TEMECULA -- Fears of gang activity in the city are overblown, Temecula police officials said Wednesday, in a press conference outlining changes in the department's tactics.

There is only one established gang in Old Town and its crime of choice is graffiti, incidents of which are down since late last year, officials said Wednesday. And, there is no apparent leadership after a leader was arrested and sent to prison last year, they said.

These were some of the highlights discussed at a news conference at the Southwest Police Station on Wednesday. The consensus among the two officers in the gang unit, as well as Police Chief Mitch Alm and Lt. Richard Rile, is that people should not be panicked over the minor gang activity there is here.

"I don't think people in the city understand the totality of the gang problem in western Riverside County," Rile said. "They're multi-generational, well-established and regularly act as a unit to commit violent crimes."

That's not the case in Temecula, however, he said: "These guys are doing graffiti."

The Temecula gang unit has been an official presence in the city for a year now and moved to an Old Town storefront office last month to put themselves in the same part of town where many of the gang members live.

The city's one gang is made up of Latino men; about 40 are self-admitted members and another 15 associate with the gang, but have not admitted they are members, said Officer Rick Donoho, one of the gang unit officers. They range in age from 13 to 25, he added.

This is a stark contrast to the assessment District Attorney Grover Trask gave in December when he said there were 12 gangs in Temecula. This number was based on the number of crimes committed by gang members in the city filed in the district attorney's office, Sgt. David Kondrit said. But not all these gang members lived in Temecula or were part of the gang here, he said.

From October to January, the graffiti problem in Old Town shot up 250 percent, for a few reasons, Donoho said. One was that another gang, with members mostly from the Wildomar area, was becoming more active, Kondrit said.

But, in the middle of January, the Temecula gang unit started cracking down on the gang members, resulting in a 60 percent decrease in graffiti, Donoho said.

Not all the graffiti is from gang members. About 25 percent is from taggers who consider themselves artists, and use more colors than the gang members, Deputy Nilo Jose said. The gang members here usually use black, a neutral color, and blue.

The Temecula gang unit also played a strategic part in the arrest of gang leader Osiel Garcia, who was convicted last year on a weapons charge and was sentenced to state prison, and Victor Bedolla, who had just turned 18 when he was arrested for drug possession and sentenced to almost three years in prison, Kondrit said.

The Temecula gang unit uses a four-pronged approach in preventing gangs from proliferating in the city: education, technology, suppression and intervention.

Contact staff writer Deirdre Newman at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2623, or dnewman@californian.com.