More Than Gangbusters

Civil libertarians groused that city officials went too far last week in ordering every tenant evicted from a South Los Angeles apartment complex that was described as a gang’s “headquarters of death.”

Actually, the city didn’t go far enough.

The Los Angeles Police Department and the city attorney’s office obviously spent a lot of time building their case for a preliminary injunction to shut down the 24-unit complex at Main and 69th streets. They documented more than 60 complaints, including drive-by shootings, drug sales and cached weapons.

Wholesale eviction is a radical step, they acknowledge, but gangbangers from the apartments have waged war on the neighborhood for 20 years. Elderly people walk blocks out of their way to avoid the complex. The middle school across the street is pockmarked with bullets.

In trying to stop this war, however, the city fell short on planning the peace. Tenants with no history of gang affiliation will be eligible for up to $5,000 in relocation assistance. But several tenants said they didn’t know how to go about seeking such help or whether they would qualify. Even some of the complex’s neighbors, though glad to see the gangbangers go, worry that mothers and children will be kicked out with no assistance just for having a father, brother or son in a gang. Were they supposed to lock their doors and turn their backs on family?

Well, maybe. Insisting that criminal behavior will not be tolerated is not a bad message to send because families play the most important role in teaching right from wrong. But it’s unfair to blame gang activity solely on dysfunctional families. Criminal street gangs are most entrenched in neighborhoods where poverty, discrimination, poor schools and lack of job prospects place crippling stresses on even the strongest families.

This is where the city should have done more. We have no sympathy for criminals who terrorize whole neighborhoods. But if the city is going to send an army to evict an entire apartment complex, it should send a squadron of social workers and counselors to teach mothers and kids to make smarter choices, to aid parolees genuinely trying to hang on to their jobs, and to help tenants who live in such hellholes only because the city offers so pitifully few affordable alternatives.

Shutting down this “headquarters of death” is a bold step. It needs to be accompanied by an equally bold lifeline.