Thread: Longtime problems getting second look after fatal shootings

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Longtime problems getting second look after fatal shootings

By: JO MORELAND - Staff Writer

RINCON INDIAN RESERVATION ---- The slayings earlier this month of three young men during a gun battle on the Rincon Indian Reservation have tribal leaders searching for answers to longtime problems in their community.

The issues include racial tension, gang activity, the need for more sheriff's deputies or tribal officers, enforcement of tribal laws that include keeping banned people off the reservation, and conflicts with some who rent property on the reservation, residents and tribal members said.

Meanwhile, behind closed doors, on telephones, and in e-mails and private conversations, fears and rumors have been flying about possible retaliation for the Feb. 3 slayings on Morales Lane.

The slayings have prompted tribal officials at the nearby Pauma Band of Mission Indians to ban nine people from their reservation and to hire extra security to patrol the reservation entrance, said Valerie Linton, Pauma's tribal administrator.

As of Friday, authorities had not given an official motive for the shootings, saying only that they involved two groups who don't like each other.

People who live and work at Rincon say the shootings that evening in the rural valley erupted from festering tension between some Latinos and American Indians. They suggested they may have been payback for a bullet fired into a different house in an earlier incident.

"There's been generations hating each other," said community activist Danny Perez, of Escondido, who used to work with security at Valley Center High School, where Rincon children attend classes. "I've seen this coming on for a long time."

He said Thursday that those who fired shots or were shot at that night "mostly represent what happened with the whole community."

"These kids are just getting in trouble because the whole community has allowed them to do that," Perez said.

Finding solutions

Rincon tribal chairman John Currier said the Rincon Tribal Council is committed to finding ways to prevent more violence, but it is not a simple matter of bringing one people or culture together.

Friction is created in part because some people who live on the very open reservation of about 3,918 acres northeast of Escondido aren't American Indians or even members of the Rincon band. Pockets of unincorporated county land also dot the reservation.

Only about 200 of the 1,500 to 1,800 Rincon residents are actual tribal members, and another 200 to 400 of the residents are relatives of members, said Currier.

People on the reservation said the racial makeup and the transitory nature of the rental population sometimes leads to volatile or stressful situations.

A tribal member who agreed to talk on condition that his name not be used insisted that the fatal shootings weren't the result of racial issues.

"It's gangsters who visit the renters (on the reservation)," he said. "They have nothing to lose. They don't have jobs. They don't have families. They don't have homes."

Whatever they see as the reason for Rincon's worst violence in 15 years, residents have made it clear to the tribal council that they don't want it to continue, Currier said. He said it has been a ground-breaking, sometimes frustrating and emotionally draining two weeks of long meetings as the five-member council tries to find answers to the problems and people who can help resolve them.

"We realize that there have been people who have been hurt on both sides of this issue," said Currier. "We want to make this a safe community. We want to do whatever we can to resolve conflicts."

Support sought

Phone calls supporting the council, which is making plans for community outreach and planning sessions, and the recent calm on the reservation have been encouraging to the tribal leaders as they try to find solutions, Currier said.

Whether Rincon's residents will sufficiently back the council's efforts, though, is another issue, the chairman and others said. One of them was a 27-year-old mother of a small boy who lives near the shooting site.

"Everybody's concerned around here because of what happened," said the woman, who did not want to be identified because of fear of retaliation. "Everybody wants them to clean up the reservation, and make it like it used to be."

However, she said she wasn't sure that residents will support the council's solutions.

Although four suspects are in custody in the slayings, some reservation residents said they are afraid that relatives or friends of the suspects or victims might retaliate against or start trouble for anyone who talks openly about the violence.

Currier said he thinks the right people are being brought together, from inside and outside the reservation, to help solve Rincon's problems, but the residents need to step up, too.

"We think this community is going to have to rise to the occasion, and I think they will," he said. "This is not something that's a short-term Band-Aid fix. It's a very crucial time for this tribe."

Simmering divisions

Tension between American Indians and Latinos in the North County area is not new.

The friction has been documented through more than a decade of headlines about occasional fights at area high schools, including a memorable May 2000 melee that involved about 40 students at Valley Center High School near Rincon.

Perez said the Feb. 3 slayings weren't gang-related, "but the gangs are getting involved because there are rumors."

"They're getting defensive," he said.

At least one of the three victims, 19-year-old Cristino Gomez, was a member of the Valleros, the local Latino gang that claims the Valley Center area, authorities said. The other two victims were David Edward Parada, 24, and Steve Casioce Jr., 23.

Gomez was a brother of one of the four defendants ---- Jose Gomez, 24; Alexandro Sibriano Moreno, 21; Esteban Avila, 21, and Ray Lewis Janis, 20.

Authorities said people died on both sides of the battle, which may explain why the suspects were charged in just two of the slayings. They have pleaded not guilty to two counts each of murder and three counts each of attempted murder involving victims who were injured.

Perez said he has been talking with the Valleros to try to help keep the situation calm.

"I just want to be sure that we get everybody talking," he said.

James Fletcher, head of the regional Bureau of Indian Affairs office, said Rincon needs to develop youth programs. The reservation has had gang-type groups for a time and the bureau can help deal with that, he said.

"But it takes the community, and it takes the tribe and us all working together to make that happen," said Fletcher. "You have a government there, and it needs to enforce the rules and regulations that it has. And it does have ways to enforce them."

Help available

The Indian Health Council on the reservation has been providing an after school program for about 70 to 80 children who attend the nearby All Tribes American Indian Charter School.

"We're training them to be more conscientious," said Deven Parlikar, the Indian Health Council's chief executive officer. "The kids are involved in several community projects."

The agency is providing crisis intervention services, counseling and community talking circles to all North County tribes because of the shootings, said Sheilamarie Racicot, director of the health council's behavioral health care department.

"Within the next year, our goal is to start creating tribal emergency response teams" that could immediately help with any kind of crisis, Parlikar said.

Rincon already contracts with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department for two deputies, and Currier said a third will also be hired. The possibility of having tribal law enforcement is also being discussed, he said.

Twenty more deputies were brought in to help the limited staff at the Valley Center Sheriff's Station keep peace for more than a week after the shootings.

Lt. Sean Gerrity, station commander, said he will focus his deputies' efforts on Rincon. The Sheriff's Department also has been identifying anyone who might be considering retaliation for the slayings or committing more violence, Gerrity said.

Other tribal leaders in the area, concerned about potential spillover from the Rincon situation onto their reservations, have talked with Gerrity.

Contact staff writer Jo Moreland at (760) 740-3524 or jmoreland@nctimes.com. To comment, go to nctimes.com.

http://www.signonsandiego.com

Racial tension cited in Rincon shooting


Hearing to decide if 4 will face trial in killings
By Jose Luis Jiménez
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
June 7, 2006

VISTA – Escalating racial tension on the Rincon Indian Reservation was a factor in a February shootout that left three people dead, according to testimony yesterday at a Superior Court hearing.

Five North County men of Latino descent are accused of driving to a home on Morales Lane on Feb. 3, where one of them, wearing a mask, fired a semiautomatic handgun at a group of Native Americans, according to testimony.

A man at the home returned fire with a shotgun as the group of Latinos retreated. Two men at the home were fatally wounded and three men who arrived with the gunman were wounded, one of them fatally, according to the testimony.

The victims from the home, near Harrah's Rincon Casino, were Steve Casioce Jr., 23, and David Parada, 24, a member of the Rincon Band of Mission Indians. Three other people at the house were not injured.

Cristino Gomez, 19, who was described as the leader of the ambush, was taken to a fire station, where he died, according to testimony.

The testimony came during a hearing in which Judge John Einhorn will decide whether there is sufficient evidence to try four men charged with murder and attempted murder. It is expected to continue today.

The defendants are: Alexandro Sibriano Moreno, 21; Esteban Avila, 21; Ray Lewis Janis, 20; and Jose Manuel Gomez, 25, who is Cristino Gomez's brother.

Avila, Moreno and Janis lived on the Rincon reservation, and the Gomez brothers lived nearby in Valley Center, according to testimony. If convicted of the charges, the men face maximum sentences of life in prison, prosecutor Giacomo Bucci said.

Sheriff's Det. Will Altenhof testified that a witness told him she and her friends were having trouble with the Gomez brothers and Janis for several months.

She said the two groups had been shooting at each other, most recently about two to three weeks before her friends were killed Feb. 3, Altenhof testified.

Defense attorneys argued that the evidence collected by detectives does not show their clients were involved in the shooting. The lawyers also questioned the credibility of the witness interviewed by Altenhof because she told detectives she could not see the gunman's face because he wore a mask.

Cristino Gomez was taken to a fire station next to the Sheriff's Department Valley Center substation on North Lake Wohlford Road, where he was pronounced dead, Det. Janet Ryzdynski testified.

Jose Gomez was treated at the station for a wound from a shotgun blast to his upper chest and face, and Janis was treated for an injury to his right hand, according to testimony.

When deputies spoke to the defendants, they denied being involved in the shooting and said they found Cristino Gomez injured on the side of the road and brought him to the station for aid, according to testimony.

Later that evening, detectives placed Avila and Moreno alone in a room at the substation and surreptitiously recorded them discussing details of the shooting, a detective testified.

“Shots were going 'pop, pop!' I could see the flames,” Avila said in Spanish, according to testimony.

Later on, Moreno asked Avila: “I think they're three dead, right?”

Avila responded: “They're two of them.”

Investigators also found a mask and bloody clothing in the car the Latino men drove to the station, detectives testified.



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Jose Jimenez: (760) 737-7568; jose.jimenez@uniontrib.com

These gangs seem to be worse than the Mobs we had years ago.

It's amazing our government is introducing this into our society.

Stop with the PC crap and let the police get tough with them...if they are illegal...ship them to Timbuktu!