History of Fights at Fair Makes Gang Fair Game

For the first time in two decades, police say, there were no gang fights reported at the Ventura County Fair.

The reason things went so smooth this year?

Ventura was the first city in the state to obtain a permanent injunction barring hard-core gang members from attending a county fair, Assistant City Atty. Amy Albano said.

Thirty-one members of a 100-member west Ventura gang--including a convicted murderer, robbers and thieves--were served copies of the order signed in May by Superior Court Judge David W. Long.

The injunction was sought by fair officials and the City Council after police officers spent three years documenting repeated acts of violence committed by those gang members at past county fairs, Albano said.

“We realized we needed to do something, because the fair wasn’t a bad place but it needed to be safer,” said Ventura Police Officer Jerry Foreman.

The gang cited in the injunction considers the fairgrounds on Harbor Boulevard part of its turf and members would routinely fight any members of other gangs who came to the fair, Foreman said.

Sometimes, targets of that violence were innocent people, he added.

Before 1997, officers handled up to a dozen reports of gang fights nightly at the 12-day fair, Foreman said. Last year--after the city received a temporary injunction--about half a dozen gang fights occurred during the entire event.

One gang member included in the injunction went to court last year and asked the judge to let him take his kid to the fair. Long denied the request.

The American Civil Liberties Union had something to say about this crime-fighting strategy.

“We believe gang injunctions violate fundamental 1st Amendment rights. Additionally, as a public policy measure, it doesn’t work,” said Elizabeth Schroeder, an associate director for the ACLU’s office in Los Angeles.

She said such injunctions just push gang activity from one neighborhood to another. She also said a better solution to stopping gang crime is to deter gang membership with mentoring and after-school programs.

“We have to do something meaningful, instead of saying you’re not allowed into a government-run event just because we think you might cause problems,” she said.

*

Some people will try anything, anywhere, for a few bucks.

The main county jail at the Ventura Government Center recently changed its check-in policy for visitors, after two women tried selling their places in line for $10 apiece, Sheriff’s Cmdr. Mark Ball said.

For nearly 20 years, the jail operated a first-come, first-served system--much like ice cream shops and butcher counters--in which people would take a number from a red dispenser.

That practice stopped after the two women came to the jail early on a busy weekend and pulled a dozen numbers from the dispenser. When visiting hours started, the pair tried to peddle low numbers to people with high ones, Ball said.

The women were at the jail to visit an inmate but apparently didn’t care what time they got in, Ball said. Deputies received three complaints about the pair’s sales pitch, but it’s unknown whether anyone shelled out the cash.

The women were permanently barred from visiting the jail but will not be charged with a crime, Ball said.

“We’ve learned that whenever we institute policies, there are always individuals out there who abuse the system,” Ball noted.

Under the old system, visitors just showed a picture ID and deputies occasionally ran background checks. Now visitors are required to fill out a one-page form that deputies use to run a computer check for outstanding warrants.

The new way may not stop bad people from coming to visit folks in jail, but it could make a wanted criminal think twice.

*

He did it for the money.

That’s what authorities are now saying about a Simi Valley restaurateur who is charged with setting fire to his business in June and was severely burned in the process.

In the days after the June 27 blaze at the Walck-In on Kuehner Drive, owner Mumtaz Fazli said he was the victim of an attacker who doused him in gasoline and set him a blaze in his kitchen.

A month later, county fire investigators arrested him on suspicion of arson, saying Fazli purposely set the fire that caused $50,000 in damage and left him with severe burns over 25% of his body.

Last week, prosecutors said Fazli was facing, in addition to two counts of felony arson, a single felony charge of insurance fraud. He is free on bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 31.

“He made a false claim. He claimed there was an accidental fire,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Mary Peace.

Authorities won’t disclose Fazli’s outstanding debts or say how much he stood to earn by filing the insurance claim.

Fire and police officials investigating the blaze have been extremely tight-lipped about the facts, saying they fear jeopardizing the case.

“Arson is a difficult crime to prove. A lot of the time the evidence is destroyed in the fire. Often the evidence has to be extraordinary for the D.A. to file,” said Sandi Wells, a Ventura County Fire Department spokeswoman.

In 1998, county fire investigators handled 210 fires. Of those cases, 65 were ruled arson. There were 14 arrests and only six convictions, Wells said.

*

Should Miss Daisy be driving?

That’s a question Department of Motor Vehicles officials will have to answer for 87-year-old Daisy Roach of Los Angeles, whose license was confiscated by the cops last week after a slow-speed chase that began in Ventura County.

Roach was driving south on Pacific Coast Highway from Oxnard when sheriff’s deputies tried to pull her over for allegedly driving erratically.

Deputies turned on their red lights to get her to stop but she kept driving and driving and driving, deputies said. Roach was doing the speed limit and later claimed she was unaware she was required to stop despite seeing and hearing the commotion, according to the report.

Authorities followed her for more than 15 miles to the Los Angeles County line. They even sounded the squad car’s siren for a while and had the department’s helicopter fly over the car, Sheriff’s Capt. Keith Parks said.

Roach finally stopped for the Highway Patrol in a residential neighborhood in Malibu, said Parks.

“She said she was waiting for an officer to give her a hand signal to pull over,” Parks said.

She was cited for failing to yield and her license was confiscated. A sheriff’s deputy drove her home, Parks said. Her car was locked up and left parked.

*

Holly Wolcott can be reached by e-mail at holly.wolcott@latimes.com