Thread: Federal Law Enforcement Helps To Tackle Expanding Gang Probl

OCTOBER 16, 2008

Federal Law Enforcement Helps To Tackle Expanding Gang Problem

By JOHN R. EMSHWILLER

Federal and local officers swooped into the popular vacation spot of Santa Barbara, Calif., Wednesday to arrest nine alleged members of a Hispanic street gang, as law enforcement tries to tackle a gang problem that has been expanding from urban settings to less-populated areas.

The arrests were part of an indictment unsealed Wednesday in Los Angeles federal court against 28 alleged members of the Santa Barbara gang, known as the Eastside Gang. Allegations in the indictment include racketeering, murder, drug dealing and "hate crimes against African Americans."

Los Angeles Police Department officers question an alleged street-gang member last month. U.S. and local law-enforcement are attacking a gang problem that has expanded from cities to less-populated areas.

The greater Los Angeles area is "the nation's capital when it comes to street gangs," said Thomas P. O'Brien, the U.S. attorney for the central district of California, an area with over 18 million people that includes Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. "We are exporting the problem around the country and to other nations," Mr. O'Brien said.

Federal prosecutors have the power to bring charges against individuals involved in drug- or weapons-related crimes or who are part of a criminal organization under U.S. racketeering statutes.

Mr. O'Brien, a 49-year-old U.S. Naval Academy graduate and career prosecutor who became U.S. attorney last October, estimates that there are well over 100,000 gang members in his district. The Justice Department estimates that there are about 800,000 gang members on the streets nationwide.

One force that has pushed gang violence into less urban areas, Mr. O'Brien said, was the expensive Los Angeles real-estate market that drove gang members to look for cheaper rents.

Wednesday's indictment alleged that the Santa Barbara gang, with several hundred members and associates, had senior leaders known as "shot callers" and was organized into subgroups, one of which was known as the "Krazies," to carry out the gang's criminal activities. Gang members allegedly murdered two members of a rival gang and attempted to kill six other people.

In recent years, Justice Department officials have put a high priority on attacking violent street gangs. In March, for instance, Attorney General Michael Mukasey came to Los Angeles to announce additional federal resources to attack the gang problems in southern and central California.

As U.S. attorney, Mr. O'Brien, a onetime gang prosecutor in the Los Angeles district attorney's office, has been more aggressive than his predecessors in taking on the gang issue, say local law-enforcement officials.

"There really is no comparison to what the U.S. attorney's office is now doing down at the local level," said San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Patrick Hedges, whose department took part in a federal prosecution announced last month against 17 alleged gang members in Santa Maria, a city of 91,000 about 160 miles north of Los Angeles. All were accused of trafficking in methamphetamine. Eight others were charged in state court.

Over the past year, the U.S. attorney's office has filed criminal charges against more than 1,000 alleged gang members, at least twice the level of the prior year, said Mr. O'Brien. So many defendants are in custody that they have overwhelmed the local federal jails and some are being housed as far away as Arizona while they wait for their cases to be resolved.

The increased volume is partly due to federal investigators and prosecutors moving much more quickly than in the past. "There has been a tendency of the U.S. government to run investigations for years as they cross every 't' and dot every 'i,'" says Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton. Under Mr. O'Brien, the U.S. attorney's office has been bringing gang cases, involving dozens of defendants at a time, in a matter of months, said Mr. Bratton.

"In the past, we would let investigations run on longer than they needed to," said Mr. O'Brien, who believes that, with wiretaps, confidential informants and the right focus, cases can be brought quickly. Despite the faster pace, Mr. O'Brien said he is confident the charges will stick and that the investigations aren't mistakenly pulling in innocent people.

Some observers argue that stepping up prosecutions is the wrong approach.

Even charging gang members by the hundreds "is just a tiny drop" among tens of thousands of gang members, said Lawrence Rosenthal, a law professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., who has studied inner-city policing. Mr. Rosenthal said a more effective approach is the one used in New York City, where large numbers of police move into gang-infested areas to essentially smother street crime.

Mr. Bratton, a former New York City police commissioner, said Los Angeles doesn't have enough police officers for such an approach. "In New York, I had 38,000 cops. In Los Angeles, I have 9,000" to cover a geographic area that's 50% larger, he said.

Because of federal criminal penalties, a gang member can serve more prison time for a given federal crime than if he was charged in state court, said law-enforcement officials. And instead of spending time in a state prison with fellow gang members, the person can be shipped to a federal facility anywhere in the country. A long stretch in a distant prison can "take the attractiveness out of being a gang member," said Sheriff Hedges of San Luis Obispo.

Write to John R. Emshwiller at john.emshwiller@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1224116 ... lenews_wsj

I.C.E. News Release

October 1, 2008

ICE arrests more than 1,700 during largest ever nationwide gang surge

Four-month long Operation Community Shield initiative takes dangerous criminals off the street

WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today the arrests of 1,759 gang members and associates, criminals and immigration violators as part of a comprehensive law enforcement operation led by ICE agents. Law enforcement agencies at the federal, state and local level partnered during this four-month long public safety surge, which ended yesterday, that targeted violent street gangs and their criminal associates in 53 cities across 28 states.

The rest of the story at:

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/0810/081001washington.htm