LOS ANGELES -- Gang homicides have increased steadily in Los Angeles County, making 1991 a record year with twice the number of gang- related deaths than five years ago, it was reported Sunday.
As of last week, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department had recorded 194 gang-related homicides, as compared with 170 in all of last year, the Los Angeles Times said. The Police Department has topped 330 gang killings, passing its record of 329 for 1990.
In all, more than 700 people have died in gang violence in police jurisdictions throughout the county -- from Long Beach to Pomona, the newspaper reported.
In the last five years, the number of gang-related deaths has doubled, authorities said.
'I don't see how it's ever going to end,' said Trevon Haynes, 18, a South-Central Los Angeles gang member who estimates that about nine of his colleagues have been killed in the three years he has been with the gang. 'Lots of people would like to get out, but your enemies know your face and they're gonna be there for life.'
Authorities have no easy explanation for the violence, which appears rooted in a myriad of social and economic problems and is on a sharp and steady upswing that shows no signs of slowing.
Part of the increase is being blamed on the gang population, which is estimated to have doubled since 1985. There are now about 1,000 cliques countywide with more than 100,000 members.
'You have lots of children who see no hope, no way out,' said Chilton Alphonse, director of the Community Youth Sports and Art Foundation in the Crenshaw district. 'They feel they're being used, forgotten, taken for granted and they can't trust anybody.
'So, what are they going to do? They're down for their 'hood -- their neighborhood set -- without realizing there's a bigger world out there. You're either going to rob, kill or be killed -- that's the mind set.'
The largest increases in gang homicides have occurred in predominantly Hispanic communities, many of which had managed to control the problem in the mid-1980s.
In the Police Department's Rampart Division, which covers large Hispanic communities, 43 gang-related killings had been recorded by the end of October, as compared with 32 for all of last year and eight just five years ago.
Police attribute the rise in violence to disputes between longtime Chicano gangs and newly formed immigrant gangs -- many of them composed of Central American refugees who have fled war-torn countries.
In the sheriff's East Los Angeles station, 37 gang homicides have been logged. In 1988, there were none.
Sheriff's officials say many battlewise 'veteranos,' incarcerated during police crackdowns in the early 1980s, have returned to the streets to revive their previously inactive gangs.
A common factor in all the shootings is that the assailants often direct their anger at people most like themselves.
In the jurisdiction of the Sheriff's Department, which serves more than 2 million people in an area covering three-fourths of the county, about 75 percent of the gang homicides this year were the product of black-on-black or Latino-on-Latino crime.
Of the 194 homicide victims recorded this year by sheriff's officials, 125 were Hispanic, 53 were black, 10 were white and six were Asian or Pacific Islander. About 76 percent of the victims were themselves suspected gang members.
'The bottom line is self-destruction,' said Steve Valdivia, executive director of Community Youth Gang Services, a gang-intervention agency. 'They're shooting their mirror image. It's like putting a gun to their own head.'
