Anti-Gang Injunction Proposed for Valley Area

Only a month after a judge approved an injunction against the notorious 18th Street gang in Pico-Union, Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon is calling for $1.1 million to expand the injunction program citywide, starting with drug-peddling gang members in the San Fernando Valley.

Alarcon will introduce a motion today asking the council for the money to hire seven new attorneys for an anti-gang unit in the office of City Atty. James K. Hahn that drafts and implements the injunctions.

If approved, the attorneys will work first to draft an injunction against gang members on Orion Avenue, a drug and crime-plagued North Hills neighborhood in Alarcon’s northeast Valley district.

The attorneys will also work to draft an injunction on gang members in Venice and Mar Vista on the Westside, where gang shootings have resulted in 11 deaths since February.

Injunctions attempt to reduce crime by restricting activities that police believe are associated with criminal acts, such as carrying pagers or associating with other gang members in public.

Alarcon had requested the injunction on Orion Avenue a month ago but Hahn replied that his office needed funding for additional staff to address the growing requests among lawmakers and community leaders for gang injunction efforts throughout the city.

“Gangs have been controlling the streets for too long,” Hahn said.

Five of the new attorneys would concentrate on drafting new injunctions while two would prosecute gang members who violate them, he said.

Several injunctions have already been imposed throughout Southern California--including an ambitious injunction approved last month that makes it illegal for members of the powerful 18th Street gang to associate with each other.

One of the earliest injunctions was imposed in 1993 against gang members on Blythe Street near the Orion neighborhood. Although police credit that injunction with reducing crime, civil libertarians claim the action has only shifted the crime problem to other neighborhoods, including Orion Avenue. They also charge that it does nothing to address the social problems that push youths to join gangs.

“We feel it is more of a public relations answer rather than an effort to deal with the foundations of the problems that lead these youngsters into gangs,” said Ann Bradley, media director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

But primarily the ACLU worries that the injunctions will erode the civil rights of all residents who live in the communities where gangs are a problem.

“When you start to chip away at basic civil liberties and you say you can arrest someone for carrying a beeper, that is scary,” she said.

Even Alarcon admits that the injunctions are not a panacea and must be coupled with other anti-gang programs.

“This is not a replacement for the police or for diversion programs or job-training efforts,” he said. “‘It’s just another tool for the city to get control of an area that has had many problems.”

Some residents and community activists have already thrown their support behind an injunction on Orion Avenue, saying it can only help crack down on the pervasive drug dealing.

“‘Injunctions are a good thing,” said Tony Swan, who helps manage apartment buildings on Orion Avenue and is vice president of the North Hills Community Coordinating Council.

He said he has watched the gang problems diminish on Blythe Street and hopes the same can happen on Orion.

“I haven’t seen the police go too far with the injunction [on Blythe Street],” he said. “I think it’s just another useful tool.”

For more than a decade, gang members on Orion Avenue have operated an open-air drug market and have intimidated and harassed people who live in the area, according to police and residents.

Police have had trouble cracking down on the gang members there, partly because witnesses and nearby residents have been too intimidated to cooperate with police.

That intimidation factor could play a role in the injunction because a key component of it would be declarations from residents about the gang activity in the neighborhood. The injunction would take some time to prepare because police will have to identify the gang members and justify restricting otherwise legal activities, such as carrying beepers or hanging out after dark.

However, Hahn believes an injunction can be drafted and placed before a judge for approval within three or four months. Once it is approved, police can arrest or cite gang members who are found in violation of the injunction.

Hahn added that if residents are too intimidated to provide declarations on the gang activity, the injunction can rely mostly on declarations from police who work in the community.