Families, Others in Oxnard Call for Gang Truce

The grieving sister of a young man gunned down in La Colonia joined a grass-roots effort Thursday in calling on rival gangs to stop the shooting that has shaken the city and end a decades-old pattern of settling scores with guns and knives.

“There is a cry on the streets of Oxnard,” said Dora Larios, whose brother, Ray Caballero, was gunned down a few miles away on a La Colonia street Nov. 26. “We need to realize these people are young kids and are crying out for love.”

While about 150 people looked on during the morning news conference at Oxnard’s Plaza Park, Larios and other members of a small committee formed in response to a series of recent shootings appealed for a truce between warring gangs.

The show of unity--the first such example in Oxnard that many who attended could remember--culminated recent efforts by police and community leaders to stop the shootings that made November one of the most violent months in recent memory.

From Nov. 10 through 18, there were six shootings in an area bordered roughly by Wooley and Ventura roads and Channel Islands and Oxnard boulevards. A seventh shooting in El Rio during that period is believed to be linked to south Oxnard gang members, authorities say.

Felipe Ramirez, 17, died after being hit with gunfire as he stood talking with his brother and a friend in front of his Cedar Court apartment complex.

Only one arrest has been made, and the number of Oxnard homicides has risen to 11 for 2000.

Police, with the help of Ventura County sheriff’s deputies and probation officers, increased their presence where the shootings occurred.

So far, peace has held but Police Chief Art Lopez said police will remain in greater force.

Lopez, whom City Council members pressured to stop the shootings last month, said Thursday police are doing what they can but “we can’t do it all ourselves.”

“We’re asking the community to help mediate a truce between gang members,” Lopez said as he stood in Plaza Park.

Jess Gutierrez, 54, a retired parole officer with the California Youth Authority who helped organize the Thursday meeting, said the goal is to get rival gang members to meet face-to-face.

That won’t be easy, Gutierrez said. But Gutierrez said he is trying. Since late November, Gutierrez and a small band of ex-convicts, former Oxnard gang members and “other street people” have fanned out to contact those responsible for the recent shootings.

“A truce can be done but you have to give people some choices,” Gutierrez said. “They need jobs and support, and if elected officials don’t see that, they will be kidding themselves. Is it lip service or is it real? If it’s lip service, expect more deaths.”

While they hope for a truce, law enforcement officials said making peace in a gang war won’t be easy. First, most--if not all--of the current gang members were born into a gang, be it La Colonia, Southside or one of the city’s roughly six other active gangs.

“If somebody can pull it off it could make a difference,” said Cmdr. Mike Matlock, head of the Oxnard Police Department’s gang enforcement unit. “The trick is making it happen. Our gangs aren’t that structured with a No. 1 man and No. 2.”

Even without clearly defined leaders, most gangs have influential people, Matlock said. Persuading them that it’s in their best interest to put aside age-old rivalries will be the toughest challenge, he said.

Some doubt a long-term truce will hold. Miles Weiss, the supervising deputy district attorney for juvenile prosecutions in Ventura County, said a gang truce has never been suggested in Ventura County and those tried in Los Angeles have failed.

“I don’t think there will be an all-out truce, but the best would be a calmness and a settlement and suppression of the violence for some time,” Weiss said. “For a lot of these kids the rivalry has been ingrained in their lifestyle.”

Raul Zarate, 42, the uncle of former gang member Dino Zarate Jr., who was killed Sept. 1, listened as speakers appealed for peace Thursday. Even for a veteran of the streets like him--in and out of prison for years and only three months from his last jail stint--the recent shootings have been sobering, Zarate said.

“Nobody is exempt from it as long as people are driving by and shooting,” Zarate said. “How much more bloodshed must there be?”