Supervisors OK Limits on Loitering by Gangs

LOS ANGELES COUNTY — Dismissing protests by civil libertarians and community organizers, the Board of Supervisors gave final approval Tuesday to a law prohibiting certain types of loitering by gang members in unincorporated parts of the county.

The law was drawn up after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Chicago anti-loitering law last month. County attorneys said they followed the Supreme Court’s instructions to ensure their statute’s constitutionality, though the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California called it “blatantly unconstitutional.”

On Tuesday, a cluster of community activists who work to promote gang peace treaties said the law could make them subject to arrest for simply standing with gang members in public.

“These type of measures would allow law enforcement to corral people like me, who are responsible for the cease-fire across Los Angeles,” said DeWayne Holmes, a former gang member who became a peace organizer and now works for state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica).

Citing a rash of gang violence that included the firing of 25 shots into a county pool the day it opened in South-Central Los Angeles, and the slaying of a 17-year-old student at Monroe High School, supervisors said they must use all tools to fight gangs.

Noting that he often sides with the ACLU, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky decried people in “ivory towers” keeping government from employing all its resources to stop violence. Elected officials, he added, must “employ every tool at their disposal that meets constitutional muster to protect the kids.”