Gang Violence on Upswing in Ventura County

In Courtroom 46 of the Ventura County Hall of Justice, a jury Tuesday was deliberating the fate of an 18-year-old accused of a gang-related double homicide. In Courtroom 35, a jury was being selected to try a 16-year-old suspect in the same case.

Next door, in Courtroom 34, trial will begin next week for a 22-year-old reputed gang member accused in a nonfatal gang shooting. When that trial is concluded, the defendant will be sent to Courtroom 47, where he and an 18-year-old face trial for the drive-by killing of a Thousand Oaks woman.

Gang-related slayings, attempted homicides and other shootings--virtually unheard of in Ventura County only three years ago--are beginning to dominate the calendars of the county’s six Superior Court judges who handle criminal cases.

The civil courts have been affected, too. A judge in Courtroom 40 is scheduled to decide this month who will have custody of the Thousand Oaks victim’s infant daughter.

Law enforcement officials say the rise in court cases reflects the growth of gangs in a county that has long prided itself on having one of the lowest crime rates among urban areas in the western United States. Officials say that 34 gangs operating in the county were partly responsible for a 3.7% increase in major crimes last year.

Ventura County, with 3,957 crimes per 100,000 residents last year, still had barely half the crime rate of Los Angeles County, which had 7,468 per 100,000. But officials say the steady increase in gang crimes may narrow the difference.

“I don’t think it’s cyclical; I think it’s just beginning,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald C. Glynn, who is prosecuting the drive-by murder of the Thousand Oaks woman.

“It’s become an important aspect of the criminal justice system right now,” said Peter A. Brown, a deputy district attorney who specializes in gang cases. “There has been a flurry of activity this summer. . . . Gang members are committing a disproportionate number of crimes in the community.”

Ventura County had one gang-related slaying in 1989, another last year, and three so far this year. Of the five deputy district attorneys who handle murder cases, three are tied up in gang-related homicides.

Several nonfatal cases of gang violence also are moving through the court system, and prosecutors estimate that 70% to 85% of all cases in the juvenile courts involve suspected gang members.

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury issued a warning poster to gang members a few weeks ago, keyed to the anti-gang movie “Boyz N the Hood.” Labeled “Boys N the Jail,” the poster features photos of nine gang members convicted in Ventura County, their crimes, and where they are doing time.

What is especially alarming about Ventura County’s gang violence, said Ronald C. Janes, the major-crimes supervisor in the district attorney’s office, is that there often appears to be no strong motive for it.

Los Angeles gangs, he said, often shoot at one another to protect drug-selling turf, he said. But in Ventura County, he said, “they’re engaging in gang activity for nothing more than the thrill of it. They’re just emulating L.A. gangs. That’s real disturbing.”

Also distressing, investigators say, is the fact that four of the five people killed allegedly by gang members had no gang affiliations.

By all accounts, Javier Ramirez, 18, and Rolando Martinez, 20, were not involved in gangs. But they lived in Saticoy’s Cabrillo Village, a community just east of Ventura where police say a gang was operating. On April 7, two members of rival gangs, accompanied by two other teen-agers, drove through the neighborhood, and fired shots at a crowd of people standing outside a baptism party, killing Ramirez and Martinez. Two other men were wounded.

The four teen-agers were arrested two days later, and their cases have been wending their way through the system ever since. All have conceded that they were involved in the shooting. The only issue is whether it was first-degree murder or something less.

First, there were hearings in which judges determined that each of the three defendants who were 16 or older should be tried as adults. Then there was a non-jury juvenile proceeding in which a 15-year-old was convicted of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to the California Youth Authority.

Another defendant, Carlos Vargas, 16, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and agreed to testify against the others.

A jury is considering the case of the alleged triggerman, Edward (Tony) Throop, who turned 18 in July. The trial of the fourth suspect, 16-year-old Joseph Medrano, is still in jury selection.

The proceedings in the Saticoy case have brought a familiar trapping of big-city courtrooms to Ventura’s Hall of Justice: an airport-style metal detector.

And for the first time in Ventura County, an expert witness on gangs was allowed to testify in the Throop trial. Ventura Police Officer Dave Wilson testified about gang pecking orders, and how carrying out a drive-by shooting tended to enhance a gang member’s stature in the group.

By the time the Saticoy cases are resolved, the Thousand Oaks drive-by murder case will just be cranking up, with the trial of Patrick Strickland, 22, and Scott Kastan, 18, set to begin Nov. 4. The two, whom police describe as members of a Thousand Oaks gang, are accused of killing Jennifer Jordan, 20, while shooting from a passing car May 31. Police said the suspects intended to hit two men who were getting into a car outside the home of Jordan’s boyfriend.

The slaying in affluent Thousand Oaks prompted a countywide sweep of suspected gang members by law-enforcement agencies in June. Though small by Los Angeles standards, with 10 arrests of suspected gang members, the operation was billed as the largest gang crackdown ever in Ventura County.

“It may not be the last,” Sheriff John V. Gillespie said.