Police Raid Homes of Gang Suspects : Oxnard: The early-morning sweep is the first of its kind in the city. Nine are arrested for probation violations.

Oxnard police officers rousted 30 suspected gang members from their beds at dawn Wednesday, arresting nine for probation violations and warning the others that future gang-related crimes will meet with stiff prison terms.

The early-morning raid, the first of its kind in Oxnard, was the latest skirmish in a long-running battle to zap the burgeoning strength of street gangs.

Accompanied by probation workers and members of the Ventura County district attorney’s office, six teams of officers swept across the city to deliver legal notices to 30 alleged members of two Oxnard gangs, warning that further gang participation could lead to a three-year prison sentence under a state anti-terrorism law.

In addition, because most of those targeted in the crackdown had been in trouble with the law before, probation officers searched most of the houses and, in some cases, uncovered knives, handguns and assault rifles.

Eight juveniles and one adult were arrested for violating terms of their probation.

“We are trying to make an impression on gang members,” said Sgt. Charles Hookstra, who spearheaded the operation. “We want to let them know we are tracking them.”

But the grandmother of a 15-year-old targeted in the crackdown accused police of misidentifying her grandson as belonging to a La Colonia gang.

“They insist that my grandson is in a gang, and he’s not,” said Sofie Reyes, who was asleep in her Hemlock Avenue condominium when police pounded on her door shortly after 7 a.m.

Reyes said officers harassed her family and forced her husband to stand in the living room in his underwear while they conducted a search that uncovered a hypodermic syringe. Her daughter, 34-year-old Rosalie Reyes, was arrested on suspicion of possession of drug paraphernalia.

“Do they have to do it this way?” she asked. “I didn’t know what they were looking for, I didn’t know what was happening. It seems they can do whatever they want.”

The 15-year-old, a rail-thin boy with a tattoo on his forearm, said he is not a gang member although he hangs out with youngsters from La Colonia. Police found no weapons or gang paraphernalia at the house and the youth was not arrested.

The youngster said he thinks that police readily grouped him with known gang members because he is Latino and because he has a criminal record.

“I think they treat me different,” he said. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

Deputy Public Defender Nick Falcone said he thinks that police too easily identify Latino youngsters as gang members.

“I think there are some cops who see a Latino youth as easy pickings,” Falcone said. “The problem I have is with the police and a city government agency just targeting whole groups of people because of the color of their skin.”

Hookstra acknowledged that officers focused on Latino and Filipino gang members in Wednesday’s operation, but he said the program eventually will branch out to include other races and ethnicities.

“No one is going to be spared,” he said.

The state law--known as the Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act--was enacted in 1988 to give local law-enforcement agencies and prosecutors broader powers in fighting gangs that have a history of criminal activity.

The law does not make membership in a gang illegal. But it allows a judge to sentence a gang member who “willfully promotes, furthers or assists in any felonious criminal conduct by members of that gang” to up to three years in prison. Another provision of the law enhances penalties for members who are convicted of gang-related crimes.

Police departments in Los Angeles, Long Beach and Santa Ana have conducted similar raids.

In Oxnard, police officers have worked for months with a computer program that tracks and identifies gangs and gang members. As of last year, the city had 56 gangs with more than 1,500 members. Of those, 14 gangs are considered hard-core and active.

“If a person belongs to a gang and knows of the criminal activity of that gang, he will be subject to prosecution,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kim Gibbons. “There is no right to associate for the purpose of committing criminal activity.”

Under the anti-terrorism program, police don’t serve search warrants. They knock on doors and hope that someone answers.

At each house Wednesday morning, someone did.

Shortly after 6 a.m., officers in battle fatigues, shouldering assault rifles and shotguns, surrounded a house on Oxnard’s northeast side. A few minutes after they were allowed in, as toddlers scampered out of their rooms and women paced near the front door cloaked in heavy blankets, a 17-year-old was handcuffed and put in the back of a squad car for violating his probation.

Minutes later, on the city’s south side, officers had to knock hard to wake the occupants of a home fronted by a neatly cut lawn and a bed of well-manicured roses.

With neighbors looking on, officers guided a shirtless and shoeless 16-year-old to a patrol car trailed by Officer Jim O’Brien, carrying a sawed-off shotgun in one hand and a plastic bag filled with shotgun shells, knives and slingshots in the other.

“One of these could definitely ruin your day,” O’Brien said of the weapons.

Two houses later, officers arrested 23-year-old Rickie Rivera for possession of an illegal assault weapon crammed into a briefcase at his Houston Place home. He was taken to County Jail.

In the meantime, the juveniles were herded into a small cubicle at the Oxnard Police Department headquarters. Probation officer Santos Hernandez kept a close eye on the teens, periodically checking their pockets for pilfered office supplies.

“This is giving notice to kids and their parents of the seriousness of the potential violence of gang life,” he said. “It just kind of mirrors L. A. I never thought it would get here, but it’s here.”