Governor Announces $9.2 Million in Grants to Combat Gang Violence

Governor Announces $9.2 Million in Grants to Combat Gang Violence

SHERIFF BACA: All right. I just want to welcome everyone here today. We have, obviously, our Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who I'm very pleased and proud to partner with in a very important program; Supervisor Don Knabe, the Board of Supervisors; Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas; also Lt. Delgado from Pasadena Police Department; Jim McDonnell, the first assistant chief for the LAPD, representing Chief Bratton; Frank Hauptmann, the chief of the Maywood and Cudahy Police Department; Captain Jim Smith of the Monterey Park Police Department; and a number of sheriffs, captains, who serve as chiefs of police of various stations such as those in Lancaster, Palmdale, Century and Lennox and the stations that are affected by gang violence to a level where this program today that the Governor is going to announce his contribution to this program.

But let me tell you what the Gifts for Guns is all about. This is a program that began in the sheriff's department in 2005 to give citizens an incentive to turn in their guns and turn them in anonymously so that the lethal aspect of their life could be separated, safely taken by law enforcement and guns will be destroyed and are destroyed.

The key to the point is this: In 2008, 750 firearms were stolen from within our departments' jurisdictions. We have found that the majority of gun-related crimes are committed with stolen guns. Thus, the key here is to take guns away from those who have decided they're no longer necessary for themselves. And since its inception the Gift for Guns Program has received 3,262 firearms. In exchange for those firearms the citizens received a $100 gift card for any handgun or rifle, or a $200 gift card for an assault weapon, which may be redeemed at local retailers. In other words, the Gift for Guns Program was a clear message on the part of the citizens surrendering the guns that they would rather have food on the table than the guns.

Our department has planned to hold a Gift for Guns event at 21 drive-through locations in the next eight weekends, starting on March the 28th, 2009 and we will give you that list of sheriff's stations that will be involved in this coming up weekend.

The exciting part of this, again, is that the drive-through process, with the exchanges involved, will take place anonymously with no questions asked. And, of course, those weapons that are turned in will be destroyed.

Additionally, it's exciting to have our Governor commit himself to this program which is emerging here in Los Angeles County, so I'd ask that all of you welcome Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Thank you. (Applause)

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, thank you very much, Sheriff, for the wonderful introduction. Man, you have a lot of paperwork here. Amazing. But anyway, it is great to have here Sheriff Baca—and this is, of course, his place. Thank you for hosting this event here. And I also want to say thank you to him for the great leadership he has shown over so many years.

And he always brings me good luck with all the programs. I remember being here when I started campaigning for Proposition 49, for the After School Education and Safety Act, providing more after school programs for our kids and passing that initiative. And because of his great support and all the sheriffs' support and law enforcement support, we won with 57 percent. So we had a great, great beginning and every time we need his help he is there, so we want to say thank you for his great dedication, for his service to the state of California.

I also want to say thank you very much to Supervisors Knabe and also Ridley-Thomas for being here today, who are big believers in helping our children and getting rid of violence in our neighborhoods. So we want to thank them also. Thank you for being here today with us.

This is a great program. I think that we want to say thank you to the L.A. County Sheriff's Department and to Lee Baca again for their great effort and for doing something that is really effective and it is smart. And of course, because of that and because it has been such a successful program, I wanted to be part of that and see if we can do more of that all over the state of California.

I read about this program in a special report about Gifts for Guns. It's a program, as you heard, that started in Campton and it has been extremely successful and it is going to make our neighborhoods much safer. Everyone should be participating in this program, so I urge everyone to be partners with us on that.

I said that I wanted to help here, I wanted to make it even bigger and so this is why we came up with those t-shirts, the Terminator t-shirts. And the Terminator t-shirts is all about saying Terminate Violence. Terminate Violence, this is the message here. And of course on the front of the t-shirt you see a great image of a very handsome cyborg and I think that underneath it says, you know, "Terminate Violence." So it's an extra gift, besides the gift certificate that Sheriff Baca talked about and I think that it will inspire some of the young kids to come in and give up their guns and get a t-shirt in return.

But the whole theme, I think, of this is about making our neighborhoods safer. Every time a weapon is surrendered and every time a gun is taken off the street our neighborhoods and our families are safer. The surrendered firearms, as you have heard, will be trucked to a giant forge and there they will be melted and they will be used for something more positive.

And I think that was also, of course, the theme in Terminator 2. Terminator let himself down into the molten and he gets melted and he just kind of like wants to terminate himself in order to stop the violence. And this is what this is all about, is to terminate, to melt those guns and to get rid of the violence here.

I think it is very important that everyone is participating, like I said, in order to cut down the violence. This is a smart way of really getting rid of this problem.

And this is why I'm also here today to announce that we are awarding $9.2 million in grant money to combat gang violence in California. These competitive grants will go to 17 cities and 13 community-based organizations in areas with heavy concentrations of gangs.

We will also launch a public-private partnership with three major foundations to provide technical and expert assistance to five of those cities. This is a proven strategy and it works. And we don't have the luxury, of course, to experiment with this. We should go and do the things that really work and this program really works 100 percent.

Paul Seave, who is, of course, my director, the director of Gang and Youth Violence Policy in California, has been doing a great job in coordinating all the various different cities, because up until just a few years ago cities were all doing great work but they didn't coordinate as well together. And this is why we put one person in charge of the whole state of California to coordinate with all the cities and since then much more great work and progress has been made.

Public safety is, of course, my number one priority and violence and danger in our streets must be wiped out, must be terminated. Just this last weekend alone, California's law enforcement experienced a big setback. This community suffered its worst tragedy in nearly 40 years. Four Oakland Police Officers paid the ultimate sacrifice when they were gunned down while serving their community. Tomorrow I will attend the memorial service for those four great men that died protecting us, that died while making our streets and neighborhoods safer and I pray for them and I pray for their families also.

We truly have the greatest and the bravest and the most experienced law enforcement officers in the world. I'm so proud of them, so we want to say thank you to them for being the real action heroes.

So thank you very much, all of you, for your great, great commitment and now I would like to bring up our next speaker here, which is going to be Supervisor Knabe. Please welcome Supervisor Knabe. (Applause)

SUPERVISOR KNABE: Thank you, Governor. And just let me begin by saying thank you to the Governor, number one, for being here, number two for his great support of this program. We certainly appreciate the opportunity for those grants and as well to the Sheriff and his deputies and staff for their great leadership in this particular program, Gifts for Guns.

I couldn't help reflect back but we have also a very well organized program here in Los Angeles County called the Safe Surrender Program, where a mother has the opportunity to deliver a newborn to a hospital or sheriff's station or a fire station. No name, no blame, no shame. And the Gifts for Guns is the same thing. No name, no blame, no shame and an opportunity to save many, many lives.

The men and women of our public safety teams put their lives on the line for each of us every day. And as the Governor mentioned, the tragedy we had in Oakland just speaks loudly for what we're attempting to do here. So I want to thank the sheriff for his leadership and his deputies once again and just encourage everyone to participate, participate. No name, no blame, no shame. (Applause)

The Governor told me I was supposed to introduce the next speaker and I always do what the Governor says, or I'll get terminated. Please welcome my colleague, a new member of our board, a great member of our board in just a very short period of time, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. (Applause)

SUPERVISOR RIDLEY-THOMAS: Well, thank you very much, Supervisor Knabe and Mr. Governor, Sheriff, ladies and gentlemen. It's my honor to be here today with you today to take yet another stand against violence in the communities throughout the county of Los Angeles.

We thank the Governor for his commitment to this effort by way of understanding that the real solution relies in prevention. We understand that the smartest investment is on the front side and not on the back side. And to the extent that that is the case, all of those who you witness here today understand that suppression and law enforcement is critically important but we want to prevent violence in our communities.

Therefore, we wish to incentivize all who would take advantage of the Gifts for Guns Program. Since being in office, we have had two very successful programs, one in the city of Compton and two in the unincorporated area of Lennox. Each were very, very successful. We ran out of resources early because people were so interested in surrendering their weapons; thousands of weapons, multiple thousands of rounds of ammunition. What happens, communities are then made safer.

And so yes, we want to terminate violence, we want to eradicate violence from the communities throughout Compton and Lennox and well beyond that. And we will be back at it. Sheriff Baca, on this coming Saturday, pursuant to your call, the 28th of March, with those agencies in the area of the Second District—and I want to give a special shout out, with your permission, Mr. Sheriff, to Chief Ramos, Captain Ryan and Captain Dendo. They have shown leadership, creativity, imagination and forward thinking with respect to the issue of this Gifts for Guns exchange.

And why is it important? Because they're thinking out of the box. They are serious about using all the tools at their disposal to rid our communities of violence. We shouldn't think of these matters in statistical terms; these are human lives that are lost and communities are left in the wake.

And so I'm here today to lend my voice and resources to this effort. We've already done some $35,000 since I've been in office. We will probably do another by the time Saturday rolls around; I suspect it will be up to 50,000. But we are committed and we'll go forward and I simply want to say thank you to all of you here.

So let me hear these young people say terminate violence.

CROWD: Terminate violence!

SUPERVISOR RIDLEY-THOMAS: Oh, you can do better than that. Say terminate violence!

CROWD: Terminate violence!

SUPERVISOR RIDLEY-THOMAS: That's a little better. I'm going to come back and ask you if you can do better than that in a few moments. Thank you very much. (Applause)

SHERIFF BACA: As you can see, we have children wearing the Terminate Violence t-shirts that the Governor has generously provided for this program. And I'd ask the children, if you could, just file out and come and stand in front of us here, because we really want to get you on this camera with those beautiful t-shirts. So let's start there. Come on now, you know how to do these things. Come on, right up here. Same thing with the back row. Thank you. Stand right there in front of the Governor.

Terminate violence is what we're talking about and all 45 police chiefs, including the great Los Angeles police chief, are involved with terminating violence. Jim McDonald is representing my friend Bill Bratton and I'd like Jim to say a few words on the terminating of violence, including the Gift for Guns the city will engage in.

ASST. CHIEF McDONALD: Thank you Sheriff and thank you for your leadership and Governor and our board of supervisors represented here. The reason we're here is, look at the faces on these young people next to me. It's about, my estimate, 300 million guns in the United States. And you think about that and you hear that this is just another tool in the arsenal we have to try and take guns off the streets, illegal guns.

So many people, I would encourage you, if you have guns in your house that belong to a loved one who passed away or people who no longer have the need or use for the guns and they're sitting around, those guns at some point may be stolen and end up on the street and be used to hurt somebody like one of these kids next to me up here.

So if you would, give it a lot of thought. It's a great walk away, to be able to take a gift certificate with you. The t-shirts are symbolic of what we're trying to do to get the message across but it's critical that if we're going to reduce the level of violence in our society in this great city and the region and the state of California, that we take the first step by removing the tools that have been so destructive in doing that. Thank you for your support of this program. (Applause)

SHERIFF BACA: All right, let me end where we began and say this: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been extraordinarily committed to public safety. He had the blessing and was fortunate to have a father who was in law enforcement, so he clearly understands what it means to commit yourself to saving lives.

Terminate the violence is a beautiful phrase that often is not said long enough and loud enough in communities that are very, very in need of safety. And Governor, on the terminate violence theme of the program that you offer to support, this Gift for Guns effort on our part, I'd like you to have the opportunity to say one last thing while we're all here cheering on the terminate violence theme that you started us on. Thank you.

QUESTION/ANSWER:

GOVERNOR: Well, thank you very much. I just want to say if there are any questions about that, please feel free. I'm here, the experts are here that started this program. This is now your time to ask those questions.

And we want to thank the kids for coming out here, because it's all about protecting our families and protecting our neighborhoods. And as you have heard, that there are too many guns out there. Every one of those guns is a killing device. We don't need this out there. I think we should get it back and the people should turn it in. They get the gift certificate, as you have heard, $100 gift certificate for regular weapons and assault weapons a $200 gift certificate. And, of course, this great shirt with this very handsome cyborg on top, OK? So you can get all of that.

So if you have any questions, please feel free. We are all ready to go. Come on out here, Sheriff, if there are any questions. Are there any questions about any of this?

SHERIFF BACA: Terminate violence.

GOVERNOR: Exactly. Well, thank you very much.

…

QUESTION: Can you talk about your Economic Stimulus Taskforce? We understand you just put one together.

GOVERNOR: Well, we wanted to put this Economic Stimulus Taskforce together because we want to make sure there is accountability and that we are doing everything that we can to get every single dollar out of Washington, because every dollar helps the state of California and every dollar helps us create more jobs in California. But we must have absolute accountability. The people demand that in California, that we have accountability, that every dollar is spent wisely and not wasted.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) money goes, or is it the federal government?

GOVERNOR: Many of those monies are predetermined of where it can be used. You cannot use education money for building infrastructure and you can't use infrastructure money for health care, or anything like this. So there is money put aside for health care. There's around almost $20 billion for education, around $10 billion for infrastructure, around $7 billion and so on. And there is, of course, let's not forget also the $35 billion on tax benefits for California citizens, which is really terrific.

So I think that the whole program, the $85 billion of benefits that we will get, is a huge benefit for the state of California. And the important thing for us now is to show accountability, the way the money is being used and spent and that I am in partnership with the White House. And, like I said, to get as much money from the federal government for the state of California because, as you know, I've been fighting for years to get us more money than the 78 cents on the dollar that we have been getting for the last five years. Thank you very much.

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