Video: Witness LAPD attempting to enforce a gang injunction
By Alex Alonso for Streetgangs.com
February 14, 2010
Gang injunctions have become a regular suppression tool that the City of Los Angeles and other Los Angeles County jurisdictions have been using since the California Supreme Court narrowly upheld them in a 1997 decision. To date, there have not been any long term studies that have evaluated their effectiveness since the first large scale gang injunction in 1987 against the Play Boy Gangster Crips. Although empirical evidence measuring their success are non-existent, city officials have touted them as crime reducing strategies. The City of Los Angeles, and the LAPD have made countless correlations between gang injunctions and crime reduction, but their anecdotal claims do not reach the standard of any credible statistical analysis.
The video footage here is perhaps the first footage ever captured that shows LAPD officers attempting to arrest a group of alleged gang members in violation of the “association clause” in a typical gang injunction. The gang officer Bryan Thayer claims that there were at least 10 gang members in the park that were subject to arrest, but no arrests were actually made. From my observations there was no way that there were actually 10 gang members in the video that any logical person would define as a gang member, but law enforcement uses a more vague definition, that can label youth who associate with gang members. But when you live in places like the Jungles, everyone associates with everyone else, especially at a park where people come together to socialize, so it is common for a non-gang member to be close friends with a gang member, considering they attended elementary school together and their families are neighbors.
In the gang injunction against the Hawaiian Gardens, nine defendants were removed off that injunction to date, for being mis-identified as gang members, and unfortunately the Judges who approve these orders do not require a standard that prevents non-gang membesr and youth who have never been convicted of a crime from being labeled as a gang member and being served an injunction.
In 2008, Los Angeles pursued a gang injunction against the San Fers gang in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. Even though this community had seen crimes rates drop for seven straight years (2001-2007), they still blamed the 900 member gang for everything negative in this community, in the face of evidence that pointed to non-gang members responsible for 60 percent of the crime in that area. When crime continued to drop, the gang injunction was now being falsely attributed for the drop.
In 2006, Judge David Yaffe approved a request to enjoin the gang members in the Jungles, a neighborhood in South LA where the Black P Stones are located. The injunction gives broad powers to the LAPD that allows them to search, frisk, detain, photograph, arrest, and question any person that they “suspect” to be a gang member. Officer Brian Thayer, known in the Jungles as Jackie Chan, is a gang cop that works the Baldwin Village area.
The goal of the injunction is in their words to “shut down the gang” but several years later the gang is still there and they are still warring with the 18th Street gang. Even after the FBI came in under “Operation Stone Cold” the community is still plagued with ongoing social challenges that limits the opportunities for young people growing up here fueling gang maintenance.
The injunction, for many, allows the police to legally harass people, youth and young adults. Being under this court order allows the police to treat an individual as if they were on parole without having committed a crime.
look at that thats crazy another case of cops treating us wrong thesev people were doin nothing but havein a good time at the park it wasint like they were wearing colors,smokin, are hangin out in a huge crowd these injuction areint gonna cahnge anything but make the people in that community more angry. the couts the cops need to realize that they cant stop wqith the smart stuff they have been doin
Mr. Alonso:
You state that no long term stulives have been conducted that are credible enough to correlate crime reduction and the LAPD implementing the injunctions within those specific areas.
Would it be possible for you to provide us with references to possible short term stulives that have been conducted to study the correlation, or lack there of, of the aforementioned factors?
I’m on neither side of the debate as of yet, but I want to seek more information from credible sources.
I grew up in LA all my life and the injuctions placed over most of the South Bureau divisions affected me throughout my adolescence, especially when I would wear khakis with Chucks and white tees. Being a juvenile in the gang file places you in horrible circumstances whenever you are pulled over. Guilty by association seems to be taken one step further from the norm.
So instead of calling myself a victim through the negative experiences that the injunctions expose us to, I rather look at credible research to further develop my opinion on the debate.
Any help in finding stulives of the injunction is greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
– Crenshaw870
I dunno if I was jackie chan I’d shot several black criminals in the face. These people are no good for anything in society but complaining and comitting crimes. I say raze all of South LA to the ground and bring in lots of Asians to make a community full of people who want to work and value education. I’m sick of African American complainers!!
African Genocide
I could have ever ununderstood why somebody has dealt so modifierly with this issue. Now afford up to me full circle. Truly interesting your thesis. Although my English language is not so skilful, your blogpost I can see. Hold out up the Light.
No wonder cops shoot so many Africans.. white people don’t talk to cops like this, maybe take note