L.A. to Gang Members: Don't Even Whistle

For those on the front lines, the teamwork will be a boon, as parole officers, for example, can make apartment searches that would be illegal for police to conduct. "It'll make a real difference to us," says Sergeant Horton in his office, where a bulletin-board collage of photos shows young men posed and proud in gang colors and then again, blank-eyed and bloody, after their murders.

But there is sharp disagreement about the success and legality of injunctions, and some would say this latest one is like treating a dandelion problem with Agent Orange - extreme and potentially dangerous. A chief objection is the practice of naming everyone in a gang that police suspect, even inactive members and nonleaders.

"If you adopt a principle to punish people not because of what they've done but because they belong to some group, you've opened a very dangerous door to eroding the civil liberties of all people," explains Edward Chen of the American Civil Liberties Union of northern California. "Today it might be gang members, tomorrow it might be antichoice activists. It's a very difficult principle to start punishing guilt by association."

The ACLU has also attacked claims that injunctions work. A three-year ACLU study of an injunction on the 18th Street gang in the nearby San Fernando Valley showed that reports of violent crime actually increased. The California court declared injunctions permissible, saying their abridgement of First Amendment rights is acceptable to protect public safety. This report, the ACLU says, demonstrates the weakness of that argument.

"The report isn't worth the paper it's printed on," retorts Martin Vranicar, assistant city attorney. The higher incidence of 911 calls from this neighborhood after the injunction are signs of success, he says. Before then, residents were afraid to report crime for fear of reprisals from the gang, which monitors police radios.

He points out that the murder of a landlord that precipitated the injunction prompted no 911 calls at all. "Residents," says Deputy District Attorney Lisa Fox, "are terrified to report anything to police."

But there are also concerns that injunctions simply displace the illegal activities as gang members move into surrounding areas. Horton says he sees it already from a June injunction against 18th Street just south of Pico-Union.

The displacement isn't just geographic, others say. "When this kind of heat comes down, the older guys start to use girls and younger and younger kids to do their business," says Michael Borrero, a University of Connecticut professor of social work.

In the sun-baked streets of the Pico-Union district, where few people will talk to reporters, young William Johnson is chillingly matter-of-fact about the injunction and the 18th Street gang. "They'll kill you in a minute," says the black teen, who belongs to a gang of his own. "I don't know about this [injunction], what it can actually do. Guess we'll just have to see."

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