Neighbors Come Out to Reclaim the Streets : Communities: Residents of gang-troubled Santa Ana area have carnival where they once feared to tread. They say it’s a start.

SANTA ANA —  In a city park long ago abandoned to drug dealers and gang members, about 300 residents gathered for a carnival Saturday to lunch on carne asada and hamburgers, play games for prizes and learn more about city services that can help them reclaim their streets.

“I think if more of us get together more often for our community, we can defeat the drugs and the bad guys,” said Irma Torres, a mother of three children, 6, 15 and 17.

For 23 years, Torres has lived in the neighborhood near 3rd and Flower streets, an area recently targeted by police in the massive undercover sweep known as “Operation Roundup.”

She said residents have been hesitant to come together in the past.

“We have all been afraid,” she said, browsing through free literature on services offered by the city’s Corbin Community Center. “It’s not right that only the bad guys get together to defeat us.”

The Flower Park fair was organized by parents who joined ranks last spring to walk their children to school safely at nearby Carver Elementary School. The event marked a collective sigh of relief.

Children took crayons to what will soon serve as a wall hanging to sketch the neighborhood they one day want. One youngster drew a Boys and Girls Club. “Healthy Me Drug Free,” another scrawled. Others tried their luck tossing beanbags for candy and sported Mickey Mouse ears and Halloween masks that had been donated by area businesses. There were plenty of prizes for the youngsters, including coupons for free burgers, haircuts and eye exams.

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“We’re trying to recover our community. Maybe we won’t see it right away or next week, but it’s working. Hopefully the city will help us,” said Armando Chacon, who helped organize the fair along with his wife, Soccoro, and about two dozen others from the Carver Concerned Parents group.

“We need some slides and things here for the little kids. We need more lights on the streets and to get a community watch group. It’s a lot of work, but we’re going to be OK pretty soon.”

The Santa Ana Assistance League put on the beanbag toss Saturday and volunteers handed out information about the organization’s day-care center, thrift store and other services. Workers with the city’s anti-gang program, Project PRIDE, were there too, and Santa Ana police officers showed off a cruiser to local youngsters, who got a chance to sit behind the wheel.

But the officers also were there for more serious business.

Throughout the day, park-goers perused a police poster-board that displayed photos of more than a dozen Operation Roundup suspects still at large since the Sept. 7 sweep.

“Help the Police and Your Community. Can You Identify Any of These Criminals?” read the poster board.

“I saw that guy,” one small boy told an officer Saturday, pointing at one of the photos. “He was riding a bike on Bristol Street.”

Police officials say they tried the same tactic at a carnival organized by a community businessman at the park last week and received enough tips from residents to make a handful of arrests.

In the wake of Operation Roundup, city officials have pledged their help for the 3rd Street neighborhood, long claimed by what police described as one of the city’s most dangerous gangs.

For years, fear of bullets and brazen robberies kept many residents cloistered inside their homes, suspicious of their neighbors.

John Chacon, 9, a fourth-grader at Carver Elementary School, designed the winning logo for vests the Carver parents will soon sport while walking the children to school. He said he never used to play outside and couldn’t enjoy the park before now.

“It was full of gangs and kids getting hurt. My mom wouldn’t let me go outside,” he said of his neighborhood. “Now I know it’s going to change because the Carver Concerned Parents are going to stop the violence.”

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Saturday, city neighborhood improvement workers showed up at the park to encourage residents to form a neighborhood association and gather suggestions about what services are needed there. The city also donated a stage for a string of local performers who tap-danced, spun cartwheels and played an eclectic blend of Cajun and ranchero music.

“I think it’s long overdue,” said Zelenne Cardenas, director of Project SABADO, a county-funded alcohol and drug education group that has worked with the Carver parents.

“Most of these residents have lived in this neighborhood for 16 years, and they’ve been waiting to use that park for a very long time. Now they can.”