1st Suspected Gang Member Is Prosecuted Under Sweeping Court Order : Blythe Street: The controversial 22-point injunction bans a number of otherwise legal activities.

A youth who police said hurled bottles at a patrol car and tried to escape by fleeing into a nearby apartment is the first suspected member of a Blythe Street gang in Panorama City to be prosecuted for allegedly violating the conditions of a sweeping court injunction issued in April.

The controversial 22-point injunction, which bans gang members from the area of Blythe Street west of Van Nuys Boulevard after 8 p.m. and prohibits a number of otherwise legal activities, was sought by the city of Los Angeles as a tool to pry loose the drug-dealing gang’s grip on the street.

Jessie (Speedy) Gonzalez was charged Tuesday in Van Nuys Municipal Court with willfully disobeying the injunction, which was issued April 7 by Superior Court Judge John H. Major over the objections of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. He also was charged with resisting a court order and trespassing.

His arraignment was put off until June 22 at the request of the public defender’s office to give it time to challenge the constitutionality of the injunction, which is by far the most wide-ranging ever issued by a court against a Los Angeles gang. Gonzalez was released on $2,500 bail.

Gonzalez, who was arrested Friday, is among 27 alleged gang members who police have managed to serve with the injunction, a pre-condition for its enforcement. Police said another alleged member of the gang was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of violating the court order after he tried to evade police by jumping out a window.

The court order makes it illegal for gang members to possess items that could be used as weapons, such as bricks, rocks or glass bottles, and also to force their way into strangers’ dwellings to hide from police.

Violations of the court order are punishable by six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.

Deputy City Atty. Richard Schmidt said police on patrol last Friday about 10:30 p.m. saw Gonzalez and another man engaged in what they believed to be a drug deal. The men fled and the officers ran after them but returned to their patrol car after losing track of the suspects.

Schmidt said one of the officers encountered Gonzalez peppering the patrol car with bottles and shouting anti-police obscenities. After another chase, Gonzalez was seen entering a nearby apartment. When police identified themselves, the occupants of the apartment denied anyone was hiding there but allowed police to look around.

Gonzalez was found in a closet clutching a beer bottle. Although the tenants of the apartment claimed that the fugitive had lived there for two months, they said they did not know Gonzalez’s name and the building’s manager also said he was a stranger, Schmidt said.

Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn said in a statement that the injunction serves as a “two-edged enforcement sword” because suspected gang members can be prosecuted for criminal acts as well as for violating the court order.

Gonzalez’s alleged attempt to flee from police by hiding in an apartment was a classic example of how gang members intimidate residents of the street, Hahn said. He also was wearing a beeper and had been seen by police obstructing traffic on the street by talking to the occupant of a car, both of which are violations of the court injunction.

Los Angeles Police Detective Robert Crosley, who is assigned to the anti-gang CRASH unit serving gang members with the Blythe Street court order, said it is having an effect. “Our guys are out there and they don’t see as much activity,” he said. “Maybe we are somehow moving the crime around a little bit . . . “

Crosley said another suspected gang member was arrested Tuesday about 11:30 a.m. on suspicion of violating the order and of assaulting an officer. Crosley said Manuel Escamille, 28, was seen jumping out a window by police investigating a report of drug users sleeping in a vacant apartment on Willis Street, around the corner from Blythe.

Crosley said that Escamille was on probation for committing an earlier felony and that breaking conditions of his parole carries a more serious penalty than does the misdemeanor offense of violating the court order.