Pasadena Gets Restraining Order Against Reputed Gang Members : Crime: Order names 35 people, bans beepers, phones, bicycles and restricts many activities. ACLU protests.

Pasadena on Thursday became the third Los Angeles County community to attack gang activity in a troubled neighborhood by prohibiting alleged gang members from carrying beepers, riding bicycles and other activities, many of which would otherwise be minor infractions or legal.

At the request of Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, Pasadena Superior Court Judge Coleman A. Swart granted a temporary restraining order against 35 people believed to be part of a gang controlling a roughly 20-square-block area of northwest Pasadena, between Washington and Orange Grove boulevards and Fair Oaks and Marengo avenues.

Within that area, those named in the complaint are barred from: possessing a cellular phone or walkie-talkie; being on the premises of an uninhabited apartment or building; being on any roof; possessing any controlled substance or paraphernalia; blocking vehicular or pedestrian traffic; possessing or using any graffiti tools; gambling; and acting as a lookout for police by whistling, yelling or otherwise signaling police presence to cohorts, among other things.

At a news conference on the steps of Pasadena City Hall, Garcetti said the action follows similar restrictions against gangs in Long Beach and Norwalk, although the order has been tailored to address the Pasadena gang’s drug activities.

“Today we begin the process that gives a neighborhood back to its lawful citizens,” Garcetti said.

A first offense for violating the order gets a defendant 10 days in jail, Garcetti said. Further offenses will draw harsher penalties.

Pasadena Mayor Bill Paparian and Police Chief Robert Huff described what they called some of the meanest streets in Pasadena. Residents are subjected to constant noise, loitering, public drunkenness and urination, and a generally intolerable environment of danger and harassment.

In some instances, Garcetti said, neighbors were forced to pay gang members to gain entrance to their own driveways and garages.

Thursday’s action comes as part of the district attorney’s SAGE program, or Strategy Against Gang Environments, which began with an injunction two years ago against a Norwalk gang. A temporary restraining order was granted against a Long Beach gang earlier this month.

In Pasadena, Garcetti said, there have been hundreds of gang-related arrests within the target area; each person named in the action has been previously arrested at least once. An injunction, he said, will give police an additional tool to use against the alleged gang members.

Mark Silverstein, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in Los Angeles, said such injunctions are tantamount to putting people on probation without ever convicting them of a crime.

“The injunction makes ordinarily legal behavior a crime for these particular defendants,” Silverstein said. “If you’re going to put people on probation, charge them with a crime, prove it beyond a reasonable doubt and let them have an attorney. They already do that every day.”

Because the court action is a civil proceeding, the defendants do not have the right to an attorney and the allegations do not have the same heavy burden of proof as in criminal matters.

In court Thursday, some of those named in the complaint denied being members of the gang. The district attorney’s office must prove that the defendants are members of the gang.

Rebecca Pratt, a resident of the target area, said she’s as worried about police harassment as harassment from the gangs.

“They could harass me, because I have a pager,” she said. “The way that they’re going about this is wrong.”

However, Sheila Wells, a 34-year-old mother of four who moved from the neighborhood last month, said the new measure might offer some relief from the dangers of the area.

Wells said she moved her family away after a drive-by shooting left a bus stop littered with bullets. That day, her children got off the school bus to find police combing the stop area.

A hearing on a preliminary injunction is scheduled for Nov. 9.