this seems strange, even by California standards

A

alan

New member
Posters Note:

If the prosecutor has real evidence of illegal acts by any of the people served, let him bring charges. Otherwise, since when does SUSPICION justify, IN THIS COUNTRY, SUCH ABROGATION OF BASIC CIVIL RIGHTS? I find myself rather curious on that score.

OPINION RELEASE: More Police State Of America CLOSING IN


Gangs of West Sac
In California, anyone can be a gangster
_Kerry Howley_ (mailto:khowley@reason.com)



Sergio Flores, 25, says he didn't know he was a gangster until the state of
California told him he was. Last February, the police department of West
Sacramento served him with an injunction stating that as a member of The
Broderick Boys, a local Latino gang, he had lost the right to move around the
neighborhood of Broderick-where he happens to live-after 10 PM. Flores told
the _Sacramento News and Review_
(http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sa...06-23/cover.asp) that he was never told what, exactly, qualifies him as a member of the gang.
"It doesn't make any sense. There are some bad guys out there, but I don't
know them," he says. Flores is one of 95 people who have lost the right to move freely in a 3-square-mile swath of West Sacramento. They have each been served with a _Civil Gang Injunction_ (http://www.oxnardpd.org/misc/GangInjunction.htm) , a
crime-fighting tactic that has become increasingly popular with district
attorneys across California. In February the local D.A.s imposed restrictions on
suspected gang members within a declared "safety zone." Alleged Broderick Boys are not allowed on Broderick's streets past 10 p.m., nor are they allowed to communicate with other alleged gang members in public, day or night.
Curfews have an ugly history in the U.S., from restrictions placed on
Japanese Americans in WWII to Jim Crow laws that kept blacks indoors in the
South.
More recently, _youth curfews_ (http://reason.com/9911/fe.md.do.shtml) have orced kids inside after dark and during school hours. They typically yield suburban horror stories about 16-year-olds harassed on the way back from band practice or home-schooled teens getting routinely picked up. When kids are targeted, however, it's arguably straightforward for police to determine whom to send indoors once the curfew hits. But very little
distinguishes a gang member in West Sacramento-an actual Broderick Boy-from a boy who happens to live in Broderick. Police are left to weed one from the other. That could be hard. According to Martha Garcia, who is leading a _grassroots protest_ (http://westsacramento-gang.blogspot.com/) against the injunction, they're one and the same. "A Broderick Boy is a boy who was raised in Broderick," she says. "The Broderick Boys are not a gang. They are not in any form an institution." Other residents say the gang hasn't been active for years. "There were Broderick Boys, back in the 1970s. Those guys are all like 50 now," one community member told the Sacramento News and Review. Aged or otherwise, Local Police Chief Dan Drummond says they're still in force, and they're responsible for precisely 853 crimes over the past three and a half years. He also says he knows who they are. There are eleven criteria used to "validate," or declare someone a gang member. Wearing gang colors like red and blue, sporting a certain tattoo, or being seen in a photograph with another gang member all count.
Garcia says some of the criteria are simply fashionable clothing labels,
like Nor Cal, or symbols important to the local Latino population, such as the
_United Farm Workers logo_ (http://www.backspace.com/notes/2003/05/06/x.html) .
Local papers and Web logs are rife with accounts of men who must now stay
indoors after 10 p.m. because they wore the wrong colors, sport the wrong
tattoos or were photographed in the wrong company years ago. Some 95 people have been served with the injunction, which theoretically lasts forever. Many reportedly live in the confines of the safety zone. For as long as they stay in Broderick, they're under lifetime house arrest past 10 p.m.
The ACLU of Northern California filed a motion last Friday to _halt the
injunction_ (http://www.aclunc.org/pressrel/050728-broderick.html) , arguing that it makes no sense to treat a gang as a single association. When prosecutors file injunctions against corporations, notice is given to an official representative. The Broderick Boys have no formal organization and no clearly established hierarchy. So public prosecutors simply pick a gang member, notify him, and expect news of the injunction to spread by word of mouth.
Alan Schlosser, Legal Director of the ACLU of Northern California, says the
four men the ACLU is representing weren't aware of the injunction before it
was served and never had a chance to protest. He is also concerned that
alleged gang members have no way of knowing whether they're breaking the law by associating with other accused Broderick Boys. "No one even knows who has been served," he explains, "Only the police know."
The battle against gang injunctions looks bleak. They're now part of the
urban landscape in Los Angeles, San Diego, and dozens of communities in
California. L.A. had the first in 1987; now that city alone has 22 of them.
California's high court _upheld_ ( http://home.comcast.net/~jasonanderson102/acuna.htm)
the constitutionality of gang injunctions eight years ago, and California
district attorneys now hold workshops on their implementation. Cheryl Maxson, an associate professor of criminology at UC Irvine who published a recent study on injunctions, says she expects they will continue to spread, despite the fact that they've been shown to be only modestly successful at preventing crime.
Police Chief Drummond says the tactic has been more than modestly effective
in West Sacramento. Violent crime, he says, has dropped 26 percent in the
past five and a half months. To community members worried about civil
liberties, he points out that only 12 people have actually been arrested for violating the injunction alone. Critics of the injunction say the curfew, like most criminalization of normal human activity, is less about stamping out a specific behavior than about giving police more freedom to interfere where they see fit. When congregating and simply being outside is suddenly illegal, police have the discretion to crack down as they please, and those in violation have reason to avoid attracting attention. At a recent protest rally that Martha Garcia held in Broderick, not a single accused Broderick Boy showed up to protest the injunction. Associating with one another in Broderick, after all, would have been illegal. "We asked them not to come," says Garcia, "The police said if they did, they would be arrested."
_Kerry Howley_ (mailto:khowley@reason.com) is an assistant editor of
Reason.
 
Local papers and Web logs are rife with accounts of men who must now stay indoors after 10 p.m. because they wore the wrong colors, sport the wrong
tattoos or were photographed in the wrong company years ago.
Click to expand...
"Yo homie. The Juda jacked me up b/c I was wearing my colors with my "Mara Salvatrucha" across my forehead. They said I was hanging with my other homies from the clique. This is against my right, homes."
Yeah, Right. LMFAO. If the closest you came to a gange banger was on HBO, you know jack didley! This sounds like cleaning the streets of filth. And for those people in LA, Northern VA, Little Rock, NC, DC, NY, Chi-town.. you now what the hell I'm talking about.
 
How much of that should we expect to hear from a LEO before we are justified thinking that he has JBT aspirations?

In one thread, you talk about your woe-is-me tale of having to "choose" a job that will force you to stomp all over the rights of citizens, and now you're cheering on the notion that people are having their rights to freely associate and travel infringed without benefit of charge or trial!

WTF is wrong with you, dude? What part of your oath do you not understand? If you can't figure out what is wrong with enforcing travel bans against people who have not been charged with any crime, you don't deserve to wear a badge.

It's disgraceful.

-blackmind
 
The Fuhrer told me that as long as they had their papers in order they could continue to suffer in the salt mines of the comfort of their own homes, periodically emerging to gather welfare checks and vote.
 
Blackmind, obviously most of the people who live in that district are tired of gangs hangng out, slinging dope, shooting one another and restricting the movements of good citizens b/c of their very presence. That article is written in a very slanted manner as well. I'm laughing about the way they penned that rag, making it sound like the poor old gang member is abused. Gimme a break. Funny, they are always there to rough you up, steal from you, shoot yoou, etc. But as soon as you hook them up, it's "my rights, I deserve this and that..." Yeah, well what about the rights of that 12 year old girl whom you sodomized and then strangled. Whatever, dude.
 
I'm with Handy on this one (but not so extreme), if they know these people are gang bangers then why aren't they off the street?

Yet, if the LEO's won't take them off the street, then why aren't they allowed all their rights?

I understand BreacherUp!'s frustrations. While I don't agree with him (his post), I fully understand why he says what he says.

And the thing is, it's not his fault or our fault, it's the fault of our court systems that allow these types to walk the streets and our immigration department which can't or won't deport those that are here illegally.

Like it or not, that is what America is about, Freedom. Freedom to be stupid, freedom to associate, freedom to believe and practice whatever religion that you wish. But the problems come up when some freedoms are respected and some are not, like the 2nd. I gurantee(sp) you that if the People were allowed to carry, the gangs would be hard pressed to carry out some of the things that they do (like murder, rob, etc..). If the court systems and the LEO's weren't so inclined to "throw the book" at people protecting themselves and then allowing these illegals and gang bangers off with little to no jail time then I don't think that the problem would be such as it is.

The LEO's and the court systems are spending too much time and money on the average joe that uses a gun in self defense, or just owning one then they wish to spend on actually getting the real criminals off the streets and the illegals deported.

Wayne
 
Let me see if I have this right...

There are eleven criteria used to "validate," or declare someone a gang member. Wearing gang colors like red and blue, sporting a certain tattoo, or being seen in a photograph with another gang member all count.
Click to expand...

So, is there some kind of "minimum score" at play here? Or does just one of the above qualify someone? I can see it now... you're at the range and one of these "boys" has a jam in his HighPoint 9mm or Jennings .22 and doesn't know what to do. You go over to prevent him from endangering everyone while trying to unjam the gun. *Click* the gang detail just photo'd you with a "known gang member" on a day when you're wearing a red-trimmed blue shirt made by "a fashionable label" maker.

I'd certainly hire an attorney to dispute that in court - asking for the PD to disclose the "qualifying" facts, evidence of gang activities and certainly more than a single instance of associating with a gang. Once quashed, I'd think a serious lawsuit would be forthcoming.

For what it's worth, I think any minor child (under 18) should be off the streets after 11pm. When I grew up such was the law that minors were subject to a curfew of 11pm. Back then if it was 11:25 and you were driving home from your burger-flippng job the cops would simply let you go home. If you'd snuck out to the corner park they'd take you home and let your parents deal with you -- usually a fate worse than death; the dreaded "parental lecture" and grounding. But if you were a mouthy, surly brat, they'd arrest you for curfew and bring your parents "downtown" for a chat just after midnight. Once parents get an idea of what their kids are up to their leash gets shorter.
 
Bill,

My parents had there own curfew for me, home at sunset (unless I was working or had a school deal like the science fair).

And believe me, my father didn't only enforce this law, he had his own way of making it known that I broke the law (a good butt whippin' was in order).

Funny thing was, I was always home before sunset (unless working or coming home from the science fair)... funny how some things work out when a parent is a parent ;)

Wayne
 
I agree with the original post. If there are actual charges against these men, then let them be argued before a jury. Such is our constitutional right. In America, like it or not, we simply can't say "we think you're doing something wrong so we're going to punish you" without following the due process of law. Well, that is, we're not supposed to be able to... but the government has proven over and over that the constitution is just a piece of paper which they are all too willing to ignore. The question becomes, what will we be saying when ownership of a firerarm is one of the criteria for being labled as a "gang member" or worse, "enemy combatant" (which under the Patriot Act can be handed out arbitrarily and strips you of all constitutional rights as well as the rights of war criminals under the Geneva convention). Someday a lot of good people are going to go to prison or worse because no one wanted to stop the madness of our government while there was still a chance. Or maybe it's already too late. When someone (like me) is 24 years old and this cynical about the way the government works, I'd say there's a problem, eh?
 
Wendi5000:

You described yourself as being 24. I'm 72, and you know something, if someone came along and said, "Alan, how would you like to be 24 years old again"? Looking at the direction that it appears that this country is moving in, I'd be inclined to thank them for their kind offer, before declining their largess.

In case readers should think, "Oh my, such an outlook is really sad", I would agree, it is, however it is arrived at on the basis of what I mentioned above, the directions that this country seems to be moving in, and talking of things that are sad, that is the saddest thing that I can, at the moment, think of.
 
Wayne,

Trust me, you're not "with me" at all. I was using our trusty friend "sarcasm" to make a point.


The appearance of a name on a list is not remotely justification for the abridgement of rights. Someone like yourself who has worked so hard to come to LE attention should probably realize that that isn't good enough for what amounts to house arrest.
 
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