Saturday, August 22, 2009

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY MEXICAN GANG PROBLEM

Santa Cruz County gang problem goes beyond violence to robberies, neighborhood fear
By Jennifer Squires
Santa Cruz Sentinel
Posted: 06/26/2009 09:30:16 AM PDT
Updated: 06/26/2009 12:36:22 PM PDT
WATSONVILLE — Late one Friday night this spring, someone drops off a bleeding 16-year-old at the emergency room. The teen, who has gang tattoos on his chest and hands, has been stabbed repeatedly.
Watsonville police Sgt. Eddie Santana knows the boy. Four years ago, the kid's mom was worried her son was running with the bad kids in the neighborhood, so she brought him to Santana in hopes the cop could talk some sense into him. The boy walked out of the police station without talking, Santana recalls.
Now the teen is a bona fide gang member lying on a gurney at Watsonville Community Hospital and, once again, he won't talk to Santana or other police.
"They wanted that kid dead. They wanted him gone," Santana whispers as he looks at the gaping, bloody wounds under the boy's right arm.
An officer takes photos of the wounds so that if, by chance, a case develops, they will have the evidence. But the boy won't even tell police where he was attacked. ER staffers deduced he'd been at the beach because sand spilled out of his shoes when nurses removed them.
Chances of arresting the person who stabbed the teen are obviously slim.
"He's being very protective," Santana says. "That makes me think it's one of his own kind" who attacked him.
The boy is from Clifford Avenue, a neighborhood Santana says is hard to grow up in without joining a gang. An apartment complex there is a known Norteno stronghold, and within a few blocks two other gangs claim territory. Often, they fight each other in the street.
The stabbed gang member was flown to a trauma center in San Jose and will recover. But four other young men have died in gang clashes in Santa Cruz and Watsonville since January, accounting for all but one of the homicides in Santa Cruz County this year.
Combatting violence
Two waves of gang violence have washed over the county this year — one in January that left three young men dead and several others injured — and an outbreak of shootings and stabbings earlier this month that has injured more than a half-dozen suspected gangsters, the youngest of whom was 15.
Police attribute the upsurge to a variety of things: younger gang members trying to make a name for themselves — historically weak gangs are pushing to gain more respect — the economic downturn and simple retaliation.
"I am worried about this time right now," said Watsonville Police Chief Terry Medina, whose city has seen three killings this year, all gang-related. "The measurement of how well we do is the absence of crime."
Local law enforcement leaders say they're doing what they can to combat gang crime despite budget cuts that have reduced the number of officers on the street in some departments.
This spring, Santa Cruz created a three-officer gang unit, and for the summer Watsonville police have five officers assigned to their gang team. The county, meanwhile, has refocused its drug task force into an anti-crime team that will target organized crime including gangs and drug operations. Also, the District Attorney's Office established a gang prosecution unit with attorneys who work both juvenile and adult court.
"We are returning to a united front attacking the gangs," Sheriff's Office Sgt. Roy Morales said. "We're trying."
Efforts to quell gang violence, though, actually start long before the gangsters, usually young men, rack up criminal charges, and they are wide-ranging.
Educators are trained to watch for signs of gang affiliation in students. Increasingly, those signs are being seen at the elementary school level.
A host of prevention programs, from after-school activities through community groups to anti-bullying education in schools, try to reach kids before the gangs do.
School resource officers and counselors try to intervene before students get in too deep.
"We are learning the younger we can get to kids and educate parents on how to resist gang influence, we think we'll have success," said Watsonville Lt. David McCartney. "We provide tools to kids and more importantly at that age, the parents. If we don't get them before they get into the gang lifestyle, it's almost too late."
Gangs are a draw to many because kids want to belong to something and think gangs are cool, perhaps because older relatives are involved. Those involved in prevention and intervention efforts — locally, the largest organization operates about a dozen programs in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District — say kids just need positive activities, goals and role models to stay out of trouble.
At the same time, residents are banding together to do what they can to push gangs out of their neighborhoods.
In Watsonville, outreach to residents has led to earlier 911 calls, with neighbors alerting police when they see gang members gathering rather than waiting until violence erupts.
On the other side of the county, Santa Cruz Neighbors has been teaching residents about graffiti and other signs of gangs.
Public at risk
The county is not gripped by daily gang violence, though Medina acknowledged the perception that in Watsonville "every kid's a gangster and there's a gunfight on every corner."
Generally, the violence is limited to gang-on-gang, but with the upsurge in shootings the public is more at risk, police admit.
"Bullets don't discriminate and typically they're not stopped by walls and windows and trees," Watsonville police gang expert Eric Taylor said. "With this increase in the use of firearms, especially in the middle of the day or the middle of an intersection ... you could have some unintended targets."
Last year, an innocent Watsonville man was shot in the jaw when gang members going after someone else sprayed his Maple Street home with bullets.
Sometimes people are victimized by gang members because they are perceived to be gangsters. Migrant farmworkers in South County are sometimes targeted by Nortenos because they inadvertently dress or wear their hair like Surenos.
In 2004, two cousins were shot and one died when a gang member challenged them in the field at Watsonville's Rolling Hills Middle School. Neither victim was a gang member, but one was wearing a blue belt. The man later convicted of killing him claimed red.
People who interfere with gang crimes also are at risk. In March, a man on McKenzie Court in Watsonville tried to stop a group of teens burglarizing his mother's car and was assaulted.
Robberies on rise
Police say gang members are committing more robberies and burglaries, like armed gas station holdups.
Their motive "is really everything," Taylor said. "One of the main things is to benefit the reputation of their own gang."
Some are simply trying to get the cash needed to pay the "taxes" gang members owe their organization. Nortenos, especially, must regularly contribute money. The cash is used to buy weapons or, if a gang member is incarcerated, help his family pay legal fees or provide him with money to use at the jail commissary.
In 2004, three Watsonville gang members murdered a father of three during a botched robbery on Spruce Street in Santa Cruz for just that reason.
Anthony Gonzales, Francisco Valenciano and Juan Soto had come to Santa Cruz on a Sunday morning that July to commit a robbery to pay their gang taxes, according to court testimony. The three contemplated robbing a downtown liquor store, but moved on to a poker game in an apartment complex parking lot when they couldn't find parking at the store.
They shot and killed 29-year-old Salvadoran immigrant Rodolfo Escobar over $20. All three men were convicted and are serving life in prison.
The armed robberies net cash, but also stoke fear. That's one of the big differences between gang activity and other crimes.
"Gang crime intimidates the neighborhoods more," said Morales, of the Sheriff's Office. "Everyone's scared."
Sgt. Mario Sulay agreed: "Gangs will commit crimes that the individual won't," like random drive-by shootings or assaulting a person on a street corner.
Closing cases
Making arrests in gang crimes and taking cases to trial is a challenge.
Gang members, even those on the losing end of a fight, typically won't cooperate with police — they'd rather sort out their differences on the street — so investigators turn to the public to report crimes and act as witnesses.
Though people now seem more likely to call 911 and report suspicious circumstances, they remain afraid of testifying against gang members for fear of retaliation, authorities admit.
Assistant District Attorney Charlie Baum, a member of the district attorney's gang prosecution team, said some of his witnesses have been intimidated by gangsters in subtle, unnerving ways. In one case, a police report with a witness statement was left on the witness' porch. In another, three gang members sat in a parked car in front of a witness' home.
Police hope ongoing community outreach will help people feel more secure and increase public cooperation with investigations. Most police departments in the region, including Watsonville and Santa Cruz, have anonymous phone numbers to report crime.
In Watsonville, a police-organized community outreach group hits neighborhoods after violent incidents. The Post Incident Team, or PIT, sends volunteers, city leaders and police officers door-to-door to talk to residents, inform them about resources such as the neighborhood watch programs and counseling, and to encourage them to report trouble. Medina said the visits show residents the department cares. And sometimes the effort generates new information about a case.
Mel "Cowboy" Sornberger, who works for the county Probation Department as a school resource officer, volunteers with PIT. Last week, he was among a dozen volunteers who knocked on doors along Sunny Hills Drive, close to Herman Avenue, where an 18-year-old police believe to be in a gang had been shot.
"Families in crisis feel very alone," Sornberger said. "They're afraid to reach out. Our continuing effort is to reach in."
GANG IDENTIFIERS
Law enforcement officers define active participation in a street gang through the following criteria:
Hanging out in a known gang area.
Spending time with other gang members.
Wearing clothing or colors affiliated with a gang or having gang tattoos.
Committing certain types of crimes.
FIELD ID CARDS
Police use 'FI cards' to report a person's suspected gang involvement. The cards are filled out when an officer speaks with a suspected gang member, even if that person is not arrested. Later, the information is submitted to a countywide database to which local police agencies share access. Some of the details noted on the cards are:
If the person admitted to being in a criminal street gang.
If the person has been arrested with a known gang member for offenses usually linked to gang crime, like fighting or assault.
If gang symbols or hand signs were seen.
If the person has gang tattoos.

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