Urban Warriors in the Desert : Gangs are increasingly making their presence felt in the growing cities of Palmdale and Lancaster, forcing officials to fight an unexpected battle.

Gangs have come to the desert.

Graffiti on the sun-baked walls of the Antelope Valley proclaim the invasion of urban warriors from far-off battlegrounds: “Crenshaw Mafia Crips,” “San Fers,” “Grape Street Watts,” “Pomona 12th Street,” “Bloodstone Village.”

A white youth from Palmdale, arrested after an armed robbery attempt last week, declared that he belonged to the 107 Hoover Crips, a street gang from a neighborhood 70 miles away where Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said he wouldn’t last long.

Billboards trumpeting the local housing boom among landscapes of sagebrush and Joshua trees will soon be joined by the Antelope Valley’s first public service billboard messages warning against gang membership.

These are the signs of the social realities that accompany one of the fastest growth rates in the state. Along with prosperity, the urbanization of the Antelope Valley has produced a high-desert version of inner-city gang culture. The problem has not reached crisis proportions, but its rise over the last two years has local communities fighting a battle they did not expect.

90 Gangs Identified

Deputies in the area’s brand-new gang intelligence unit say they have identified members of at least 90 gangs from around Los Angeles County in the Antelope Valley. That includes about a half-dozen local gangs, officials say. They place the number of gang members in the valley at 400, a multi-ethnic group that encompasses concentric categories of hard-core members, “associates” and “wanna-bes.”

These numbers should be viewed in the context of the size of the area policed by the Sheriff’s Department--about 1,300 square miles stretching up to the Kern County line and including vast expanses of uninhabited land.

Palmdale’s population increase of 17% to 45,900 residents led the county last year. Lancaster’s population grew 10% to 82,200. Much of the gang activity is concentrated in and around those two cities.

“We haven’t had anything approaching the level of violence we’re used to seeing in the central city,” said Deputy Frank Ramirez, head of the three-man gang unit. “But they’re here. The gang problem is partly imported. You have Crips and Bloods expanding to places like Denver, Washington, Chicago. And they’re also expanding to places like Ontario, Rialto. It’s the drug market.”

Drug dealing controlled by Crip and Blood networks from the Los Angeles area has surged in Antelope Valley parks, motels and apartments. There have been at least two gang-related shootings in the last eight months. Robberies, assaults, burglaries and other crimes are being traced to street gang activity.

School officials say their research shows the number of gang-related incidents in the schools and community--ranging from graffiti to fights to robberies--is up about 45% this year over last year’s total of 4,473 incidents.

In addition to drug activity, another economic factor has helped spawn the gangs. Housing prices are pushing low-income families to the edges of the county. Parents who have sacrificed in order to move their children away from inner-city influences are discovering that the children have brought the influences along.

A Facade of Toughness

Community leaders say youths who were on the fringes of gangs in other areas are trying to appear tough in what they consider hick territory.

“I think we have a lot of wanna-be types,” said Forrest McElroy, superintendent of the Palmdale Elementary School District. “You have some folks moving in from environments that were not the best. That’s not to dwell on it being imported, because we certainly have problem kids of our own.”

Many newcomers and longtime residents are stunned. They moved to the county’s fringes in search of affordable housing and safe streets. They wanted to get far away, physically and psychologically, from the areas south of the 40-mile mountain stretch of the Antelope Valley Freeway that begins near Santa Clarita--”down below,” as locals call it.

Some alarmed residents have overreacted, sometimes being quick to report “gang fights” when they see altercations involving young blacks or Latinos who do not have gang connections.

But Beverly Louw, principal of Desert Winds Continuation High School in Lancaster, said: “We’ve become more sophisticated. We’re educating the community to identify the problem.”

Louw is applying for $200,000 in state funds to set up a comprehensive anti-gang program. The schools have implemented stern new policies against gang affiliation and wearing colors or other symbols. They also have brought in experts to educate faculty and students and toughened school security.

The cities have also responded vigorously. Sheriff’s deputies, who patrol Palmdale and Lancaster, have been saturating parks and drug-dealing locations with aggressive patrols.

Much of the drug and gang activity has been concentrated in Palmdale, where two gang members were wounded last November in a shooting in a K-mart parking lot. City officials there have mounted an offensive involving government, schools and business. This year’s budget calls for adding seven new officers to the 36 who now patrol Palmdale.

Lancaster’s Response

In response to increasing violence at parks, the Lancaster City Council recently approved earlier park closing times. The council will soon consider a budget proposal to pay for adding two new deputies to the Sheriff Department’s gang unit.

The three deputies already serving on the anti-gang detail are veterans of such hot spots as Lynwood and East Los Angeles, and are still getting to know their new terrain. They are “putting together the puzzle” of how many gangs and gang members really exist in the valley, Ramirez said.

During a recent Friday night cruise in their unmarked car, Deputies Carl Thomas and Steve Gutierrez explained that gang turf and allegiances are still being defined by the youths. The main potential for violence will come as that process continues.

Thomas grew up in Palmdale. When he was in high school 10 years ago, well before the wave of developers and house-hunters swept up the freeway, he knew youths who called themselves Crips, but “it was all talk.”

But on this recent night, as Thomas and Gutierrez continued cruising the town, they came across some Crips driving a car with expired registration tags that were more than just talk.

Thomas and Gutierrez advanced cautiously, big men made bigger by bulletproof vests and green sheriff’s jackets, hands near their guns.

“Let me see some hands,” Gutierrez said, and a forest of arms sprouted from the car windows. Once the five occupants were on the sidewalk, the deputies relaxed. They talked to Li’l Loco and Li’l T-Macc, who wore white T-shirts, sagging pants and tattoos designating allegiance to Sintown 357, a Pomona set.

Both have records of arrests for assault. They said they were just passing through Palmdale; T-Macc had an appointment with a probation officer.

Disdain for Locals

Neither Loco nor T-Macc think much of the local talent. They describe them as “busters,” an epithet meaning wimp or sissy.

That opinion is shared by Skimp, a Blood originally from Pacoima who claims to have left his wild days behind since his family moved to semi-rural Lake Los Angeles.

The deputies dropped in on Skimp as he slouched handcuffed in the Antelope Valley station after his arrest during a drug raid at a Palmdale mobile home park.

Rival Crips predominate in Palmdale, but Skimp said: “I’m not worried about walking around up here. These Crips up here is cowards. If these Crips up here wanted some drama, I’d show it to ‘em. Give ‘em hell. This is like a vacation compared to what I’m used to.”

Detectives confiscated two ounces of cocaine, three shotguns and two handguns in the trailer and arrested three adults and two juveniles along with 17-year-old Skimp.

Stop in Subdivision

Later, the deputies’ unmarked car pulled into a wholesome-looking subdivision and stopped in front of a large house. The garage door was half-open; the deputies called hello, and the door swung up to reveal two men and three youths--sunglasses, shirts buttoned to the throat cholo- style, combed-back hair.

One teen-ager greeted the deputies, then headed down the driveway. His father emerged from the garage, a shirtless man in sunglasses with a Marine tattoo on his arm.

The father--who asked not to be identified--told the deputies he is happy to report that his son is going into the Army next week.

The family has moved from East Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley, to the Santa Clarita area, to here. And the gang life followed his son; deputies say the house is a gathering spot for an active valley-born gang, an ethnically mixed group that is into burglary, auto theft, vandalism.

“That boy,” the father said with a barrio lilt. “He’s easily led, I can’t pull him away.”

Problem Recognized

Other parents have expressed similar despair at what appears to be an inexorable phenomenon. The arrival of gangs has presented the down side of the area’s much-heralded growth, Lancaster Mayor Lynn Harrison said, particularly among old-timers.

But Harrison and others say the community has recognized the problem in time to stop it. They think the Antelope Valley can be different.

“You probably have this kind of thing happening all over the country,” Harrison said. “A former rural community suffering from all the urban ills. No community in the nation is insulated from these kinds of influences. . . . But the feeling of a small town is still here, and that’s what’s going to galvanize the citizens into helping out.”