Violence Demands Action

It was a tragic November in Oxnard.

In the course of just a few weeks, at least half a dozen young men were shot in attacks thought to be gang-related. Two of them died.

Other cities should draw a hard lesson from Oxnard’s losses: Jubilant headlines about falling crime rates might supply local officials with bragging rights, but happy statistics mean nothing to kids who feel they have nothing to lose.

Despite a long period of relative tranquillity, it doesn’t take much--a strange look, a perceived insult, a slur on the neighborhood--to trigger deadly cycles of retribution. Even in the best of times, gang violence happens; how long it lasts depends on the hard work and vision of police, city officials, religious leaders, educators, businesspeople and residents.

In Oxnard, Ventura County’s most populous city, there was only one gang-related death in all of 1999.

This year, the peace was broken in September by the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Dino Zarate. A former gang member, Zarate managed to win a scholarship to St. Mary’s College, where he was a sophomore. On his way back to the school near Berkeley, he made the lethal error of stopping in an Oxnard neighborhood that was home to his old gang’s rivals.

Since then, gang tensions in the city have escalated, erupting in the spate of shootings last month.

Just a few years ago, everyone seemed to worry about youth violence. Political candidates both local and national pledged to stem the epidemic; communities torn by gang warfare held forum after forum, casting around frantically for solutions.

But then, somehow, the wave of violence subsided. Social scientists offered a wealth of explanations: The population is aging. Unemployment is low. Stiff laws like three-strikes are deterring young criminals. More police officers are on the streets, getting to know the neighborhoods.

All those assurances must sound awfully hollow to the families of the dead and wounded in Oxnard, and to all the families that live in fear.

The city’s response to the violence has been to beef up police patrols in gang neighborhoods. In addition, Mayor Manuel Lopez has spoken of arranging a series of community meetings.

Both are appropriate short-term strategies. However, Oxnard, like every other city in Ventura County, shouldn’t kid itself into thinking that short-term strategies will be sufficient.

Gangs might never be eliminated but, over time, their lure can be diminished.

Can “midnight basketball” at school gyms give would-be gangbangers something better to do?

Can job training and internships for teenagers help?

How about pairing up at-risk kids with adults from the same community who have managed to rise above poverty?

What about developing a general plan for youth with the same care that goes into a general plan for development?

In the recent presidential campaign, youth violence was hardly a blip on the screen. It was as if the problem, washed over by a surge of prosperity, had disappeared.

It hasn’t--and there are no times like relatively good times to start dealing with it.