Westminster Gang Gets the Word--in Writing : Law enforcement: Members enjoined from hanging out together. It may not be constitutional, but it’s working. : SPECIAL REPORT: FACING DOWN GANGS. <i> How One City Fights Back</i>

Julio Garcia, known to the homeboys in his gang as Cesar, shook his head as the district attorney’s investigator served him with a stack of papers that could dictate whom he can talk to, where he can hang out and what he can do from now on.

The 18-year-old ex-convict knew this was coming; he’d read in the newspaper that the city was suing his gang to block members from even being seen together in some public areas.

But as he clutched the thick lawsuit for the first time a few nights ago, weighing it carefully in his tattooed hand, he was surprised by the sheer bulk of the 75 pages of legalese.

And he was worried about what it might mean for his old neighborhood. Of course, Garcia told his probation officer as he was served with the papers at a local playground, he’d stay away from the other 58 reputed gang members listed in the document. But the others--who knew?

“Things are too hot,” said Garcia, a four-inch bullet wound scarring his bare chest. The authorities “are putting the pressure on us. A lot of our rights are getting kicked around. . . . We’re gang members. We don’t let people pressure us. We don’t let nobody (mess) with us. Who knows, some of these knuckleheads (in the gang), they could go crazy.”

The next few weeks could prove critical for Westminster gang members and authorities alike as city officials fire their latest salvo in the war on gangs, employing a controversial law-enforcement tool that is new to Orange County but has already drawn concern from civil libertarians. Where cops on the beat, screaming sirens and drawn weapons have all fallen short, city officials now hope to rely on a court order to keep apart “gang-bangers.”

The city secured a temporary restraining order earlier this month in Orange County Superior Court that declares the “West Trece” gang a public nuisance and bans 59 young men thought to be active members from “standing, sitting, walking, driving, gathering or appearing anywhere in public view” with any other members within a 25-square-block neighborhood.

The area, a mix of residences, parks and businesses, is bordered by Golden West Street on the west, Trask Avenue on the north, Hoover Street on the east and Westminster Avenue on the south.

The court order, reading like a grim “Do Not Disturb” sign, also bans the young men on the list from “confronting, intimidating, annoying, harassing, threatening, challenging, provoking, assaulting and/or battering any residents of the area.” Anyone violating the order could face six months in jail on a contempt of court charge.

Those targeted in the lawsuit fall between the ages of 13 and 30, and are known to authorities by such nicknames as “Dizzy” and “Bullet.” More than half have criminal records--many as juveniles--and are already banned from socializing with some gang members because of their probation agreements.

One youth on the list is headed for college in the fall, but most are out of school and out of work. Authorities say their central bond, trumpeted loudly by the clothes they wear and the tattoos they display, is a gang that many regard as a second family.

“A lot of people say we’re stupid--’Why you in the gangs?’ ” said Garcia, who served four months in a youth facility for a conviction of receiving stolen property. “But hey, they do a lot for me, I do a lot for them.”

For residents who have seen a decaying, graffiti-scarred neighborhood turned into a virtual prison because of the presence of gangs, word of the city’s legal maneuvering brought welcome relief. But some are skeptical, fearful that the move may prove largely symbolic.

“Does it really stop them?” asked local apartment manager Mary Working, her voice a mixture of hope and incredulity. “It’s just a piece of paper.”

For civil libertarians, who have wrestled with this same issue in Los Angeles and other cities around the state, concerns center on the constitutionality of the anti-gang strategy.

As other cities and police agencies around Orange County monitor the case closely to gauge its influence on their own anti-gang strategies, a Superior Court hearing is scheduled for July 21 to determine whether Westminster’s temporary injunction against the gang members should be kept in force. And representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union say they may be at the hearing to speak on behalf of the gang members.

ACLU officials suggest government has gone too far when it begins telling people who have not been charged with a crime where they can stand or with whom they can speak. The lawsuit, said spokesman Mark Silverstein, represents a classic case of “guilt by association.”

“What you have is people who would be prohibited from engaging in ordinary, everyday, lawful and protected association, simply because the city has asserted that these individuals are involved with a group that has members responsible for unlawful activities,” he said.

If individual gang members are committing crimes, Silverstein said, authorities should charge them and try them. By imposing the weight of law against these young men en masse, he said, officials are doing an “end run” around constitutional and criminal law.

But city officials say the gang situation has gotten so bad that they need to take extraordinary measures to try to head off crime before it can occur--even if such extreme measures face constitutional challenges.

“We have the rights of the citizens in the community to be concerned about, not the rights of gangs, and we’ll fight it on that basis,” said Westminster Mayor Charles V. Smith.

The city said in its July 1 lawsuit that traditional law enforcement techniques in the West Treces’ neighborhood “have failed to date to permanently abate the nuisance, and in fact the level and frequency of violent criminal acts against both citizens and police appear to be increasing.”

City officials allege that from December, 1991, through this May, members of the Trece gang ( trece means 13 in Spanish) have been involved in 39 area crimes, including murder, drive-by shootings, assaults, drug dealing and auto theft. More crimes might be reported, officials said, if residents did not live in “total fear” of local gang members.

Indeed, residents tell of a neighborhood where frequent threats and intimidation, gunshots, graffiti, vandalized cars and back-alley drug deals have become daily reminders of life in a gang zone.

“I’m afraid to let my kids play out front because it’s scary to think that sometimes things can turn deadly,” said Tina Burk, 25, who has three young children and lives on 21st Street in Westminster.

“Of the areas I’ve delivered, it’s a crummy area, a troubled area,” said Carl Boliou, a veteran U.S. Postal Service mail carrier who has to keep special guard against mail thefts by gang members. “I can always count on some excitement out here every day. You just kind of keep watch.”

Some have decided it’s not worth the fight anymore.

“We’re getting out of here in two weeks,” said Lisa Roberts, 28. “I have two small children. I don’t want them to be in the way of stray bullets.”

Authorities in Westminster say West Trece gang members have effectively seized control of their neighborhood, gathering at parks and apartment buildings and tagging walls with gang graffiti--often “W13” or “WT”--to mark the parameters of their territory.

The court injunction is meant to combat the problem.

Westminster has been plagued by gangs apart from West Trece, including growing bands of Asian groups that are responsible for violent home-invasion robberies, authorities say. Last week’s shooting of a 13-year-old girl at the Westminster Mall is thought to be connected to gangs.

But Al Valdez, a district attorney’s investigator who is assigned to Westminster’s anti-gang unit, said that Latino gangs such as the West Trece are more territorial than their Asian counterparts, making them prime targets for the court ban on congregating.

“You’ve got to start somewhere, and this seemed to be one of the most active gangs in the area,” Valdez said. “We’re just preventing them from getting into trouble.”

This will be the first time the unusual law-enforcement tool has been tried in Orange County, but it has already been deployed in neighborhoods in several California cities in recent years, including Los Angeles, Pomona, Burbank, San Fernando and San Jose.

In a key early test of the strategy, the city of Los Angeles lost a 1987 attempt to rein in a Westside street gang in the Cadillac-Corning area, with a Superior Court judge declaring that the proposal was “far, far overreaching” in its infringement of constitutional rights.

City attorneys in Los Angeles had sought unsuccessfully to impose a broad range of aggressive prohibitions, banning any reputed gang member from standing alone in public streets for more than five minutes in the Cadillac-Corning area or from having visitors in their homes for less than 10 minutes. (This was seen as a way of discouraging quick drug deals.) Juveniles named in the proposal, meanwhile, would have faced a dusk-to-dawn curfew.

When that proposal was rejected, municipal leaders in search of anti-gang weapons began scaling back the scope of their requests for civil injunctions. Instead of the broad injunction sought in 1987, city attorneys began attacking a narrower goal: banning known gang members from congregating together within their neighborhood.

The limited tack has still drawn opposition from civil libertarians who question the constitutionality of such a ban, but it has passed legal muster so far in those communities that have tried it. And city officials give rave reviews.

In Burbank--the model for the Westminster injunction--city officials report that gang-related problems on a targeted block of Elmwood Avenue have dropped from at least 10 incidents per month as of last fall to virtually none today.

The local gang, at least in its public appearance, is “basically gone,” said Juli C. Scott, chief assistant city attorney in Burbank.

So why would people who draw their reputations from their lawlessness show such respect for a complicated civil court order?

“Beats me,” Scott said. “All I know is the success has just been incredible. . . . It’s taken the heart out of the gang.”

The city has prosecuted only about three gang members for violating the congregating ban, but they “run and hide” when the summonses are served, Scott said. “It’s something that bothers them more than anything.”

Such concern was evident in Westminster this week among West Trece gang members--some of whom had not yet been served with the lawsuit and didn’t know that they were named in it.

“I don’t know why my name is on the list. I haven’t done anything,” a visibly unnerved Adrian Castillo, 14, a student at Westminster High School, told a reporter as he was riding his bike to a local park that police say is frequented by gang members. “This isn’t fair.”

Castillo, who has three brothers also named in the court order, readily acknowledged that he is a member of the West Trece gang and that the gang has often gotten into violent fights with gang members from neighboring cities. But he said they never harassed innocent residents in the neighborhood.

“I don’t start trouble,” he said. “Why are they doing this to us? Why not (do this) to any of the other gangs like in Santa Ana? They’re worse than us.”

Martin Garcia, 22, said he “likes to hang out” with gang members but will abide by the court order to stay away from Trece. “It’s better for everybody not to get into trouble,” said Garcia, a factory worker who has an 8-month-old son and now lives in Buena Park.

Valdez of the district attorney’s office said authorities are waiting to see how many of the West Treces will adopt Garcia’s attitude.

There are informal rules of etiquette in police-gang relations in Westminster, Valdez said. Most gang members will submit quietly to a legal search by police or even a legitimate bust. In contrast, the cops will have a sure fight on their hands if they insult a gang member in front of his girlfriend or family, Valdez said.

The question now, the investigator said, is how the new court injunction may tip the balance in those relations--and whether gang members will play by the new rules or ready for a fight.

“That’s what everybody’s waiting to see. It should be interesting,” he said.