Police launch gang crackdown in Santa Ana

In response to an escalation of violence -- including three shootings in a 24-hour period last month and an increase in arrests of gang members with guns -- Santa Ana police have launched a three-day operation targeting gang members and encouraging residents to report crime in a 2-square-mile area southwest of the Civic Center, writes the L.A. Times' Tony Barboza.

Although crime in this city of 350,000 has fallen in recent years, the latest increase has centered in several neighborhoods of mobile home parks, apartments and single-family homes in the city's core, eliciting fears that those gains could be eroding.

Although aggravated assaults, which include shootings and stabbings, have gone down since last year, police said, homicides are up, with 18 so far this year compared with 11 by this time last year. More than half the killings were gang-related.

This is the latest of many crackdowns against gangs -- many of them black or Latino -- in California. Here's a report on a push against Latino gang violence in San Clemente -- another part of Orange County.

Click here to read the full dispatch about the gang crackdown in Santa Ana.

Click here for a recent Opinion column by Rocky Delgadillo, the Los Angeles city attorney, on how combating L.A.'s gang problems is a global, not local, challenge.

For all posts on gangs, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Comments

[Southoc]

This shows what being a criminal sanctuary city really means.