City may seek court ban on gang activity

Costa Mesa officials might pursue a court injunction against gangs to crack down on crime after veering away from a prevention program that was part of a larger gang-elimination effort.

The city has boosted efforts to root out gangs after several shootings and other violent crimes last year that police believe are gang-related. One strategy was a multi-faceted program aiming to eliminate gangs from the city in five years.

The council voted to fund the $303,500 program in this year’s budget, and council members in December approved a contract with a full-time probation officer to help monitor and reduce gang activity.

But on Tuesday the council dismissed another part of the program, a $65,000 grant for gang-prevention services, and Councilwoman Wendy Leece asked for information on more enforcement options such as a gang injunction or penalties for landlords who rent to gang members and their families.

Leece said Wednesday that the council wasn’t given any evidence that the prevention grant, which was to be awarded to the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, would do anything to deter gangs.

“I don’t feel that we want to chip in $65,000 unless it truly is a proven strategy,” she said.

Gang injunctions, which have been used in Santa Ana and Anaheim, appear to have a good track record. Granted by a judge, an injunction names known gang members and bars them from certain activities — such as wearing gang clothes or hanging out with other gang members — in a particular geographic area.

An injunction in Santa Ana, put in place in July 2006, reduced crime in the area by 46% in a four-month period, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

“For us the statistics are numbers and bars on a graph, but for the people who live there it’s changing their lives,” district attorney’s spokeswoman Susan Kang Schroeder said.

The district attorney is looking at requesting gang injunctions in other cities, Schroeder said, but she declined to say where.

Costa Mesa City Manager Allan Roeder said he’ll research a range of programs such as gang injunctions, but he’s not sure how soon he’ll bring the information back to the council.

The prevention grant likely isn’t dead. Councilwoman Katrina Foley, who spearheaded the gang elimination program, said Wednesday she’ll gather more information and bring the grant proposal back to the council.

She was on vacation Tuesday and didn’t attend the meeting.

It’s not clear whether the school district would seek the grant again, although district officials do want to increase their gang prevention efforts.

Council members on Tuesday were skeptical that the district has been effective stopping gangs. “The school district has been doing this for 12 years, and we still have a severe problem,” Councilman Eric Bever said.

Jane Garland, school district director of Project ASK, a federally funded program to help at-risk students, disputed Bever’s comment.

“We also have a gang task force that’s been active in the Costa Mesa Police Department and we haven’t eliminated gangs,” Garland said. “Do we know we haven’t stopped the gang problem from growing?”

She said the police have done a good job going after existing gangs, but “that’s just a reactive measure, and in order to really change the dynamics we have to be proactive, and the only way to do that is through the school system and noticing which kids have gang clothing and gang attitudes.”

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