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Vista gang injunction becomes permanent
By: SCOTT MARSHALL - Staff Writer | ∞
VISTA ---- A civil court order restricting the activities of more than 80 alleged gang members in Vista became permanent Friday at a brief hearing in Superior Court.
Judge Timothy Casserly granted a request from the district attorney's office to make the injunction permanent by default because none of the alleged gang members challenged the court order.
Gang injunctions are civil court orders that prohibit alleged gang members from engaging in several activities within specified areas of a city. The prohibited activities usually include being with other known gang members, possessing guns or other dangerous weapons, fighting, graffiti, making gang hand signs and wearing gang clothes.
The Vista injunction prohibits those activities within three "safety zones":
Alleged gang members can be arrested and prosecuted for alleged violations of the civil injunctions, facing possible fines and up to six months in jail for each violation.
The district attorney's office filed papers in June asking for the injunction. Casserly granted the injunction on a preliminary basis July 1, pending Friday's hearing to decide if the injunction would become permanent.
The alleged gang members now have up to six months to ask Casserly to set aside his decision because of "mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect" on their part. The attorney for one of the men filed that request within minutes of the end of Friday's hearing.
The San Diego County district attorney's office has obtained 12 other gang injunctions countywide since 1997, including four in Oceanside, two in Escondido and one in San Marcos.
The Vista injunction made permanent Friday applies to 84 alleged gang members. An additional four are being notified of the injunction through publication in "legal notices" in the newspaper and will have a chance to respond before it permanently restricts them, said Deputy District Attorney Terri Perez.
Perez said she believes the injunction is making the community safer in Vista.
"I've heard from the (San Diego County) Sheriff's Department that it has been quieter and they're seeing fewer gang members," Perez said.
Sheriff's Detective David Brannan, a former gang detective in Vista who began working in Encinitas about a month ago, said Vista sheriff's patrol deputies and gang detectives have noticed a decrease in the number of gang members seen in the areas covered by the injunction, and that gang activity does not appear to be increasing in any other areas of the city.
Peggy Reiber, executive director of the Vista Boys & Girls Club, which sits within one of the Vista gang injunction safety zones, said she has seen changes in the area around the club, but that she could not say whether they are a result of the injunction.
Reiber said club officials used to have to call the Sheriff's Department once a week when school was in session because of fights in the area, but they haven't seen a fight in a month. She also said graffiti has declined and "no incidents of disrespect" toward club staff or members have occurred recently.
Although law enforcement officials and residents often credit gang injunctions with making neighborhoods safer, critics of the civil court orders have argued that they target poor people who lose personal freedoms because they can't afford attorneys to defend them.
"If you have the right with these injunctions to harass people, eventually, you're going to drive them out," said Tom Smith, an attorney from the North County Bar Association's criminal defense section who attended Friday's hearing. "But do we want the government to have the right to harass people?"
State appeals courts have ruled that the civil gang injunctions don't violate civil rights and that the law doesn't allow court-appointed attorneys in such cases.
Smith and another attorney from the North County Bar Association's criminal defense section, Richard Duquette, appeared in court Friday to offer to counsel alleged gang members for free about their legal options, but none of the alleged gang members showed up to receive their legal advice.
They questioned whether any of the alleged gang members named in the injunction knew what was going on or that anyone would be at Friday's hearing to help them.
"Certainly, no one has sympathy for criminals, but there may be people caught up in this who don't qualify for it," Smith said.
One of the alleged gang members named in the injunction had an attorney, Lynn Behymer, present in court Friday for the hearing.
Within minutes of the end of the hearing, Behymer filed papers on behalf of Daniel Sanchez, 21, asking Casserly to set aside his decision. Sanchez, who also faces a criminal charge that he violated the terms of the injunction by talking to alleged gang members on Aug. 8, declined to comment as he walked away from the courtroom.
Appointed to represent Sanchez in the criminal case, Behymer said Friday that Sanchez is a "hardworking guy" who has never considered himself part of the gang, but spent time with people in his neighborhood who are gang members.
"He's not now a member of the gang, nor has he been for a long time," Behymer said.
In a written declaration filed with the court, Brannan described multiple times in the last five years in which sheriff's deputies contacted Sanchez while he was with other gang members. Sanchez was arrested on four of those occasions on suspicion of crimes that included attempted robbery and assault, Brannan wrote.
Lil Mack wrote on Nov 1, 2005 11:40 AM:I think all of the gang injunctions are a bunch of BS. They violate civil rights. The only reason they are getting away with these injunctions, is because none of the list probably don't have much money to hire attorney's. It is just another excuse , to make it easier to lock up a Mex. or any other. The police tell the media that they should be afraid. alot of gangmembers are not even active, but are still getting harrassed and treated like criminals. A lot are taxpayers and are trying to live their lives. Maybe there should be a gang injuction on the pd, they're a gang. We need safety zones too. I'm not a g member, i'm a full time college student. I prefer not to give my real identity. I am afraid of retalliation from the pd. I have been harrassed more by the cops, than by any gang member. I grew up in the South East area in San Diego.
liz wrote on Nov 10, 2005 2:56 PM:I do not see this as being a bunch of BS, and I don't see how race is an issue. The issue here is public's well being, especially children's well being. They should not have to grow up in neighborhoods with gang infestation. Sure it does violate individual liberties that these gang members are entitled to, but if someone should suffer consequences for this increasing gang activity, it should be the gang members and not the general public. Gang members should be the ones restricted to certain areas like the injuctions state, not children and their parents. People should not fear for their safety when they are outside of their homes. Because many of the people who live under these circumstances are of lower economic levels, they cannot afford to move out of thier neighborhoods, and offer their children better living conditions.
LAYDEExMALL MACK wrote on May 22, 2006 3:54 PM:those injunctions are BS.. just because you are a gang member doesn`t mean you need to live in one of those injunctions.. and if kids espically boys who grow up in gang areas.. whos cousins and family are gang members will most likely become a gang member once they get out of elemtary school. so pretty much it is a waste of time
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