Series: Gangs: Behind The Headlines: Part 2 of 5

CRIME: THE LAW CRACKS DOWN

A youth walking home from school last May is accosted by several juvenile
males who hold a gun to his head and make threats before letting him go.

- - Police arrest six juvenile males ages 14-17 found lurking in an alley
near an alternative high school this month. One boy is found in possession
of a Tec .22 caliber, semi-automatic weapon. Others are armed with knifes.

- - Five teens between ages of 13 and 16 are arrested in August for
assaulting a drive and stealing his car at gunpoint.

These incidents did not occur in Los Angeles or even Santa Barbara. The
first took place near Oceano Elementary School in Oceano. The latter took
place here in Santa Maria.

Wherever there are gangs, violence and crime also leave their marks on the
community. Including here on the Central Coast.

Gangs are typically defined by law enforcement officials as "a group of two
or more who come together as a group who have a common name, common symbol
and who engage in criminal behavior."

"A gang cannot exist without criminal activity," explains Lompoc police
Detective Allen Chisholm, liaison to Santa Barbara County's informal gang
enforcement task force.

Gang Presence Increasing In Rural Areas

A report released in April 2001 by the U.S. Justice Department indicates
gang activity has increased significantly nationwide since 1970. As of
1995, gang problems had been reported in all 50 states and the District of
Columbia, including 7,000 counties and 1,500 cities and towns.

For the past 25 years, California has led all states in the number of
identified gang cities, with 300 communities reporting gangs as of 1998.

Gangs are no longer a problem confined to urban corridors such as the Bay
Area or Southern California. Their presence has expanded more rapidly in
rural areas. California is second to Texas in the number of counties
reporting gang problems, with 42 including Santa Barbara County.

Eight street gangs have been identified in the Santa Maria Valley's court
system, according to Cpl. Craig Ritz, head of the SMPD Gang Task Force.
Three are known to be active.

Lompoc and Santa Barbara County law enforcement officials acknowledge the
presence of gangs and related criminal activity on the central coast, but
say any minimal increase over the last decades been part of nationwide trend.

And much of that activity appears to be transitory. During the year 2000,
the most recent data compiled, Lompoc police reported making 144
gang-related arrests and contacting people associated in one way or another
with 32 different gangs. However, only about three of those are considered
to be established, long-term Lompoc gangs.

In San Luis Obispo County, seven gangs have been identified. Two are active
in the south county, according to Barney Foster of the Sheriff's
Department's gang unit task force.

A Legacy Of Violence

During the same years accounted for in the Justice Department's report, the
Central Coast has seen a spike in gang-related crimes, followed by a drop
in some communities.

In 1979, Santa Maria was rocked by the "Peppertree Plaza Shoot-out," when a
group of Guadalupe gang members opened fire from a caravan of low-rider
cars on a crowd of Santa Maria youths. Robert Lee Miranda, 17, was struck
in the chest several times by the hail of bullets. He died less than an
hour after the shooting. Five others were seriously injured.

A spate of violence between Guadalupe and Santa Maria gangs also visited
both communities in the mid-1990s. On July 14, 1996, 19-year-old Alfonso
Reyes of Guadalupe was killed in Waller Park at a birthday party. The stray
bullet that struck Reyes was fired by then 21-year-old Philip Bagood of
Santa Maria. Bagood and Richard Aceves, then 19, came to a park in a
three-car caravan allegedly looking for revenge after Aceves' car was
dented, reportedly by someone from Guadalupe.

After sentencing Bagood to 18 years to life for second-degree murder, Santa
Maria Superior Court Judge James Jennings decried the violent street turn
wars between Santa Maria and Guadalupe gangs had created.

"No more funerals, no more sending people away for life," Jennings urged.

The violence didn't end there, however.

In January 1997, admitted Santa Maria gang member Anibal Fores, then 20,
shot two Guadalupe gang members outside the Department of Motor Vehicles in
Santa Maria with a semi-automatic handgun.

Flores was later sentenced to 22 years in state prison for attempted
murder. One of his victims, Jose Otoniel Hernandez of Guadalupe, was later
involved in an attempted drive-by shooting in August 1997 observed by the
Santa Maria Police Department gang unit task force at the intersection of
North Broadway and Rose Street. No one was hit in the shooting.

Over the past year, Lompoc has seen several violent crimes with possible
gang connections. In July, police received multiple reports of suspected
gang-related activities: a robbery, an assault with a deadly weapon, and an
incident that included one person brandishing a deadly weapon.

Police have also indicated gangs may have been involved with the drive-by
shooting of a 14-year-old Lompoc boy on July 23 in the 300 block of North K
Street. The boy was treated and released from Lompoc Hospital.

Law Enforcement Cracks Down With Results

After the violent episodes of the mid-1990s, the Santa Maria Police
Department made a dent in the crime wave by cracking down. Much of the
effectiveness comes from being proactive before crimes occur. During
searches, the department's Gang Suppression Task Force collects information
on anything gang related, including photos of gang members with tattoos,
those wearing gang-style clothing, flashing hand signs and articles such as
etchings with street names and tagging, hats and clothing with embroidered
names.

Confiscating clothing helps stop gang violence before it starts, since gang
attire can often spark fights in public places, according to law enforcement.

On Feb. 8, quick action by the Santa Maria Police Department averted a
possible gang-related shooting at Fitzgerald alternative high school on
Farnell Road. Earlier in the week, police heard about a fight between teens
from Guadalupe and Santa Maria in the 1100 block of West Boone Street.
Officers kept their ears to the ground.

When a teacher at Fitzgerald notified school resource Officer Dan Begg, he
called for backup. Begg and another officer arrested five juveniles. One
was armed with a semiautomatic weapon. Others had knives.

Santa Maria's five school resource officers are "always prepared" for such
incidents," Sgt. Chris Vaughn told the Times.

Arroyo Grande High School in south San Luis Obispo County also adopted a
"zero tolerance" policy toward gang attire in the later 1990s. That, and
strict enforcement by school administrators, has helped turn the tide of
gang problems at the school, according to Officer Joseph Ianneo of the
Arroyo Grande Police Department.

"We see it, and we send them home to change and confiscate it," he said.

In recent years, police and sheriff's departments have taken an aggressive
role in heading off gang problems before they can lead to crime. In 1997,
police chiefs in Santa Barbara County came together to create the Santa
Barbara County Gang Strategy, a uniform set of criteria intended to define
a gang member and combat gang activities.

"What prompted it was the fact that there was clear crimes being committed
by gang members and there was a need for identifying who those gang members
that were committing those crimes and that we needed to recognize that
there had to be a uniform method of identifying them," explained Lompoc
police Chief William F. Brown Jr.

In early September, the Lompoc Police Department and members of the task
force conducted a gang sweep based on investigation into last summer's
incidents. That sweep led to five arrests and the confiscation of 500
rounds of .22 caliber bullets and several weapons including two .22 caliber
riffles.

"We hope the sweep will reduce the number of gang-related crimes and
violence," said Lompoc police Sgt. Joe Bailey after the sweep was concluded.

The Paradox Of Three Strikes

One of the most potent tools given to California law enforcement officials
in their battle against gangs in the 1990s was Proposition 184, or the
"Three Strikes Law."

Passed by voters in 1994, Proposition 184 sent criminals who had committed
three felonies to prison for life. It proved to be the blow that put some
of the Central Coast's long-time gangsters behind bars.

"Three Strikes is helping us get some of the career criminals off the
streets. I've had gang members look me in the face and say 'you broke our
back.'" said Foster.

While civil libertarians have called Three Strikes draconian, law
enforcement officers like Foster say it has made the difference in
decreasing gang-related violence and crime in local communities.

"The general public needs to understand that 10 percent of the people
commit 90 percent of the crimes. Hard crimes have decreased as we've locked
up major criminals," he said.

With gang leaders being locked up for felonies, many have become more
cautious in their activities, hoping to avoid life sentences. That means
gangs must look for others to carry out criminal activities. In recent
years, that often means juveniles.

"Younger kids are committing more serious offenses. The difference between
12-year-olds in the 1970s and 12-year-olds now is night and day," Foster
said. "Now they are committing the gambit."

That includes assaults with deadly weapons, drug activities and drug
trafficking, he said. The latter is part of another disturbing trend local
gangs pose for law enforcement.

The Drug Trade And Gangs

Since the 1920s, when Sicilian and Irish mobsters fought in the streets of
Chicago and New York over "bootleg" liquor, controlled substances have been
part of the criminal activities of gangs.

As gangs have expanded from urban to suburban and more rural areas over the
past 30 years, so has their association with the drug trade.

"Ten, 12 years ago they started to realize that they could spread their
operations out and they've literally gone across the country," said Brown,
Lompoc police chief. "You had L.A.-based gangs selling drugs in Minneapolis
and Spokane, Washington."

Here on the Central Coast, law enforcement officials acknowledge gangs are
involved in the drug trade.

"There's a lot of cases where we've seen gang members transporting or
selling narcotics," said Lt. Jim Dollar of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff
Department's Problem-Oriented Policing Unit. "What we are not seeing is a
real organized gang selling narcotics in the county areas. There is no gang
that controls the drug trade in any area."

The most potent challenge law enforcement faces in terms of gangs and the
drug trade is methamphetamines, officials said.

"One of the biggest problems we are seeing is with met," said Lt. Larry
Davis of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's department south sub station.
"It blossomed from nothing into trafficking, use and manufacturing in the
last 10-15 years."

When addicts commit crimes under the influence of meth, they are often more
dangerous to law enforcement and bystanders since the drug makes them more
aggressive, Davis said.

The drug trade can also prompt gang violence. "There is a connection
between robberies and gangs, and drugs and gangs, and sometimes both," said
Ed Miller, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Santa Maria field
office. He points out the 1997 robbery of the Vandenberg Federal Credit
Union involved drugs.

In that case, the four robbers included a Lompoc-based associate and three
members of a Los Angeles gang drawn to the area because they could get four
times as much for their drugs, according to authorities. Gregory Mitchell,
who shot and killed a Lompoc woman during the heist, used to "mule" the
drugs from L.A. to Lompoc, authorities note.

Last year's passage of Proposition 36, which decriminalizes drug use and
gives those arrested on first time use charges the option of being sent to
rehabilitation rather than jail also has law enforcement officials worried.
Some believe it may make it more difficult to track gang member's
involvement in the drug trade.

"I don't have a problem with rehab. I have a problem with rehab that takes
the teeth out of law enforcement," said Foster. "Now you go to a diversion
program and activity is decriminalized. We need to have some sort of way to
contact the person and determine if they are still in sales or distribution."

Under the old system, law enforcement had more ability to check whether
there were gang associations with drug use, and it that use also involved
trafficking. Under Proposition 36, that's more difficult.

"Some people only see (drugs) as a social problem," said Foster. "They only
see the Robert Downey Jrs of the world. But some people turn to crime as a
way to pay for drugs. People have a problem understanding the drug dealer
and the drug trade. Most hard-core users are not open to treatment."

Tomorrow: The Culture

[Sidebar:

Gang Recruitment Techniques

The needs and/or purpose of a gang as well as the particular situation
determines the methods/techniques that will be used to recruit new members
into the gang. The following categories of gang recruitment are fairly
common, but the sophistication of the gang will certainly dictate how
sophisticated the recruitment techniques will be implemented.

Seduction:

For a long time gangs have used this technique to recruit new members. They
create glorified myths about the gang that are very attractive to young
recruits, and very often these myths become the foundation for young
aspirations. The most powerful of these trappings, however, are the promise
of money, sex, and glamour. The symbols of the gang (the graffiti, hand
signs, colors, tattoos, etc.) create a visual attraction for young people,
they realize that with these symbols they are part of something organized
and powerful. Parties are also very useful ways for recruiters to seduce
young people into the gang. At the party they have fun, get high, and
believe the rhetoric they are bombarded with.

Subterfuge:

Subterfuge is a misrepresentation of what the gang really is and what it
stands for. Recruiters use lies and schemes to convince the youth that it
really isn't a gang, it's a club or it is really a group of close friends
that have to protect themselves against a powerful enemy. Another tact
taken by recruiters is to identify latchkey and other kids who may not have
a good family life and convince them that they aren't loved and that the
club is there for them, the "club" will love them.

Obligation:

Often gang members will do a favor or make a loan of something to a
prospective recmit and demand that they give loyalty as payback. Often,
these favors come in the form of protection. Girls are sometimes used to
promote that sense of obligation.

Cohersion:

Forced recruitment is an age old technique, used most often by large gangs
in chronic gang cities. This technique is used most often during times of
gang conflict, or when there is a need to generate dues money. Cohersion is
usually accomplished by threats, but physical beatings are used as well.
There have been many deaths as a result of individuals refusing to join the
gang. Cohersion can mean that a family member is threatened as well.

Self Recruitment:

For many reasons, youth will make contact with gang members and ask to join
the gang. The reasons are many and not always because the individual sees
the gang as glamorous. The reason may be one of necessity, money,
protection etc.. The reasons may be a combination of all of the trappings
mentioned above. The range of reasons for a youth to join a gang is very
wide and does not always mean that he has joined the gang openheartedly.

All of the recruitment strategies listed above can be elaborated on.
Training is available to communities that can provide valuable information
about gang recruitment and what can be done about it.