doing like what the costs are…but another way to look at it is its an investment in the future so if you look at the research that has been done on the cost of homicides to the community and to family in general its millions of dollars so if you look at it in terms of that its really an inexpensive investment to do it at the front end.8:54:46- i became a believer so stockton made a **promise to focus on violent crimes. a year later homicides dropped by nearly half.9:04:55 well it’s about people, to do this work it takes people and people are always going to be the most expensive resource that you have.the challenge, finding a way to continue this group violent reduction strategy 8:56:43 when you have a program there’s a start to it and then a finish if you look at grant applications they normally say you have to start on a certain date and you have to do some things and then spit out a result at the end. but when you are talking about human relations you are talking about changing peoples’ lives//so you can’t approach it like you are going to have a finish.but changing gangsters habits isn’t cheap. sitting down with gang members costs about one thousand dollars per call-in. also labor and cost intensive is the under cover operations like operation knockout and snake eyes km 17:23 — those operations because they require a whole lot of police officers working around the clock for months on end you run into hundreds of thousands of dollars of cost. salinas police chief kelly mcmillin says the strategy has to self sustain. 19:49 we become very reliant on state and federal partners the highway patrol, the fbi the bureau of alcohol//all these agencies have been really helping salinas when we need help, but they have their own jobs to do they cannot permanently supplant the salinas police department that has to be our responsibility. chief mcmillin estimates it will cost 75,000 per year to operate but it will take more money to get it off the ground. km2:24 it becomes the 3 way that we do enforcement, but until we are up and running, and have our proccesses in place it does need a separate source of funding.