Recent Articles The American Prospect - articles by author en Special Report: The Crime Debate <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><font class="nonprinting"></font></p> <p> <font size="+2">T</font>he city of Inglewood, population 140,000, lies in the southwest<br /> corner of the Los Angeles sprawl. It has the features of almost<br /> every other L.A. suburblong commercial strips of burger shacks<br /> and auto body shops, low-rise neighborhoods of motel-style apartment<br /> complexes and tiny homes with tiny lawns. The city map is dominated<br /> by large open spaces. Hollywood Park racetrack and card casino<br /> attracts millions of visitors, as does the adjacent Great Western<br /> Forum, where the Lakers play home games. Just to the north is<br /> the 375-acre Inglewood Park cemetery.</p> <p> One of the city's main streets, Century Boulevard, is a straight<br /> shot west to LAX, the Los Angeles International Airport. Another,<br /> Crenshaw Boulevard, goes north through the heart of black L.A.<br /> At the intersection of these two roads is the Bottoms, a neighborhood<br /> of six blocks that has been the scene of almost 40 murders in<br /> the past decade.</p> <p> Thirty-five hundred people, mostly black and Latino, live in this<br /> claustrophobic network of two-story apartments linked by alleyways<br /> and narrow streets named after past Inglewood mayors. The area<br /> sits directly under the LAX flight path; all day long, airplanes<br /> on final descent buzz the neighborhood. A Bloods gang called the<br /> Crenshaw Mafia claims the Bottoms as its turf, and police say<br /> there are about 75 active members of the CMG. Although some of<br /> its members live in other parts of town, most grew up together<br /> in the neighborhood. The gang got its name in the late 1970s because<br /> members were fans of the <i>Godfather</i> movies.</p> <p> Not all 40 murders involved the Crenshaw Mafia: Three toddlers<br /> died at the hands of abusive parents or sitters; nobody knows<br /> who killed the assistant manager of the nearby Price Club in a<br /> September 1994 robbery that netted $15. But police blame the gang<br /> for a fair share of the killing, and rival sets have come into<br /> the area gunning for the CMG. In a July 1996 drive-by shooting,<br /> one Crenshaw Mafia member was killed and a five-year-old boy was<br /> shot in the hip. Police have also arrested CMG members for selling<br /> crack cocaine and marijuana, carrying assault rifles and semiautomatic<br /> pistols, and committing armed robberies and assaults. The Bottoms<br /> is tagged with CMG graffiti. The Cs are always crossed out to<br /> show hatred for the Crips.</p> <p> With crime rates in this area consistently among the highest in<br /> the city, and with neighbors often too scared to call the police<br /> or serve as witnesses, city officials decided it was time to try<br /> a new tactic against the Crenshaw Mafia Gang.</p> <p> It was time to sue them.</p> <p> <font size="+2">I</font>n late January, Inglewood became the tenth California<br /> city to use public nuisance laws to get a civil injunction restricting<br /> activities within the Bottoms by 29 alleged members of the Crenshaw<br /> Mafia Gang. The injunctions impose 25 conditions on the defendants;<br /> violating any of them is a misdemeanor that carries a sentence<br /> in California of a $1,000 fine and up to six months in jail. Most<br /> of the prohibited activities are illegal anyway: selling drugs,<br /> throwing rocks at people or cars, fighting or gambling in public,<br /> drinking or urinating in public, vandalizing property, trespassing,<br /> possessing a dangerous weapon in public. A few provisions, however,<br /> target more ambiguous activity: carrying a pager or cellular phone,<br /> riding a bicycle, or even "congregating in any public place<br /> with any other person" for drug-dealing or other illegal<br /> purposes.</p> <hr size="1" /><center><br /><a href="/subscribe/"><img src="/tapads/mini_subscribe.gif" border="0" alt="Subscribe to The American Prospect" /></a> <p></p></center><br /><hr size="1" /><p> What is unambiguous about the court orders is that they give police<br /> probable cause to stop or arrest defendants for almost anything<br /> they do in a target area. Being outside with any other person<br /> is a potential offense. So is visiting a friend at his apartment,<br /> because trespassing provisions forbid defendants from being on<br /> private property without the written or oral consent of the owner<br /> or lessee. Curfew requirements mean defendants cannot be out late<br /> at night. A littering clause makes it an offense for a defendant<br /> to drop a cigarette on the ground.</p> <p> Anti-gang injunctions have been used mainly in Southern California<br /> and mainly since 1994, after the Los Angeles County district attorney's<br /> hardcore gang unit formed a special section to pursue the injunctions.<br /> Although the injunctions raise many constitutional concerns [see<br /> Randall Kennedy, "<a href="32kennfs.html" target="_self">Guilty by Association</a>," page 66],<br /> so far the courts have sided with the prosecutors. On January<br /> 30, the California Supreme Court upheld San Jose's 1993 injunction<br /> against a Latino gang in a four-square-block community called<br /> Rocksprings. The majority opinion in <i>People ex rel. Gallo v.<br /> Carlos Acuna et al.</i> cited the court's commitment to "ordered<br /> liberty" and the rights of the frightened residents of gang-infested<br /> areas:</p> <p> </p><blockquote>To hold that the liberty of the peaceful, industrious residents<br /> of Rocksprings must be forfeited to preserve the illusion of freedom<br /> for those whose ill conduct is deleterious to the community as<br /> a whole is to ignore half the political promise of the Constitution<br /> and the whole of its sense. . . . Preserving the peace is the<br /> first duty of government, and it is for the protection of the<br /> community from the predations of the idle, the contentious, and<br /> the brutal that government was invented.</blockquote> <p> The court decision means that civil injunctions will likely proliferate.<br /> Just as Los Angeles is the great exporter of gang culture, so<br /> it has become a trendsetter in gang suppression policies. The<br /> L.A. County district attorney's program for civil injunctions,<br /> the Strategy Against Gang Environments (SAGE), now employs five<br /> full-time deputy district attorneys, whom the county contracts<br /> out to local cities that want injunctions. SAGE has its own how-to<br /> manual, which cities all over the country have been requesting.</p> <p> For many prosecutors, police, even the residents of embattled<br /> neighborhoods, the issue is simple: Gang injunctions immediately<br /> and dramatically reduce crime rates in the target areas. Once<br /> intimidated residents become emboldened and accustomed to cooperating<br /> with the authorities, police can then do their job more effectively.<br /> Yet are the injunctions truly, as their advocates claim, the foundation<br /> of a long-term strategy for public safetyor do they simply move<br /> the problem from one neighborhood to another? Can the police go<br /> after the named defendants without curbing the rights of other<br /> residents? What about the rights of the defendants themselves?<br /> These are legitimate questions that few public officials feel<br /> they even need to confront.</p> <p> </p><hr /><h3>A NEW WEAPON</h3> <p> On a sunny morning at the end of January, District Attorney Gil<br /> Garcetti announced the Inglewood injunction at a press conference<br /> in Darby Park, just north of the Bottoms. Standing on a hill overlooking<br /> the Hollywood Park stables, flanked by city officials, police<br /> officers, and prosecutors, Garcetti had to shout over the continuous<br /> roar of jets overhead. Eight camera crews representing every local<br /> television channel crowded around, as Garcetti sounded the death<br /> knell for the Crenshaw Mafia.</p> <p> "It's time to stop the violence. It's time to stop the fear,"<br /> said Garcetti, who barely won re-election last November. During<br /> a campaign marked by criticism of his handling of the O.J. Simpson<br /> criminal prosecution, Garcetti highlighted the gang injunctions<br /> as a great accomplishment of his tenure. "These gangs have<br /> not seen the SAGE program before," he added. "It's not<br /> just a temporary fix. . . . It will permanently bring down levels<br /> of crime in this neighborhood."</p> <p> Garcetti's boast was audacious, but not empty. In Norwalk, Pasadena,<br /> Long Beach, and Lennox, SAGE injunctions had freed target neighborhoods<br /> of the gang terror that was once desperate and unrelenting. In<br /> San Jose, two neighborhoods were enjoined in 1993 and 1994. After<br /> ten months, one neighborhood saw crime drop 63 percent, and the<br /> other, 49 percent. Enforcement of the injunctions stopped while<br /> the court challenge proceeded. Now that injunctions have been<br /> upheld, the city attorney may soon seek injunctions for three<br /> additional neighborhoods.</p> <p> <font size="+2">N</font>orwalk, a city of about 100,000 southeast of L.A., was<br /> the location of SAGE's pilot program. An August 1994 injunction<br /> enabled law enforcement to snuff out a Latino set called the Orange<br /> Street Locos. With only 55 active members, according to police<br /> databases, OSL was the smallest of Norwalk's five Latino gangs.<br /> But they gave sheriff's deputies some of the most trouble.</p> <p> Their four-by-five-block stretch of turf was covered with graffiti.<br /> Gang members were responsible for dozens of crimes, from car theft<br /> and drug possession to assault and armed robbery. In 1994 they<br /> started throwing Molotov cocktails in alleys and then at homes,<br /> burning out an African-American family. Neighbors constantly reported<br /> hearing shots fired, and the local elementary school actually<br /> started holding drive-by-shooting drills at recess. A bell would<br /> ring, and students would hit the blacktop.</p> <p> Today, the graffiti is gone. Moms with babies in strollers move<br /> down the sidewalks, past unlicensed street vendors selling pork<br /> rinds and corn out of shopping carts. Children play basketball<br /> after school, rollerblade, and swing on the swingsets.</p> <p> The neighborhood's metamorphosis occurred almost immediately after<br /> the court order enjoined the activities of 22 OSL members. For<br /> the next ten months, the local sheriff's station documented the<br /> injunction's progress in weekly memos. The number of calls to<br /> the sheriff's department went down by nearly a third, and very<br /> few of the calls were in any way related to gangs. The memos report<br /> just a few crimes committed by gang members not listed in the<br /> injunction. Only five injunction defendants were prosecuted for<br /> violating the court order.</p> <p> To date, seven injunction defendants are in state prison, county<br /> jail, or juvenile hall. Eight no longer live in the area. Six<br /> live at home, including one about to be deported to Mexico. One<br /> is dead. Despite a flare-up last fall, when a rival gang member<br /> moved into the area and threw a party, the Orange Street Locos<br /> have more or less ceased to exist. The city council will soon<br /> consider a motion to rename Orange Street for two of the sheriff's<br /> deputies who have worked intensively in the area.</p> <p> </p><hr /><h3>PASADENA: NO BED OF ROSES</h3> <p> Norwalk's experience attracted other cities to the SAGE program,<br /> but not every city could replicate its success.</p> <p> Every New Year's Day, millions of eyes are on Pasadena for the<br /> Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl. The floral pageantry<br /> matches the genteel reputation of this city of 135,000 just northeast<br /> of L.A., a suburb of turn-of-the-century bungalows and tree-lined<br /> streets, home of Cal Tech (the California Institute of Technology)<br /> and the Norton Simon Museum.</p> <p> That gentility is not on display in the briefing room of the Pasadena<br /> Police Department's Special Enforcement Section. One entire wall<br /> is covered with customized baseball caps, each showing allegiance<br /> to a different local gang. Most of the city's gang activitypolice<br /> estimate 1,500 members in 13 active gangsis centered just above<br /> the Rose Parade route, in the mainly black and Latino northwest<br /> section. Residents and city officials point to Halloween, 1993,<br /> as the moment Pasadena acknowledged its gang problemwhen three<br /> trick-or-treaters were gunned down, mistaken for gang members.</p> <p> The three Halloween killers, sentenced to death in January, were<br /> members of a small Bloods set. The first court order, in October<br /> 1995, enjoined 35 alleged members of the largest Bloods gang in<br /> the city, the Pasadena Denver Lanes (PDL). The injunction targeted<br /> a three-by-six-block area, centered around Summit Avenue, reputed<br /> to be the place to buy crack, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.</p> <p> The black and Latino residents of this stretch describe late-night<br /> open-air gatherings of dealers, friends, and addicts; the assortment<br /> played music, yelled, drag raced, had fights, shot craps, and<br /> sometimes shot each other. In the mornings, people who looked<br /> like zombies would walk down the street, searching for rocks of<br /> cocaine dropped during the night. Residents were afraid to mow<br /> their lawns or even let their kids ride their bicycles. Some gang<br /> members tried to make residents pay to enter or exit their own<br /> driveways.</p> <p> City Prosecutor Tracy Webb heard about Norwalk's success on the<br /> radio and decided to bring SAGE to Pasadena. The city got two<br /> injunctions, one each in 1995 and 1996. Following the first court<br /> order, Pasadena police Sergeant Jim Shear wrote a memo describing<br /> an unprecedented change in the community: "The last week<br /> has netted no arrests and no calls for service." Only a handful<br /> of people were ever prosecuted for violations of the injunction;<br /> none has been prosecuted since September 1996.</p> <p> One reason for the change is that the injunctions energized the<br /> community. Residents started suing landlords who were renting<br /> to troublemakers; since then, the neighborhood association has<br /> organized numerous block cleanups, a tutoring program, and an<br /> absentee-landlord group. Another factor is that the injunctions<br /> actually scared off gang members. "It never ceases to amaze<br /> me," says Webb. "We prosecute these guys for drive-bys,<br /> murders, rape, and they're seemingly unfazed. As soon as we hit<br /> 'em with a lot of paperwork, they disappear."</p> <p> <font size="+2">B</font>ut the gangs haven't disappeared. Soon after the injunctions,<br /> PDL members started hanging out just beyond the target area, in<br /> a housing project, a park, and a strip mall. Unlike Norwalk, where<br /> highly territorial gangs live in very clearly marked neighborhoods,<br /> in Pasadena gang members live throughout the city. Police memos<br /> in November 1995 noted PDL's shift, and where once most PDL members<br /> on probation were given stay away orders from Summit, now the<br /> orders almost exclusively name the nearby King's Villages project.<br /> Police are having the same problem with Pasadena's second injunction,<br /> a June 1996 court order against 26 members of the Villa Boys and<br /> Krazy Boys. These Latino gangs had been allies against two rival<br /> sets in a year-long feud that left several young men dead and<br /> several more wounded.</p> <p> Pasadena, like the other injunction cities, has not studied the<br /> issue of gang displacement in any systematic way. But a map of<br /> the city in the Special Enforcement Section briefing room suggests<br /> how quickly the gangs are adapting: No longer does the map feature<br /> an overlay with different gang territories outlined. Because the<br /> gangs have been moving so much, now the police track them with<br /> pushpins.</p> <p> "They know we can't do much outside the injunction area,"<br /> says Pasadena police officer Terysa Rojas, the department's expert<br /> on Latino gangs. "It works for the area you intend it to<br /> work for but then you just have to chase them wherever they go<br /> next. The thing is, before the injunctions, they all were hanging<br /> out in the same place. Now that they can't hang out there, you<br /> don't know where they are. They're all over, and you can't keep<br /> track of them." Such frustrations fuel skepticism of the<br /> program. When Pasadena's SAGE deputy district attorney started<br /> work on a new injunction to target King's Villages, the new locus<br /> for gang activity, the city balked and did not extend her contract.<br /> Police and prosecutors say they will still enforce the injunctions<br /> in place but will not be seeking more of them.</p> <p> Bernard Melekian, who became Pasadena's police chief about the<br /> same time the city was seeking its second court order, calls the<br /> injunctions "an intellectual substitute for responsible public<br /> policy" and prefers a combination of hard police work and<br /> community services. He is reorganizing the force into one of community<br /> beat cops, with intensive presence in the city's most crime-ridden<br /> spots. The Special Enforcement Section is targeting the hardest<br /> gang members with vigorous enforcement of probation and parole<br /> violations, and the department is starting an early intervention<br /> program with first-time juvenile offenders.</p> <p> "There are aggressive enforcement ways to deal with known<br /> gang members," Melekian says. "All we've done is move<br /> their hangout, which is fine if you live in the injunction area.<br /> So why don't we enjoin the entire city?"</p> <p> </p><hr /><h3>THROWING THE BOOK AT THEM</h3> <p> In Inglewood, a deputy district attorney spent months working<br /> out of an office in City Hall, taking declarations from residents<br /> and police and probation officers and compiling a list of 42 of<br /> the most active members of the Crenshaw Mafia. After the prosecutor<br /> filed the complaint for an injunction to abate a public nuisance<br /> in Los Angeles Superior Court last December, police officers started<br /> serving the defendants with a two-inch-thick stack of legal documents.</p> <p> The packet included a copy of the complaint, lengthy citations<br /> of municipal code violations and supporting constitutional decisions,<br /> and the declarations by law enforcement officers detailing the<br /> history and general activities of the gang and singling out each<br /> defendant for specific wrongdoing. The judge refused to seal civilian<br /> declarations, so the prosecutor did not file them out of concern<br /> for those residents' safety.</p> <p> Gang members learned that they were going to be served with papers<br /> by listening to their police scanner. Some went to the police<br /> station to collect their packets; others went into hiding. Those<br /> who received the packet refer to it in awestruck tones as "the<br /> book." Officers serving the papers said they didn't know<br /> what they were for and couldn't give any legal advice. Quite literally,<br /> the Crenshaw Mafia got the book thrown at them.</p> <p> The day after Gil Garcetti's press conference, the city of Inglewood<br /> sought a preliminary injunction in Los Angeles County Superior<br /> Court. Twelve of the defendants made the trip to the courthouse,<br /> a few miles away in Torrance. Several wore their hair in braided<br /> rows, a style popularized by Snoop Doggy Dogg. One had "104<br /> St.," one of the target area's boundaries, tattooed on the<br /> back of his neck. One was wearing Calvin Klein jeans with a large<br /> label reading "CK," an abbreviation listed in police<br /> dictionaries of gang slang with a definition of "Crip Killer."</p> <p> The defendants began by asking Judge Robert Mallano for a public<br /> defender, but the judge said no. This was a civil court, he explained.<br /> There was no guarantee of representation. They also tried to argue<br /> against the city's request: Travon Donte Adkins, whose nickname<br /> is Lil Lunchmeat, told the judge he wanted all the police officers<br /> who made statements about him to submit to lie detector tests.<br /> But Mallano said he would be basing his decision exclusively on<br /> the written record. If the gang members had objections, he said,<br /> they should have hired a lawyer and filed written briefs before<br /> the court hearing.</p> <p> By the time the judge finally granted the injunction, the defendants<br /> were stunned and angry. "None of us knew what an injunction<br /> was," said defendant Kenneth Bell. "We thought we were<br /> going to have some public assistance. I don't know civil cases.<br /> I've never been sued in my life. We got no legal aid, period.<br /> Nobody's backing us." Said Adkins, smarting over the suggestion<br /> that he hire a lawyer, "That's the whole point. They know<br /> we don't got no money." He asked to be excused and left the<br /> courtroom shouting, "They know niggers ain't got no money!"</p> <p> <font size="+2">E</font>pisodes like this confirm the worst suspicions of injunction<br /> critics. "You got a D.A. who's in big trouble because he<br /> can't win big-profile cases, and he wants to look tough on crime,"<br /> says Bert Vorhees, an attorney representing the Pasadena NAACP,<br /> who fought the PDL injunction. "The gang injunctions are<br /> perfect because they go after a group that does not have much<br /> resources. You look like you're doing something, but you're not<br /> doing much other than violate the civil rights of those named<br /> in the injunction and the citizens who happen to get caught in<br /> the middle."</p> <p> Reading the court orderswhich list the defendants' names along<br /> with their nicknamesone gets the sense that cities are suing<br /> cartoon characters. It's the people versus Smiley, Lil Pookey,<br /> Goofy, Clumsy, Happy, Bam Bam, Turtle, Casper, Spanky, Smurf,<br /> Pee Wee, Snoopy, Beaver, Heckle and Jeckle. Lawyers who have represented<br /> such men in injunction proceedings and in the misdemeanor violation<br /> of court order cases decry the one-sidedness of what they see<br /> as an unholy blurring of criminal and civil proceedings.</p> <p> "It's just using a civil court to create special crimes for<br /> special people," says Michael Ramirez-Mares, a public defender<br /> in Pasadena. "From a prosecutor's point of view, it is an<br /> elegant solutionyou've cut out the lawyers for the other side.<br /> But I don't think it's fair."</p> <p>Attorneys who favor the injunctions say they are dealing with<br /> a public nuisance, a civil harm that belongs in civil court just<br /> like any other. "Because we're dealing with gangs, people<br /> are saying we're prosecuting them without giving them their rights,"<br /> said Andrew Paley, a civil attorney in a private firm who has<br /> been working pro bono with the SAGE program since its inception.<br /> "If this were a fraternity at a university, and they were<br /> playing their stereos at two in the morning, having beer bashes,<br /> harassing women who walk by, and urinating in public, no one would<br /> be thinking twice about this."</p> <p> But are the two situations really comparable? The stakes are higher<br /> when the defendants are young black and Latino men and women living<br /> in underdeveloped and underserved neighborhoods. The stakes are<br /> higher when the court orders give great power to police departments<br /> that have historically mistreated minorities.</p> <p> Although many defendants obtain pro bono representation or defend<br /> themselves, most do not even show up in court. When no one fights<br /> the injunction, courts can accept questionable evidence as fact,<br /> potentially dooming a more or less innocent party. Prosecutors<br /> say they compile their lists of defendants with great care, but<br /> as numerous sociologists have written and as any gang member,<br /> cop, or gang prosecutor could attest, some gangsters are harder<br /> than others. Police declarations for the injunctions describe<br /> contacts with hardened criminalspeople with mile-long rapsheets,<br /> thugs who have shot at cops. The declarations also describe people<br /> who, for the most part, just hang out.</p> <p> In Pasadena, the evidence against individual defendants reflects<br /> the continuum of gang involvement. While injunction requests accuse<br /> many gang members of dealing drugs or carrying weapons, they lump<br /> in many others whose sins are limited to wearing the wrong clothing<br /> or being seen with the wrong peoplein other words, activities<br /> of expression and association. Jermaine Lloyd's wrongs, for example,<br /> include only "loitering" and "admits PDL membership."<br /> Leotha Harvey Manning: "loitering . . . associates with Michael<br /> Poole and Kaleb Hunter . . . wearing 'P' belt buckle." Quincy<br /> Richard Lee Butler: "seen on bicycle . . . admits moniker<br /> of 'Lucky' or 'Jones' . . . tattoo reading 'Baby God' . . . loitering<br /> in streets."</p> <p> In his dissent from the California Supreme Court's decision in<br /> the <i>Acuna</i> case, Justice Stanley Mosk cited a 1992 report<br /> on gang violence by the L.A. County district attorney's office<br /> that said the L.A. Sheriff's Department used similar criteria<br /> to estimate that 47 percent of all African-American men ages 21<br /> to 24 are actual or suspected gang members. Mosk wrote that the<br /> city of San Jose needed more proof that some of the defendants<br /> belonged in the injunction:</p> <p> </p><blockquote>The mere facts that a defendant "admitted" gang membership<br /> to a police officer or others or was seen associating with gang<br /> members or wearing gang colors or insignia, do not indicate that<br /> he or she has, or will in the future, engage in conduct amounting<br /> to a public nuisance. In my view, individual defendants may be<br /> subject to the preliminary injunction only if the City establishes<br /> a likelihood that it will succeed on the merits of its claim that<br /> he or she actively participated in the activities constituting<br /> a public nuisance, or had specific intention to do so.</blockquote> <p> If someone is just hanging out with lifelong friends and relativessome<br /> of whom may be dealing drugsshould that person have to stop carrying<br /> a pager, riding a bicycle, or waving at cars?</p> <p> </p><hr /><h3>WHAT PRICE FOR PUBLIC SAFETY?</h3> <p> Kenneth Bell says that he has been unfairly included in the Inglewood<br /> injunction. One police declaration said that a confidential informant<br /> bought drugs from him and two other men. One declaration said<br /> that he admitted that he is a member of the Crenshaw Mafia. Several<br /> other declarations describe him loitering and drinking in public.<br /> But Bell, 34, maintains that he hasn't been involved in gang activity<br /> in more than 15 years. He says he became part of the Crenshaw<br /> Mafia before it got its name, when it was just a bunch of neighborhood<br /> boys who played football together.</p> <p> "My only fault is I do drink," he said. "When I<br /> come home from work, I'll drink beer in front of my apartment.<br /> Maybe I can't drink now, or maybe I have to be confined to my<br /> apartment. I don't want to be harassed for just talking to my<br /> buddies."</p> <p> Bell owns a beeper. Even though the injunction only forbids carrying<br /> a pager with the intent to engage in drug dealing or other illegal<br /> activitythings that Bell says he doesn't doBell worries he may<br /> wind up in handcuffs because of it. Judging by the way other cities<br /> have enforced the injunction, Bell can almost certainly count<br /> on being stopped by police.</p> <p> Especially in the first couple of months after the injunction,<br /> police deploy heavy patrols. Prosecutors say they only single<br /> out named defendants, but of course that is not quite the case.<br /> One can easily picture the police stopping anyone who might look<br /> like a gang member, say, on a dark night, if only to confirm that<br /> he or she is not on the injunction. In truth, the police stop<br /> many more than thatjust ask the residents of Summit Avenue.</p> <p> "For a while, it was like watching <i>COPS</i> on television,"<br /> says resident Gary Taylor. "My wife and I would sit on the<br /> porch and have our entertainment. They were stopping people left<br /> and right. And 80 percent of the people needed to be stopped,<br /> either acting stupid or dressing the part."</p> <p> Taylor himself was stopped one Sunday morning on his way home<br /> from the corner store. He said he was thrown against a car and<br /> searched. "I couldn't understand it," he said. "I<br /> don't even fit the profile. I'm 42 years old, a regular working<br /> man. I just had a barbecue for the neighborhood association, and<br /> police were theremaybe it was just a new officer. I didn't think<br /> I'd get rousted like that."</p> <p> But even many victims of apparent harassmentincluding Taylorstand<br /> behind the policy. In fact, the PDL's most outspoken advocate<br /> is not a prosecutor or police officer but Eva Courtney, president<br /> and founder of the Summit Avenue Neighborhood Association. She<br /> wrote an op-ed piece for the <i>Los Angeles Times</i> and has<br /> given countless interviews in praise of the injunction. She's<br /> also seen the excess firsthand: "My husband was stopped three<br /> times just crossing the street to see the neighbors," she<br /> says. "Our neighbors were being stopped. Mainly black people<br /> were being stopped. As time went by, it kind of died out, and<br /> things got better."</p> <p> Police did saturate the Summit area and stop numerous people,<br /> says Sgt. Jim Shear, but that would have happened with or without<br /> an injunction. In a heavily patrolled area that constantly attracted<br /> drug buyers, police are going to approach strangers of all races<br /> and initiate consensual searches. And because crime did go down,<br /> neighbors are willing to forgive their own unpleasant experiences<br /> with law enforcement. "At the time, yes, I was angry because<br /> I was just walking across the street," said Larry Courtney,<br /> Eva's husband. "But now that the bad people are off the streets,<br /> the police know who I am. Before the injunction, I didn't come<br /> out of the house much."</p> <p> <font size="+2">A</font>t its best, the anti-gang injunction brings an end to<br /> years of terror and allows communities to take control of their<br /> lives. At its worst, the injunction moves the gang problem next<br /> door and brings peace at the expense of liberty. It's an easy<br /> choice for Larry Courtney: getting rousted three times by the<br /> police versus living in a neighborhood besieged by a street gang.</p> <p> Unfortunately, it's also easy for politicians. Without a doubt,<br /> neighborhoods deserve quick relief when gangs are killing people,<br /> firebombing houses, and forcing residents to live behind bars<br /> in their own homes. But now that injunctions have withstood the<br /> scrutiny of California courts, local officeholders may have little<br /> incentive to look beyond local crime statistics and seek a better<br /> policyone that would better protect people's rights and address<br /> the long-term causes of gang violence.</p> <p> The bad people are off the streets. For more and more communities<br /> between Summit and the Bottoms, that's where the argument ends.</p> <p><br /><br /><!-- dhandler for print articles --></p></div></div></div> Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:10:47 +0000 141142 at Daniel Sharfstein