City Going to Court in Bid to Pressure Gang : Blythe Street: Lawsuit paints vivid picture of heavily armed, organized criminals who sustain a lucrative drug enterprise in Panorama City.

In a bid to free one neighborhood from the grip of a street gang, city officials on Monday will compare it to an army of occupation that uses violence and intimidation to control law-abiding Panorama City residents.

A lawsuit to be filed by the city of Los Angeles contains a vivid portrait of the workings of the well-organized Blythe Street Gang that “has claimed . . . for its own” the neighborhood of crowded, run-down apartment houses.

The 500 or so gang members are heavily armed, use scanners to monitor the movement of police and alert one another to danger or opportunity with cellular telephones and walkie-talkies. When police give chase, the cocaine-dealing gang members force law-abiding residents to give them refuge, according to the documents.

Gang members run open-air chop shops where they dismantle a steady stream of stolen cars.

The lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, represents only the second effort by the city to have a street gang declared a nuisance, and it seeks restrictions on gang members far broader than before.

“It is not an overstatement to describe Blythe Street between Van Nuys Boulevard and Willis Avenue as a neighborhood under the ‘occupation’ of a concerted and organized group of criminals who virtually control the activities and lifestyles of all who dare to live and work in the area,” according to a draft obtained by The Times of a Superior Court lawsuit the Los Angeles city attorney’s office plans to file.

The civil suit, which seeks to enjoin the gang from engaging in a wide range of activities that enforce its dominance, also contains the frank admission that, despite hundreds of arrests, police efforts against the gang have been an utter failure.

Therefore, the lawsuit argues, the courts should declare the gang a public nuisance under local and state laws. Such a declaration justifies extraordinary measures that in other circumstances would infringe on gang members’ constitutional liberties, according to the city’s briefs in the case.

The lawsuit is to be announced formally by Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn, county probation chief Barry Nidorf and Deputy Chief Mark Kroeker of the Los Angeles Police Department at a gathering of Blythe Street residents and property owners.

In an interview, Hahn said that if the injunction is issued it will be “a tool but not the whole answer” to improving the lives of the poverty-stricken residents of the street.

The “gang has demonstrated that they are the public nuisance in that area and they are the cause” of many of its problems, he said.

“They think it’s their turf, and we want to send out the real strong message that no turf is gang turf in this city. They can’t run the show anymore, and we’re going to reclaim that area.”

The lawsuit comes nearly four months after the death of well-liked Blythe Street landlord Donald Aragon during a shootout with gang members. A 17-year-old alleged gang member is awaiting trial for murder; he was wounded in the exchange of gunfire that resulted in Aragon’s death. A 20-year-old gang member was also shot and killed in the incident.

Within days of the Halloween night shooting, city officials promised to not only attack the gang but to refocus what critics say has been the sporadic attention the city has paid to the underlying problems of poverty, illiteracy, ill health and unsanitary and dangerous living conditions in the area.

The lawsuit is the most concrete action the city has taken to date to back up that promise.

It seeks a 24-point order that, if granted, would make it a crime for gang members to arm themselves, trespass or hang out in public with other gang members. The suit also seeks a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew and a ban on wearing clothes or jewelry with the gang’s BST logo, which is scrawled in many places along the street.

The injunction would be the first in Los Angeles’ history and would be similar to, but far more comprehensive than, one issued by a Burbank judge against a street gang there. The city attorney’s office sought a similar injunction against a street gang in the Westside’s Cadillac-Corning area several years ago, but many of the area’s problems disappeared before the order was issued.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights activists criticized the earlier request because they said it sought to ban constitutionally protected activities, such as free association and free speech.

The current lawsuit acknowledges those concerns. But, it argues, the gang’s activities add up to a nuisance that denies rights to others. Rather than a broad ban, the lawsuit argues, the injunction would give police a “narrowly drawn” tool.

The injunction request is based on interviews police and probation officers conducted with residents and property owners on the street, offering an unusually direct portrayal of how a gang uses street terror to sustain a lucrative drug enterprise.

Most of the street’s estimated 4,000 residents are law-abiding and only desire “to live and work and raise their families in peace and safety,” the lawsuit states.

“However, the Blythe Street Gang has claimed this neighborhood as their own. They use it for drug sales, theft and robbery. Loiterers and individuals under the influence of drugs blight the area. Knifings, shootings, rape, murder . . . are commonplace.”

Property is destroyed or defaced, the lawsuit says. Visitors are routinely threatened, intimidated and attacked. Graffiti reminds everyone “who really runs” the street. Gunfire is constant.

The gang posts lookouts with binoculars on rooftops and uses cellular phones, scanners, pagers, whistles and walkie-talkies and other “means of communication as part of an elaborate network designed to warn . . . of approaching police officers, rival gang members or potential victims of theft, robbery and other criminal acts against persons and property,” according to the lawsuit.

Morever, the constant presence of a group of gang members who stand in the way of vehicles, block the sidewalk to pedestrians and sell cocaine and other drugs to motorists constantly reminds residents of their virtual captivity, the lawsuit says.

All of those activities, according to the lawsuit, are designed to ensure that the gang’s drive-by drug mart remains in business.

The efforts of police and some concerned property owners to dislodge the gang have been ineffective, the lawsuit states.

“Even hundreds of arrests and prosecutions have not resolved the problem,” the lawsuit states. “Criminal prosecution is neither a speedy nor adequate remedy against the acts complained of when committed by an organized street gang.”