June 21, 2007
Gangs Are Over (If You Want It)
City Attorney Dennis Herrera took a break from harassing that nice Ed Jew today, introducing a lawsuit against three gangs. Our knowledge of streetgang etiquette is pretty much zero, but we can't imagine the "Knock Out Posse" will be giving him the courtesy of an RSVP. At any rate, the plan is to use an injunction to impose stiffer penalties for gang activity in certain areas. In the past, this technique worked against the Oakdale Mob, Dennis' office says, so hopefully it'll work again now. Now all's we need is some spiffy police work to back the injunction up.
We've assembled a handy-dandy map of the gang zones, as well as the locations of recent gang-connected incidents. We can't help noticing that the two recent shootings in the Western addition fall outside of Dennis' gang areas -- but, and make of this what you will -- the boundaries do appear to cover some of the public housing in the neighborhood.
|
It actually looks like all but one of the shootings took place outside the special zones.
The color coded gang zones on Google make it look like San Andreas come to life....
This map does not reflect the territory controlled by the SFist gang, and that area is thewholegoddamncity.
Excellent. In light of the flare up in violent crime in the Western Addition and the Mission District, I welcome the City Attorney's legal action against these miscreants. These gangsters have no respect for the lives and rights of others, why should they deserve the same civil rights and respect that law abiding citizens are entitled to?
These gangsters have no respect for the lives and rights of others, why should they deserve the same civil rights and respect that law abiding citizens are entitled to?
Gang violence is a big problem, for certain, but I don't think you understand the idea of uniform rights (civil, legal, human). After all, if gang members are the practically inhuman scourge you make them out to be, undeserving of the legal rights of law-abiding citizens, why not just allow the police to execute them on sight?
Seems like it makes a lot of sense that most of the shootings would happen outside of the controlled gang zones. If you're the kind of person who the Nortenos want to shoot, you'd be pretty stupid to wander into territory they control.
Both shootings in the Mission were in the green-colored gang zone of the map.
Oh I understand, however, why should the city allow them to gather in public to: loiter, harass and intimidate neighborhood residents, plot and carry out crimes? Furthermore, it is my understanding that if they are arrested for violating the injunction they still have their due process rights, habeas corpus, trial by jury, etc. Also, if you look at arrest reports a lot of the Norteños either do not live in Mission district or San Francisco, that's right, they commute to this neighborhood to do their "business."
It seems to me a sort of ridiculously San Francisco style of "dealing with things:" to create some sort of superfluous beaurocratic official piece of crap that sounds dandy but will do absolutely nothing in order to pretend to be confronting an issue that absolutely needs to be dealt with. And to boot it seems to circumvent the real issue which is definitely the public housing developments reside in those "gang areas." Anytime I hear about a shooting in the Mission I would be willing to bet serious money it is within a 3 block radius of the projects on Harrison. I think four or five people have been killed there in the past twelve months. And once on a lovely Tuesday morning stroll down Haight street I was greeted by a large pool of blood, remnants of an earlier shooting, greeting me right before the Western Addition projects. That had been the second shooting that week. Maybe heightened police presence in these areas could quell the violence. The only time I have ever seen uniforms there is the day the pavement was stained with evidence. And this city is pretty much already soft on crime so there is no need to file lawsuits to actually get tougher. What we need is our DA to actually file charges period against offenders and be agressive to the extent that other major city district attorney offices function so that both the offenders, the public, and maybe probably most importantly the SFPD believe our city is serious about cleaning up crime in this city.
T.E. Lawrence
You've got that right take bart from Oakland/Rich do you're business made your money kill a few and beat rush hour on Bart
Good Job City Atty it's working in the Bay View
I'm surprised this is constitutional, what with the right to assemble and all. Anyway, from the Chronicle the other day:
Police said they were increasing patrols in the area in response to the shootings, at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday and 8:50 a.m. today. Both happened near the Friendship Village Apartments, a three-story development on Friendship Court, where police said young men are battling rivals from Yerba Buena Plaza East, a collection of townhouses centered at Eddy and Buchanan streets.
Friendship Village isn't colored in on the map, but Yerba Buena Plaza East is (aqua). There has been enough violence at Plaza East for the city to have installed a crime camera there, so obviously it's a hotspot.
An aside: I'm pretty sure Plaza East's "townhouses" replaced a high-rise public housing project as part of the Hope VI program. Obviously that wasn't a cure-all. The Hope SF program, by contrast, will rebuild public housing units as part of denser mixed-income developments. I don't believe any of these projects will be on Hope SF's initial target list, though; actually, the Chron made it sound like Friendship Village is privately owned.
Oh GOD! My kid's nanny lives in the 24th st gang zone and always blue clothes!
Would it be OK do do a strip search to B sure she doesn't have any of those devil tats on her t-ts?
I'm a fag, so it wouldn't be sexual but could she still sue me? I don't want her to beat the kid as retaliation while I'm away at city hall, attending chris daly assholism hearings either.
Ask the residents of the projects, ask the cops, ask the people who actually know folks involved--most of the people doing the killing do not live in the neighborhoods that they kill in.
marinconsoy, brush up on gangs, the 24th St. area is Norteño turf, they wear red. There's nothing in the complaint filed by the City Attorney's office mentioning strip searches, if that's what you were insinuating.
The city attorney is going to court to ask for gang busting authority from a judge. Why not save time and police resources?
Round the gang shitheads up and ship them off to the most volatile part of Baghdad. There they would carry signs around with vile anti-Islamic curses written in arabic. Or maybe send them to downtown Singapore each with a bag o'crack in hand. The punishment there is a naked public whipping then beheading.
i'm not sure how much good this does and it feels a little bit like a step towards seriously violating civil rights.
anyone else think its weird they include Nortenos but not Surenos/MS?
Some nice fear mongering going on here in media. Must be real-estate/redevelopment time.
Does it count as mongering if people are actually getting killed?
come hang out in the mission tonight and see how safe it is. i mean the "real mission" not the bars on valencia. i've had countless friends robbed/jumped/guns pulled/stabbed. not to mention the near constant gang grafiti.
I live in the "blue area" on that map, and spend a good deal of time - hang if you will, both day and night - in both other "highlighted" areas. In westadd the number of individuals (dealers) upsetting the community count in the tens, not the five hundreds as said on TV. I'm well aware that the gang problem in the mission is bigger/more complex and overt, but if you're not on either side of the yay supply chain it's unlikely you'll come across westadd "gangs". In the end, this is a city, not a gated community.
Removing freedoms and boxing people in is not addressing the problem. It does however stir up alot of emotion and "outcry" among the untouched masses.
It does seems to be the norm for policy these days, though.
Not to claim the gangs aren't real down in the Mission, as anyone with a gun can really kill you, but I lived for two years in the Lower Mission and walked around day and night and never had a single issue personally (though in that time 3-4 people where killed and maybe a 1/2 dozen shot within a few blocks) . Not that it was a nice area to live but it really is like two parallel worlds. You see the gang members (who are mostly teens) and they see you but there is no interaction at all. Where I was they seemed to be mostly selling fake IDs and drugs
And I know local people and grow up here. I know two people personally from when they were kids who were killed in P. Hill in gang killings in the last few years and that is an area I would never live near and I would fear
But to be clear I support this policy because I think it has been shown that many of these gang people are not from the neighborhood. Many Nortenos live in Daly city and South City. Some of the HP gangsters that were held to an injunction lived as far away as Solono Co. and drove in to sell drugs. Almost none of them lived in the City
Forgive me, but the declarations about the innocent who should be protected rings a bit hollow. When shootings are down or restriced to the areas of the city you don't venture - where's the outrage? Where's the concern then? But when it encroaches and pierces the bubble you live in, the cloister of your blissful daily routine in which the consequences of our fiscal priorities aren't so exaggerately displayed in the form of a murder near your high priced apartment, then its OMG! I'm scared! Do what it takes, return me to my previous state. The bullets of your bad faith injure as well. But its not your fault. Personally. We all get the city we deserve.
Besides, it seems to my libertarian eyes that the government is really just testing out legal limits. If cameras and injunctions can work on this portion of the population, how long until they can designate another portion as deserving of the same treatment with the precedent they've newly established?
But hey. I live in a state that spends more on prisons than schools. But its cool, whatever, we have a shitload of millionaires.