Thread: Judge to Consider Request on July 1 (Gangs)

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nort ... vgang.html

Judge to consider request on July 1
By Adam Klawonn
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
June 8, 2005

VISTA – At first it was a cable TV special. Then came a special fence. Then an outreach program involving churches.

Now the effort to control gangs here includes a request for a court order.

The District Attorney's Office is seeking an injunction prohibiting 89 documented members of Vista's only known gang from associating with each other, fighting, showing gang signs, wearing gang clothes, carrying weapons or selling illegal drugs in public, among other activities, in certain areas downtown.

The gang members will have a chance to answer the request for an injunction in court July 1 when a judge will consider it.

Yesterday, sheriff's deputies served 67 of them with notice of that hearing – arresting three on outstanding warrants and turning over three believed to be in the country illegally to Border Patrol agents.

The injunction would be similar to ones already in place to restrain gangs in Oceanside, San Marcos, Escondido and the Lincoln Park area of San Diego. They have also been used in Los Angeles, San Jose, San Antonio and other communities.

"If you can keep them from associating, you keep them from engaging in their other gang activities," said San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Terri Perez, who filed for the court order in Vista Superior Court on May 27.

Court records show that almost all of the 89 male and female gang members have faced criminal charges before, with some cases dating back to 1986. They sport 100 different nicknames, from Bugsy and Droopy to Munchy and Mr. Shadow.

They have until June 24 to file a response.

The court filing asks that they be prohibited from taking part in 15 activities in three "safety zones":

Brengle Terrace Park in east Vista.

Between South Santa Fe Drive, the railroad tracks and Pala Vista Drive in south central Vista,

A mile on either side of Santa Fe Avenue, from Lado de Loma Drive north to Taylor Street, in central Vista.

The American Civil Liberties Union has challenged the use of gang injunctions on the grounds that they step on an individual's constitutional right of freedom of assembly, but courts have generally upheld the practice.

In a 1997 case involving a gang in San Jose, the California Supreme Court ruled that individual rights of gang members were not as important as the greater public good of allowing injunctions to curtail their activities.

The injunction in Vista is one of many recent moves to curb gang activity here.

In January, a 30-minute television program called "North County Gangs: A Coalition Counterattack" began airing on the San Diego County Television Network. Sponsored by the network, the Oceanside TenPoint Coalition and county Supervisor Bill Horn's office, it included interviews with church pastors, law enforcement officials and former gang members about the realities of gang life.

In February, crews for San Diego Gas & Electric Co. installed a tall wrought-iron fence around a switchyard at Cedar Lane Park in Vista to keep kids from nearby schools from cutting through it and to curtail illicit activities, such as fighting and selling drugs.

Last week, Councilman Steve Gronke and about 10 other people listened as Pastor Gerald Johnson, co-founder of the faith-based TenPoint Coalition, presented a 10-step plan modeled from Eastern cities to curb gangs and youth violence. The group is now seeking more grant funding for its mission.

The May 27 request for an injunction coincides with efforts in other cities in San Diego County to root out gangs. A March 29 police sweep in Oceanside, for example, led to the arrest of 38 people believed to be linked to gangs.

"I think it's great," Gronke said yesterday of the injunction request. "We need some more hammer to try and control the gangs in Vista.

"If we can do some intervention early and tougher punishment at the tail end, I think that's exactly what we need," he said.

Authorities say Oceanside has 12 documented gangs that claim different neighborhoods.

Vista has only one known gang, a Hispanic gang, and it claims the entire city as its territory.

There were three or four gangs in Vista until the lucrative illegal-drug trade came here in the early 1980s and they consolidated, authorities and gang intervention specialists said. The gang is now in its third generation of membership and has about 250 documented members – mostly men and boys over age 16.

Based in the Townsite area, it is mostly involved in property and drug crimes, including sales of methamphetamine, say law enforcement sources.

In 2000, the gang was one of 10 Hispanic street gangs in San Diego and Imperial counties named as distributors of marijuana and heroin, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's National Drug Intelligence Center.



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Adam Klawonn: (760) 476-8245; adam.klawonn@uniontrib.com

This is too moronic to believe. If you can't do anything about them when they are conducting gang activity, then what? You think you're going to be able to police their "assembly"? You'd have to track them 24 hours a day. Why not just arrest them and lock them up and if they are "undocuments" deport them.

Case solved.

IS THIS NONSENSE OR WHAT?

I see our little subservient, bring down America anyway you can, ACLU was on hand!!