King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said Tuesday that his office has perhaps the strongest unit of prosecutors dedicated to gang-related cases in their history, telling the county council that an emergency investment to combat gang violence was put to good use. But prosecution was just a part of the county's $1.4 million response after a summer car show shooting in Kent.

Inside an alternative high school in Burien, $137,500 of those funds are being used for gang prevention. This is where the county's war on gangs begins.

About 30 kids at New Start School are part of a program called the Avanza Project, which targets at-risk Latino and Latina youth, ages 14 to 16.

"These are kids that exhibit risk of gang involvement or other factors for dropping out, such as truancy or failure of classes," said Hiroko Vargas, an education employment specialist with King County Superior Court. During the 12-month program, she help the kids graduate and participate in employment projects.

"So what I try to do is intervene beforehand," Vargas said.

For 17-year-old Jazmine, who started the program in March, it is exactly what she needed to get her life on track.

"If we don't use this chance, we don't have any other chance of graduating," Jazmine said. "It's a really great program and it really does change people's lives. When they feel like they can't graduate anymore or they're not going to make it, they realize that there is hope, you know."

To date, the project has served 65 kids. In the first group to be evaluated, around 90 percent stayed in school and only one committed a juvenile offense after completion. But without emergency funds from the county this summer, the program would no longer exist. It was scheduled to run out of funding in September.

While the program's benefits are immeasurable for students like Jazmine, how much is the county's investment helping to combat growing gang participation? Program Manager Jennifer Hill acknowledged that the funds are serving a relatively small number of kids.

"I mean there's a lot of need in King County definitely right now, but it is 30 kids that we wouldn't have got to serve without this funding," Hill said. "Is that enough? You know, probably not really. But at the end of the day, I think it's going to be a good thing for all of those students."

There are thousands of at-risk kids in King County who will never be part of a program like Avanza. For some of them, that could mean life in a street gang. But part of the county's investment, $224,000, is being used to address those who slipped through the cracks.

"So the people that didn't get the message or didn't receive the help are held accountable for their choices," said Sergeant Rodney Chinnick, with the King County Sheriff's Office Gang Unit. Their role is not gang prevention, it's gang suppression, intervention, and apprehension.

Around $30,000 in the emergency funds were given to his unit for equipment, such as body armor carriers that help keep his detectives, who are usually undercover, safe on the streets.

"Somebody that's wearing plain clothes, can quickly put something like this on, become identifiable and equipped to go out and affect arrests," he said.

Chinnick believes his unit is reasonably well equipped. On the other hand, with only five detectives, they are not reasonably well staffed. To put their number in perspective, there are around 140 known street gangs in King County and as many as 10,000 gang members. In 2008 and 2009, there were 29 gang-related homicides and 200 reported gang-related shootings.

"We get a lot of results from five hard working detectives, but five hard-working detectives is not enough."

But those offenders who are apprehended by the unit face perhaps the toughest prosecution in history. Thanks to $456,000 in emergency funds, the prosecutor's office now has a gang unit of four deputy prosecutor and one clerk. They are dedicated to strictly gang-related cases.

"Once the bullets start flying, our people are there to make sure we hold those people accountable who are engaging in violence," Prosecutor Dan Satterberg told the King County Council on Tuesday. He said he felt his office had adequate resources to deal with the county's "significant gang problem."

But the emergency funds being used correctly, from gang prevention to prosecution, are only in place through 2012. At that time, the council will have to reevaluate the funding, and whether more needs to be done to stop gang violence before it ever reaches a prosecutor's desk.

Brandi Kruse, 97.3 KIRO FM