Prompted by half a year of steady gang-related violence on city streets, public support for a gang injunction in Santa Maria is gaining steam from a small but vocal group of residents.
In recent weeks, a movement spearheaded by members of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps led to locals petitioning the City Council. They also sent a flurry of letters to media outlets, pleading for the city to seek a court order that would restrict known gang members from associating
in public.
For Paula James, a Minuteman member and longtime local, it’s an idea whose time has come.
“We’ve had multiple gang stabbings and drive-by shootings. It just seems like it has escalated in the last year,” James said. “People have come to me, and they’re afraid in their neighborhoods.
”You have to put your foot down and say, ‘We’re not going to tolerate it, we’re going to stop you,’” she added. “We’re going to put a gang injunction in to nip it in the bud now before it gets out of control.”
James and other supporters of an injunction pointed to the gang-related murder of Hector Ramirez Perez on Aug. 23 in West Newlove, followed weeks later with another gang shooting in the area, after which two teens were arrested for attempted murder.
The incidents were the focus of a special town hall meeting held in the Newlove area in September. About 200 residents attended the meeting to vent and ask questions of police. According to the city’s Community Outreach Director Rosie Narez, the feeling among attendees was one of frustration.
“One crime is one crime too many,” Narez said. “That’s the attitude that the residents have, and that’s a great attitude to have. They don’t like the fact that it’s already gotten this bad. They don’t want it to get any worse.”
October saw two more gang-related shootings and a gang sweep by 40 law enforcement personnel from the Santa Maria Police Department, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department, county parole and probation agencies, and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement units.
The sweep contacted 49 gang members and netted 12 arrests on various drugs and weapons charges, according to police.
Then, on Nov. 16, three known gang members led police on a high-speed chase through city streets, firing at officers and forcing the lockdown of local schools.
The reports alarmed many locals. Others, however, said they’ve seen it coming.
A former city Parks and Recreation commissioner and Guadalupe Planning Commissioner, Michael Rivera has been warning city leaders of the threat of gang activity since 1994. Now, he says, the situation has reached critical mass.
“This whole gang situation is not something that has manifested itself just recently. This has been the result of many years of neglect,” Rivera said. “It comes from the unwillingness of people who have been elected to both city and county offices to really confront and address issues that are now manifesting themselves in the city. It’s dangerous.”
After almost 30 years in Santa Maria, Rivera moved his family to Paso Robles in 2003, convinced that local politicians weren’t prepared to deal with the consequences of working poor being recruited into the valley, compounded by language barriers and high-dropout rates.
“It was a hard choice to make,” Rivera said. “But when I knew they weren’t going to confront these serious issues, I felt that before the bullets started to fly and the violence increased, we had to go. I had to protect my family.”
Rivera, who isn’t associated with the Minutemen, said the problem would likely get worse before it gets better.
“You’ve got literally thousands of young people who are good kids that are going to fall into this recruitment into criminal gang activity simply because they have no other alternatives,” he said. “They’ve been put in a position where they don’t see that they have much hope. I believe there is hope. But first of all, you’ve got to stem the tide.”
Whether reports of gang-related violent crime are truly on the rise—or merely seem to be—is debatable. Police say they don’t specifically track gang arrests and don’t have crime statistics for 2009 compiled yet. Traditionally, crime increases in the summer and tapers off in winter, police say, giving the impression of an uptick.
The demands for a gang injunction are much ado about nothing, according to Santa Maria Police Chief Danny Macagni.
“It’s an overreaction based on the limited information that they have,” Macagni said. “The public sees a couple of homicides and they go, ‘Oh my God, this is a gang-infested area that needs to be dealt with and what are we doing?’ Oh yeah, everybody is in custody on those.”
The straight dope
Gang activity isn’t a new phenomenon in the Santa Maria Valley. Of the city’s two major gangs, Northwest began first in Evans Park in the late 1960s and expanded. Later, the
West Park gang—so named because it started on Park Avenue—was formed to defend against attacks from Northwest members.
Today, according to police, the city is home to an estimated 1,400 gang members, evenly split between Northwest and West Park. While the gangs may have started out territorially linked, members are currently spread throughout the city and out into Nipomo, Guadalupe, Sisquoc, and Lompoc.
Gang sweeps and FBI raids have fractured the core structure of the two groups to the degree that West Park members—of which an estimated 80 percent or so are undocumented immigrants—rarely communicate and commonly fight each other, not knowing they share affiliations.
Besides the two major gangs, police have seen splinter affiliations with Mexican gang MS 13, and Los Angeles gangs like 18th Street, Crips, and Bloods. The groups periodically collect taxes and recruit members in town, but so far, police said, they haven’t been able to gain a stronghold.
Gang members—who subsist primarily on money made from drug deals, chop shops, and selling stolen merchandise—are documented through a statewide system called CalGang. Most are identified by their use of hand signs, graffiti, and attire, but members may freely identify themselves to police as belonging to a particular gang. The type of crime committed can also be a tip off.
“The street robberies that we’re seeing are the Northwest gang members preying on the undocumented population,” Macagni said. “On Friday night, you’ve got a drunk undocumented immigrant who just got paid and he doesn’t use the bank, so he’s got the cash in his pocket. They make themselves an easy target.”
Out of the department’s 111 officers, 10 are assigned to special investigative units focusing solely on gangs and drugs. The department’s Gang Suppression Team consists of four investigators and a sergeant. SMPD Lt. Daniel Ast, a member of the team, said the perception that gang members in Santa Maria are too loosely associated to be taken seriously is no longer accurate.
“I don’t think we’re in a ‘wannabe’ stage anymore,” Ast said. “They’re a significant threat to the safety of the community.”
Does Santa Maria need a gang injunction?
Similar to a subpoena, a gang injunction is a court order signed by a judge and served to known gang members individually, notifying them that they’re not allowed to mingle in a predetermined safe zone.
Since the city of Los Angeles instituted the first gang injunctions in the 1980s, individuals and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union have challenged such orders in court, contending they violate offenders’ civil rights. However, in 1997, the California Supreme Court upheld their constitutionality, classifying gang activity as a “public nuisance.” Now, more than 20 other California cities—including Lompoc and Oxnard—have injunctions
on the books.
Lompoc passed its injunction in 2005 against members of local rival gangs Varrio Lamparas Primera (VLP) and Southside (SS). The injunction prohibits members from gathering anywhere in public view, including standing, walking, driving, or bicycling with any person known to
be a VLP or Southside gang member.
It also prohibits members from possessing dangerous weapons, fighting, displaying gang symbols or hand signs, or wearing gang attire in the VLP/SS safety zone. The zone, which isn’t marked with signage, includes much of the schools, residential neighborhoods, and downtown area
of Lompoc.
Macagni called Lompoc’s injunction “minimally effective,” and said, unlike in that city, Santa Maria’s gangs haven’t staked claims to specific areas, meaning there’s no justification for an injunction here.
“People don’t understand what an injunction is,” Macagni said. “It’s just a civil restraining order. Once they’re served, once they violate the terms and conditions of it, then we can arrest on a misdemeanor. It’s more symbolic than it is true enforcement, or a deterrent, to a very serious issue.”
Overcrowding means county jails aren’t taking misdemeanor bookings, Macagni said, so violators are issued
a ticket, pay a fine, and are back on the streets.
An effective injunction, police said, would have to include an association clause, and would be extremely difficult for a judge to approve.
“You just can’t take somebody’s civil liberties and civil rights away from them just because you think it’s a good
idea and they’ve been committing some crimes,” Macagni said. “We just don’t have the specifics to really accomplish what some people think we can easily accomplish. It’s
more complex.”
The Minutemen’s James argued that gang members lose their First Amendment rights by virtue of their activities.
“The bottom line is you want to stop the gang activity, period, no matter where it is,” James said. “A safe zone is all people want. They want to be able to go out in their front yards and not worry about gang activity and crime. If it doesn’t work, then what have we lost, other than the extra policing in those areas?”
Dawn Wood, a 21-year resident of Santa Maria and injunction supporter, said the city should have begun working on an order years ago when problems first began
to emerge.
“I see what’s happening in our community, with shootings in broad daylight, police chases, and graffiti everywhere,” Wood said. “It’s obvious to anyone who has lived here as long as I have to see the damage that these dangerous gang members are causing.”
According to Wood, an injunction would protect residents and provide police with broader arresting powers to quell
the violence.
“The tools are there,” Wood said. “The police continue to take a defensive posture when they have all of these tools at their disposal, and if they were put in place they would be on the offense.”
For now, the issue appears dead in the water. Appearing at the Dec. 1
City Council meeting, Macagni presented his recommendation that the city not pursue an injunction. None of the council members objected.
Crime and political correctness
As with any recovery, according to Rivera, the first step to solving the gang problem is admitting there is a problem. As of yet, he said, city leaders have been unwilling to tackle the issue for fear of being labeled “politically incorrect.”
“They’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” Rivera said. “They’re afraid of offending the Hispanic community, but they fail to recognize that many legal-resident Hispanics are just as upset about this as anybody else.
“This has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. This has to do with criminality,” he added.
Race plays a factor in fighting gang activity in trouble areas, according to the city’s Narez, because of the reluctance of victims to call police for fear of having their citizenship questioned.
“We know there’s a lot going on there because we hear it. But nine times out of 10, it’s not reported,” Narez added. “If you don’t tell us what’s going on, we’re going to assume it’s great. If we don’t know about it, we’re not going to do that extra patrol. Why would we? According to us, nothing’s going on there.”
Macagni said he’s made it clear his department won’t check victims’ immigration status, and said police will continue to aggressively pursue and prosecute gang members with the tools they already have, including ICE sweeps, which allow for previously deported felons to be sent to federal prison.
Meanwhile, the department will continue to use daytime and nighttime ordinances for school-age juveniles and urged the public to put pressure on political bodies to relax restrictions for engaging suspected gang members.
“The public needs to stand behind us a little bit more when it comes to shaking people down for being gang members,” Macagni said. “If you dress like a gang member, act like a gang member, hang with gang members, claim to be a gang member, [are] throwing gang signs and wearing gang clothes, chances are you’re probably a gang member. Quit playing this, ‘Oh, you’re profiling because they’re Hispanic or you’re profiling him because they’re black.’”
The root causes of gangs, Macagni explained, are bad parenting and the breakdown of the family unit. Those problems can only be solved through a community-wide effort, he said, not by police alone.
“Gangs are not going to take over this city,” he said. “If we all work together in a collaborative fashion, chances are we’ll be more successful than we will as individuals.”
Contact Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 10-17, 2009.