Hope Springs From a Victory Against Crime : But Gang Member’s Stiff Sentence Should Just Be a Start

Sometimes, a neighborhood that is terrified and besieged by crime needs a victory behind which it can rally and begin to gather confidence. Police, too, need a sign that their efforts can pay off at a time when burgeoning crime seems to demand more time than they have and more resources than government can provide. Perhaps prosecutors also need to be reminded of the importance of so-called lesser cases. Each factor was present in the recent case of Viviana Guerra, a single mother in North Hollywood, and the gang threat that had been leveled against her. The outcome could not have been better, or more timely.

In a community that has been effectively frightened into silence by a gang of 250 members, Guerra alone has been willing to report crimes and testify in court. As a result, authorities have logged some 50 examples of scare tactics and harassment by gang members that have victimized Guerra and her family. This neighborhood needed to be shown that those who wanted to muzzle the public could be convicted and sentenced to prison for that alone.

Police, hoping to persuade others in the neighborhood to come forward as Guerra has, needed a success story to strengthen their argument. Perhaps they also needed a bit of inspiration themselves, since the community in question here is a mere block from one of their stations.

And in the Van Nuys Superior Court, where the threat case against Guerra was pursued, there was some disagreement over the effort itself. Why even pursue such a case when prosecutors are nearly overwhelmed by gang-related murders and associated crimes? Of some 32 known criminal cases assigned to the San Fernando Valley and Van Nuys prosecutors who serve on the hard core gang division, for example, 23 involved homicides and many of the remainder were cases of accessory to murder or attempted murder. Why pursue this case when witnesses were too frightened to come forward to corroborate that a threat had been made against Guerra? Why pursue it when the threat had allegedly been made not with a gun, but with a hand and finger pointed to simulate one?

Fortunately, the case was pursued, and successfully. Maximilliano Guerrero was convicted of making terrorist threats by a jury who needed only Guerra’s convincing testimony, and that of a detective who linked him to the gang, to reach their verdict.

But Superior Court Judge John Fisher sent the final and most welcome message here. Given a range of sentencing possibilities from a minimum of probation with no jail time to a maximum of six years, Fisher leveled the maximum. “The gang thinks it can get away with it, but it needs to be told it can’t,” Judge Fisher said.

Guerrero’s sentence was effectively doubled when Deputy Dist. Atty. Franco A. Baratta made appropriate use of the 4-year-old Street Terrorism Enforcement Prevention Act. Among other things, it allows for stiffer sentences against those who are persuasively linked to criminal street gangs. Criminal street gangs are defined as those whose members have engaged in serious crimes. Baratta says that members of this North Hollywood gang have been convicted of three homicides and one armed robbery.

Most importantly, the Guerra case should serve now as something of a standard. It can be used to demonstrate, to frightened communities here and elsewhere, the potential for further success against street gangs. Perhaps others can now be convinced to notify police and to appear in court to substantiate cases against gang members.

But this case is clearly not over yet. Since the conviction, Guerra has been subjected to continuing instances of intimidation. The gang has not learned its lesson. We hope that the community and those who serve it have learned, and will again act accordingly.