Neighborhood Divided Over How Much Safer Life Will Be

It’s hard for taco stand manager Alex Leon to get excited about the big drops in crime across Orange County. In his corner of west Santa Ana, drug dealing and street crimes remains a part of life, and he’s been robbed at gunpoint at least six times in the last five years.

So it’s with a mixture of hope and realism that Leon and other residents of the area near the Santa Ana River greeted the mass police and FBI raid that netted scores of neighbors suspected of being drug dealers, petty criminals and gang members.

“There’s lots of violence in the streets, and at night it’s dangerous here,” Leon said. “So it’s a real good thing they did this.”

While many residents support the aggressive police action, others, such as Ambrosio Gutierrez, wonder whether it will really make the streets safer and allow them to once again enjoy a night stroll down the street without fear of crime.

Gutierrez has not dared take moonlight walks with his wife down Gunther Street since he moved into the neighborhood 15 years ago. And he said he won’t be any time soon.

“Wow . . . that’s good,” said Gutierrez of the arrests. “But there are thousands [of gang members].”

Other residents said they wouldn’t mind if their one-square-mile neighborhood remained an armed camp for the hundreds of law enforcement officials who showed up Wednesday.

“When they [gang members] leave jail, they’ll just come back here. It never ends,” said one longtime resident who declined to give his name for fear of retaliation. “They’re a bunch of animals.”

Many residents said they have felt under siege for decades. The Santa Nita gang formed in the 1940s and became criminally active in the 1960s, focusing primarily on drug and weapons dealing, according to police. Many homes house several generations of former and present-day gang members, and police estimate neighborhood gang membership tops 300.

John Garibay, a 40-year-old self-described former member, said gang life has flourished since he joined as a 13-year-old. He said he has known many of those arrested since they were children.

“The young blood comes in, and the old blood goes out,” Garibay said outside a home where police arrested three men and confiscated several semiautomatic pistols and rifles. But Santa Ana Police Chief Paul M. Walters said the very massiveness of the raid could help break the cycle.

“The way a gang terrorizes neighbors is with intimidations, but they can’t intimidate when so many are arrested,” he said. “It gives a lot of hope, and it is a huge boost to the community.”

Though the neighborhood’s overall crime rate has declined over the last few years, residents say they remain wary. Gunfire is not as frequent, but drug-dealing and thievery abounds, they said. Gang members deal drugs at all hours and in public, a perpetual reminder to residents of their woes.

Almost every home has barred windows and yards. Many residents refuse to use some streets and trash-strewn alleys, where gang graffiti tagged on fences claims the neighborhood for “SN”--Santa Nita. “Estamos quemado,” said one man who has lived in the neighborhood for more than 50 years. “We’re burned out. I don’t think this will change anything.”

News of the raid swept quickly through the working-class area of mostly well-kept 40- and 50-year-old homes. Residents said that Mexican immigrants began moving into the area in large numbers in the 1950s, and now predominate in what was once a mostly white neighborhood.

Relations with police have been strained. Many residents say police have long neglected the area and let the gang flourish unchecked.

Some residents reacted angrily to the raid, saying their neighborhood resembled a police state. At a pair of adjoining homes on Gunther Street, residents said, more than 30 officers, including a SWAT team and K-9 units, surrounded the houses as police helicopters roared overhead.

They said they awoke to the sound of authorities crashing through windows and doors.

“They [police officers] scared us to death,” said a woman whose husband was one of three men arrested at her home. “For three people they had to bring 50 officers? They treated us as if we were terrorists or murderers.”

Some people said police arrested many innocent people in the raid and needlessly destroyed property while forcibly entering homes.

“This is traumatizing,” said Amalia Perez, while cleaning up the broken glass from the cabinet she said authorities destroyed before arresting her son. “I buy these things through sacrifice. And then to have it broken? It shouldn’t be that way.”

But many residents said the sweep was necessary to rein in gang members. y “I think it’s good because it gets the bad guys off the street,” said Paul Robles, a 10-year resident. “It’ll make it nicer, safer and cleaner around here.”