Thread: Troubling trend in slayings

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercuryn ... 361259.htm

Posted on Mon, Jan. 01, 2007

Troubling trend in slayings
LIKE ELSEWHERE, GREATER PORTION OF SAN JOSE HOMICIDES IS ATTRIBUTED TO GANGS
By Sean Webby
Mercury News

While many major cities saw dramatic spikes in slayings last year, San Jose's homicide rate remained comparatively small and flat -- there were two more. But within the city's soothing statistic lies a pattern that has echoed ominously like gunfire throughout the country: Gang slayings are up.

Last year, seven of San Jose's 28 homicides -- 25 percent -- were gang-related, according to police records. This year, 13 of 30 were gang-related -- 43 percent.

The spate of gang killings, five in December alone, has also affected the city's historically high homicide clearance rate, the percentage of cases in which a suspect has been arrested. In contrast to last year's 93 percent rate, 17, or 57 percent, of this year's cases have been cracked.

But San Jose police and local gang experts say there is a silver lining. Not one of the 2006 gang homicides seems to have been retaliatory -- the tit-for-tat revenge slayings that often quickly lead to multiple killings.

``I firmly believe because of the approach our community and police department takes, that the number of homicides could have been a lot worse,'' said Assistant Police Chief ``Tuck'' Younis.

San Jose's homicide numbers are too small to make any broad conclusions. For example, New York City had about 580 last year. Los Angeles had about 465. Oakland had close to 150 homicides -- one of its bloodiest totals in a decade. Even San Francisco -- one of the few cities in which homicides were down, had 85.

But law enforcement experts say San Jose's higher percentage of gang killings reflects a scary trend.

``These gang numbers are rising everywhere,'' said Wes McBride, executive director of California Gang Investigators Association. ``You can't fault San Jose or Oakland -- it's the participants. Gang members are so dehumanized, so apathetic to culture. Their culture is violence.

``Look what's happening in Baghdad,'' McBride said. ``You can't put an army in a neighborhood and stop everything.''

In San Jose, some of the year's gang slayings were tragic stories of innocent victims in the wrong place and at the wrong time.

Jose Luis Trujillo was beaten to death Jan. 25, allegedly by a gang of teenagers as he went to the store for a beer. Three teenagers were arrested last month. It was the city's fifth homicide.

Nicky Cruz Sr. was stabbed to death protecting his teenage son from a gang. No arrests have been made in that case. It was the city's 20th homicide.

Others fit into the more traditional gang mold.

Luis Amador was sitting with his brother in a car outside of a party when he was shot to death by a group of Sureños. Four were arrested. It was the city's ninth homicide.

Jesus Pequero, a Norteño, had just been released from prison when he was shot multiple times as he walked home the night of May 10. No one has been arrested. It was the city's 10th homicide.

City gang experts say there seemed to be no pattern to the homicides, unlike in 2005 when police targeted a gang called the West Side Mob. This year's gang slayings were all over the city -- and have been attributed to various gangs.

The city's strategy of trying to head off retaliatory shootings was put to a grim test in the past month.

It started Dec. 3, when Ceazer Anthony Gonzalez was shot soon after midnight after being followed in his car near the Las Ventanas Apartments. Then came Robert Ruben Ojeda, shot at 5:44 p.m. in the parking lot of Marina Foods on Monterey Road. Jose Jorge Infante was shot the same day at 11:29 p.m. on North 23rd Street.

All of them were gang-related and police suspected two other shootings that weekend were also gang-related.

The fatal poisoning of a 2-year-old girl by her father that same weekend stretched the homicide unit to the breaking point, said Lt. Junior Gamez, who heads the unit.

So, the entire department went into action. It was close to midnight Sunday, but police Capt. Diane Urban -- who heads the department's special operations unit -- began calling people on their cell phones. She wanted an emergency meeting to address what she felt was the possible beginning of a full-scale gang war.

``I was waking people up. But holy smokes, I don't know what we have to do, but we have to put a stop to it,'' Urban said last week.

At the crowded 11 a.m. Monday meeting at police headquarters were Urban, Gamez -- who had not left the office since the first homicide -- Lt. Wayne Farquhar, head of the gang investigations unit, Younis, school officials, other members of the mayor's gang-prevention task force, and a group of gang-outreach people -- many of whom had been in gangs themselves.

Police shared secret information about the killings with the civilians in the room: what had happened, who they thought might have been involved, even car descriptions.

Officers began doing probation and parole searches on gang members, making traffic and pedestrian stops, knocking on doors and flooding the city's gang hot spots.

Gang-outreach people spread out into their neighborhoods.

``It was ugly, nasty out there,'' said Sony Lara, a longtime South Bay gang activist, who spent most of his youth in prison. ``So we got out there before there was revenge and started telling people, `It's going to be a sad Christmas for a lot of families' and `Do you want to go home and kiss your son and daughter goodbye forever?' ''

Police held their breath.

And the gang killings stopped . . . for a while anyway.

Homicides in San Jose in 2006

1. Jan. 14, 1:59 p.m.: Chau Nguyen shot while sitting in his car on Pettigrew Drive. No arrest.

2. Jan. 16, 2:23 p.m.: Guadalupe Barajas shot by Jose Martin Aguilar in a murder-suicide in home on Lakewood Drive.

3. Jan. 20, 7:14 p.m.: Victim stabbed on North First Street. Suspects: Ruben Gonzalez, Adam Marcos Mendoza, Tyrone Austin and Steven Sharkey.*

4. Jan. 22, 2:08 a.m.: Francisco Ricardo Montes shot at a party on Grandwell Way. Suspects: Evon Lamar House, Corey Mauga Garcia, Douglas Niko Leticia Uribe and Abraham Faagogo.

5. Jan. 25, 7:46 p.m.: Jose Luis Trujillo beaten with baseball bats at 22nd Street and San Fernando. Suspects: Daniel Allen Miller, Edward Sample and Jason John Garewal.*

6. Jan. 27, 3:30 p.m.: Bang Thoung, victim of elder abuse. Suspect: Steven Tu.

7. Feb. 15: Frank Garcia hacked with a machete in a Monterey Road motel. Suspect: Oscar Menjivar.

8. April 9, 7:48 p.m.: Sophy Soeung, victim of an unsolved drive-by shooting on William Court.*

9. April 22, 11:18 p.m.: Luis Amador shot in front of a home on East San Antonio Road. Suspects: Robert Mejia, Efrain Catalan, Ernesto Ramirez and Hector Deana.*

10. May 10, 9:31 p.m.: Jesus Pequero shot on Bambi Lane. No arrest.*

11. May 12, 1:31 a.m.: Cuc Mai shot at an East Santa Clara Street restaurant he managed. Suspect Jon Tran shot himself.

12. May 27, 10:50 p.m.: Jimmy Joseph Martinez stabbed on Santee Drive. Suspect: Luis Felipe Garcia.*

13. June 9, 8:05 p.m.: Harry Winston Luman stabbed off West San Carlos Street. Suspects: Joe Anthony Silva and Raymundo Rivera.

14. June 11, 11:39 p.m.: Claudia Elizabeth Mota-Luna shot in bed in a Jerome Street residence. No arrest.

15: June 15, 7:09 a.m.: Hung Van Nguyen shot on Educational Park Drive. No arrests.

16. July 21, 8:52 p.m.: Oanh Tran sexually assaulted and asphyxiated in her bedroom on Ensign Way. Suspect: Marlo Diano.

17: July 29, 2:33 a.m.: Augustin Regaldo shot at a house party. District attorney ruled homicide was in self-defense.*

18. Aug. 13, 11:49 p.m.: Bruce Lee shot at his Tully Road business by three unknown men.

19. Sept. 16, 2:30 a.m.: Tuan Vo stabbed outside a house party on Trieste Court. Suspects: Quoc Nguyen, Peter Nguyen, Jeremy Tiongson and Phong Phamhoang Nguyen.

20. Nov. 1, 12:14 a.m.: Nicky Cruz Sr. stabbed on Stewart Avenue. No arrests.*

21. Nov. 8, 3:08 p.m.: Addison Lee Carlson stabbed at victim's Northlake Drive home. Suspect: Charles Phillip Ernst.

22. Nov. 20, 8:11 p.m.: Margaret Fay shot during an argument on North Almaden Avenue. Suspect: Willie Russell Griffin.

23: Dec. 1, 10:10 p.m.: Skyla Le poisoned with club drug in a failed murder-suicide. Suspect: Minh Phu Le.

24. Dec. 3, 12:26 a.m.: Ceazer Anthony Gonzalez shot on Evans Lane. No arrests.*

25. Dec. 3, 5:44 p.m.: Robert Ruben Ojeda shot in Monterey Road parking lot. Suspect: Miguel Sandoval.*

26. Dec. 3, 11:29 p.m.: Jose Jorge Infante shot in front of a home on North 23rd Street. No arrests.*

27. Dec. 10, 5:57 p.m.: Joseph L. Smith dies from a Nov. 13 shooting on North 13th Street.

No arrests.*

28. Dec. 14, 10:46 p.m.: Luis Rey Medina shot on Hamilton Avenue. No arrests.*

29. Not available. No arrest.

30. Dec. 23: Adrian LeGrand stabbed at home, which was then set on fire. Suspect: Thomas Paul Witt

*Gang-related

San Jose police

Gang-outreach people spread out into their neighborhoods.

``It was ugly, nasty out there,'' said Sony Lara, a longtime South Bay gang activist, who spent most of his youth in prison. ``So we got out there before there was revenge and started telling people, `It's going to be a sad Christmas for a lot of families' and `Do you want to go home and kiss your son and daughter goodbye forever?' ''

Isn't that nice, get them to stop before the year end totals tell the truth about the extreme number of gang related murders.

Might as well said, please wait until next year, you are making us look bad.

Dixie

It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Especially with the open borders. The drug lords in Northern Mexico will be controling the gangs here in the Southern US pretty soon.

Being in Miami what scares is the gangs and up risings in Brazil and other South American countries coming to Miami. There has been news on them in the paper lately. We already have the Central Americans ones and don't need anymore.