Santa Paula Battles Encroachment of Gangs : Crime: Recent arrests and a wave of violence underscore their growth. The city is hard-pressed to control the problem.

When Santa Paula residents talk about their town, they describe it as a safe haven, a close-knit community untainted by the problems that plague other cities.

It has no traffic, they point out. No pollution. And until recently, even the Latino gangs coexisted peacefully with the other 25,000 residents of the rural town.

But a wave of gang-related crime that began in March, 1989, with a drive-by shooting crested last week with the slaying of a Santa Paula resident. Witnesses said Samuel Ruiz, 40, was shot on Memorial Day after an argument with his next-door neighbor over their two sons, who police said are associated with rival gangs.

Later in the week, 60 law enforcement officers, including two SWAT teams, converged on another Santa Paula neighborhood and arrested four men, two of whom have been charged in connection with a gang-related drive-by shooting in Ventura on May 18.

Prosecutors and other law enforcement officials said the recent wave of violence is the latest indication that gangs are gaining a strong foothold in the once-bucolic town, which has a police force of only 30 sworn officers. Although the larger cities of Oxnard and Ventura have more gang members, authorities said, Santa Paula’s gang members make up a larger percentage of the population and thus have a greater local impact.

“The gangs claim the whole city as their turf,” said the city’s gang expert, Sgt. George Brink of the Santa Paula Police Department. “They live everywhere.”

Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Vincent J. O’Neill Jr., who co-chairs a countywide task force on gangs, said gang members in Santa Paula are “more likely to have a greater effect on . . . law-abiding citizens in the community” than in Oxnard and Ventura.

Police estimate that about 100 gang members are in Santa Paula, 49 of whom are considered hard-core, Brink said.

In Oxnard, which has about 185,100 residents, or more than seven times as many as in Santa Paula, police estimate there are about 254 gang members, 52 of them hard-core, said David Keith, a crime analyst for the Oxnard Police Department.

In Ventura, which has about 97,000 residents, or more than three times as many as Santa Paula, there are about 300 gang members, about 100 of whom are considered hard-core. But many gang members who operate in Ventura are actually from Santa Paula, said Maxine Mitchell, a crime analyst for the Ventura Police Department.

Moreover, Santa Paula gang members are more likely than those in Oxnard or Ventura to carry guns, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter E. Brown, who has prosecuted gang-related cases. Gang members in Santa Paula are generally older and have easier access to firearms and cars than their younger counterparts, Brown said.

There are also indications that local gang members, like their counterparts in Los Angeles, have entered the lucrative drug trade, Santa Paula Police Chief Walt Adair said. Gang members are also responsible for 10% of the violent crimes reported in Santa Paula and a large share of the burglaries and thefts, police say.

On March 30, sheriff’s deputies raided the headquarters of the Crazy Boyz Organized Criminals and confiscated a cache of firearms, one kilo of cocaine and $10,000 in cash, said Sgt. Gary Pentis of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department. Five youths are facing trial for their suspected involvement in that drug ring.

The Crazy Boyz are based in Santa Paula, but members allegedly sold drugs to other dealers in Oxnard and Saticoy, Pentis said. Despite the arrests of gang members in March, Pentis said he suspects gang involvement in the drug trade is escalating in Santa Paula.

Pentis said Santa Paula’s small Police Department is unable to provide the kind of surveillance needed to flush out gang members involved in drug dealing. Without adequate police surveillance, the Crazy Boyz were able to operate out of Santa Paula for nearly three years before they were raided, Pentis noted.

“They don’t have the manpower to dive into it,” Pentis said. “It takes a large team to do an effective surveillance.”

Other incidents involving Santa Paula gang members include the March, 1989, drive-by shooting in which a Santa Paula youth and three other boys shot and wounded a 14-year-old boy in Ventura. The Santa Paula youth was convicted of attempted murder and was sentenced to an indeterminate term in the California Youth Authority, Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Nelson said. Last December, two Santa Paula gang members fired into the home of a rival gang member who lived in the city. No one was injured, and the two were each sentenced to five years in state prison.

In early May, local gang members broke windows of a school bus carrying a student who the youths believed belonged to an out-of-town gang, said Fran Meek, an assistant principal at Santa Paula Union High School.

On May 18, members of the Crimies gang attacked a car driven by a member of the rival Party Boyz gang, police said. Last week, 60 officers arrested Larry Renteria, 23, and Arthur Banuelos, 22, in connection with the incident and confiscated a cache of guns.

Earlier in the week, Samuel Ruiz was fatally shot after arguing with his neighbor, Delfino E. Lopez, over their two sons, who police said are associated with rival gangs. Lopez was arrested on suspicion of murder, but charges were dropped Friday after prosecutors said they had insufficient evidence to prove Lopez had committed a crime.

With the recent wave of violence, city officials said they are concerned for residents’ safety. So far, no bystanders have been injured in the cross-fire between the city’s three rival youth gangs, police said.

“We’ve had more use of firearms, what they call drive-bys,” City Councilman Les Maland said. “A lot of that is they aim to miss. But someday . . . their aim is not going to miss.”

Police fear that last week’s events might touch off a wave of gang violence in Santa Paula.

“I can’t help but feel just from past experience that this isn’t over with,” Cmdr. Mark Hanson said.

To counter the ascendancy of gangs, Adair recently assigned three of his 30 sworn officers to monitor gang activity, focusing on discovering weapons, identifying drug dealers and the potential for gang violence resulting from other attacks. In July, the department will also begin using computerized crime reports to identify and track gang members and their activities citywide. The Sheriff’s Department, which has a countywide gang task force, is also helping out, said Assistant Sheriff Oscar Fuller, who heads the task force.

But Adair cautioned against labeling the town as gang-ridden, saying that “this gang problem doesn’t affect the community at large, except for some graffiti.

“I’m not saying it’s not a problem,” Adair said. “I’m not saying it won’t get worse. I’m just saying it shouldn’t characterize the community as a whole.”

For decades, Santa Paula managed to avoid the emergence of street gangs while membership swelled in the more urbanized communities of Oxnard and Ventura, longtime residents say. But when gang membership began to increase throughout Southern California in the early 1980s, Santa Paula’s small-town ambience and relative lack of affluence made it an ideal breeding ground for the fierce loyalty that binds gangs, observers say.

“I have people who have moved outside the city, but they’re still Santa Paula gang members,” Brink said.

Prosecutor Brown said that when suspected Santa Paula gang members are arrested, they readily admit that they belong to gangs from the small town.

“They are proud of their gang affiliation,” Brown said.

Local police officers, about half of whom grew up in the city, say gang members are easy to spot.

“I’ve seen a lot of these guys grow up,” Cmdr. Bob Gonzalez said. “I can recall when one of the gang members was born. I was an usher at his dad’s wedding.”

Like gang members in Los Angeles, local gang members proudly declare their membership by scrawling their names on the walls of supermarkets, private homes and businesses in Santa Paula’s poorest neighborhoods. Brink has become the Santa Paula Police Department’s gang expert, identifying members of the three youth gangs by the monikers they draw on walls, their tattoos and the people with whom they associate.

On a recent Friday evening, he pointed out walls in Santa Paula bearing the names of youths he knew. But he said it is difficult to prosecute youths suspected of drive-by shootings, stabbings and assaults because gang members are reluctant to cooperate in identifying their attackers.

Recently, a gang fight broke out at Chino’s Market on 12th Street, less than a quarter of a mile away from the Police Department. But the attackers disappeared long before officers arrived and nobody, not even the mothers of the gang member, would talk.

“They’re like a covey of quail--they’re gone,” Brink said.

In 1988, city and community leaders were so concerned about gang violence that they banded together to organize activities for youths, Councilman Maland said. The group of citizens, which called itself Save Our Youth, has since folded.

Still, “a lot of families and parents are really concerned about the problems of youths and gangs,” Maland said.