In Los Angeles, gang violence has gotten so bad that the city council wants to raise taxes in order to fight it. Overall, the crime rate is down, but LA suffered 267 gang-related homicides last year and a 14% increase in gang crime citywide. Councilwoman Janice Hahn advocates a $72 annual parcel tax to raise $50 million to fund more ineffective social intervention programs. The city already spends $82 million on touchy-feely gang outreach, with little result.

Much of the current outrage comes from the December 15 murder of Cheryl Green, a 14-year-old black girl who was killed simply for being present on turf claimed by hispanic gangs near her home. The photo shows mother Charlene Lovett holding a picture of Cheryl.

Desperate to stem the rise of gang violence in Los Angeles, the City Council agreed Tuesday to draft a ballot measure that would impose a parcel tax to raise $50 million or more annually for intervention and prevention programs.

However, council members said it was unlikely the proposal would go onto the ballot until next year, skipping the municipal election in May. [Tax to fight gangs set for ballot, LA Times1/24/07]

LA's gang violence has a strong racial component. Of an estimated 39,000 gang members, about 56 percent are in Latino gangs and 40 percent are in black gangs. Many hispanic gang-bangers are illegal aliens. Increasingly, Hispanic gang members kill random blacks to drive them out of the area — ethnic cleansing, in other words. Interestingly, even the hacks at the Southern Poverty Law Center, who have attacked the Minutemen and other friends of borders, have noticed the purposeful, racist attacks on black Americans by Hispanics.

Instead of enacting another immigration tax, the city should end Special Order 40, the sanctuary law that protects illegal aliens from normal police inquiries and is quite a boon to non-American gang members.