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Injunction names Western Addition, Mission gangs
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Related Topics: SAN FRANCISCO
SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - The city attorney Thursday sought court orders against members of four local street gangs in the Mission and Western Addition neighborhoods, after a similar move in November reportedly curtailed violence in a section of the Bayview district.
After filing a lawsuit in Superior Court, Dennis Herrera announced in a news conference that he is seeking civil injunctions against the Norteños in a roughly 60-square-block section of the Mission district, and the Eddy Rock gang and rivals Knock Out Posse and Chopper City in two six-block sections of the Western Addition.
The Mission has seen two fatal shootings and a stabbing in recent days, and the Western Addition was the scene of two separate shootings last week that injured six teenagers and one adult.
Herrera, who has authority over nuisance abatement as well as civil litigation on behalf of San Francisco, sued for an injunction against the notorious Oakdale Mob in the Bayview district last fall. He said Thursday that after the injunction went into effect, calls to police in the four-block “safety zone” affected by the injunction had been reduced by about 75 percent.
The new safety zones are bigger than that in Oakdale. In addition, many more members of the gangs live within the safety zones than do in the Oakdale zone. The injunction makes activities such as associating, loitering during certain hours and flashing hand signs — including the “OK” and “thumbs up” signs — criminal misdemeanors when performed by named gang members.
Western Addition resident and African American Community Police Relations Board member Daniel Landry said Thursday that his organization and other community groups had not been asked for input on the injunction effort. “I don’t think the homework has been done,” Landry said. “There’s a big gap between City Hall, the police and the grass roots of the area.”
Herrera countered that the injunction had been written with input from community members. His spokesman Matt Dorsey said the office maintains “ongoing contact with citizens and community groups citywide.” He said, “The outcry for a stepped-up response to gang-related problems has been deafening.”
The Oakdale Mob injunction last year sparked opposition from civil liberties groups, who said the prohibitions were too broad.
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, whose district includes the Western Addition, said he supports the injunction as a “strategy that helps get to the root cause of violence.” But he cautioned, “I don’t want injunctive relief simply to be a tool for the eradication of a population.”
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Examiner Reader said:
???I can't get the story I want to show up. I hit "Show more about this story" and get just a map of the city. Also, the blue print may be classy but it's also almost (and often completely) unreadable against the black ground.
1 agree | 1 disagree
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examiner reader said:
Mr. Adachi, While I agree the injunction may need an easier opt out policy I dont think many here agree gang members should be able to jump the line for city dervices. They are on the list because of a pattern of crimes and their known association with gangs. Its a life the gang memebers choose to be in. They commit stong arm robberies, homocide, drug dealing and other serius felonies every day in San Francisco. I dont imagine their going to "leave" a gang to get free medical care do you? Carl G.
80 agree | 78 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
exactly right!
81 agree | 73 disagree
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rent-free housing for hoodlums?!?!!?? said:
what a great idea! so if i understand this well, the single mom who got pregnant by the age of 16 by this 30 year old thug whom she thought was so tough with his tattoos and the way he bosses around 15 year old kids... now, she has to wait for social services in line just like everyone else, only to see the gangbanger with his red rags, NSR, XIV tats cut the line and get all the services he wants... all this to prove to his PO that he is a person who has turned his life around... that sounds very San Franciscan as a policy, kind of like the City paying for some people to have some parts of their body changed because they have some sort of gender identity disorder.. well, the northsiders have a turf identity disorder, so they must be helped! yeahhhhhhhh!!!
109 agree | 76 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
May I please tell our beloved Mr. Adachi to please Shut the HECK UP??? He needs to be taken down a notch...this is nonsense...a kid who works hard and tries to do the right thing gets sent to the back of the line while drug dealing violent thugs get the benefits and the special treatment....Adachi's an idiot and even the BoS is not stupid enough to go along with this crapola!
109 agree | 64 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Adachi is dumber than he looks!! Just what we need new legislation from Adachi that gives gang members priority for city services over law abiding citizens of SF. Another big step for organized crime in the city by the bay!!
107 agree | 73 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
LOL I love this...I am beyond wondering why anymore. This takes the cake! Yeah Ross, how about letting them "opt out" of a lifestyle that includes carrying concealed weapons, dealing and using drugs, treating women like animals and oh yes did I mention attempting to kill their competition? Does anyone know if it is possible to recall the Public Defender, this truly is beyond reality...how about this, in lieu of providing housing for them how about a nice warm jail cell for say 15-20 years until they are old men.
109 agree | 74 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Outrageous! Yet more posturing by Adachi, who defends the rights of these savages to terrorize both their own neighbors and other residents of the city. These animals don't deserve services - they deserve incarceration. So sick of the posturing by self-styled "progressives" in this city, who line their own pockets and those of their poverty pimp friends while the rest of us must endure diminished services, streets riddled with potholes, a public transportation system that's a joke and hordes of drunks/drug addicts who have been given license to street the city as their collective saloon/toilet/shooting gallery.
104 agree | 77 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
All I can say, is OMG this town is run by idiots. Jeff Adachi needs to be run out of town on a rail.
120 agree | 69 disagree
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NOPA Jeff said:
Ross Mirkarimi wants an easy "opt out" process for the gangbangers killing people in his district? Excuse me, but the last thing a truly reformed gangster would care about is an injunction that bans him from selling crack, carrying guns and spaypainting graffiti. Now Ross and Adachi want to give criminals free housing and jobs?! GREAT! When are these guys up for reelection?
122 agree | 73 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
And here I thought Adachi was a voice of reason in SF Government. Looks like he's as good at his job as Kamala Harris is. Herrera is doing the best he can given the city government's pro-criminal leanings. I agree with you totally, "worried;" I moved into the city right about the same time, but my resolution this new year is to move out of the city and the bay area. Anyone who thinks San Francisco is a really cool place... hasn't been here very long!
119 agree | 62 disagree
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Worried About SF's Future said:
The "race card" will always be played by people who make the inconvenient observation that 90% of violent crime in SF is committed by people of color. This is why prosecutions are so low, because it is politically incorrect to send so many black and brown people to prison from a city that embraces "diversity". There just aren't enough whites or Asians arrested to counter the negative imagery of blacks and Hispanics getting into trouble with the law. Ever have jury duty? All the people you see at the Hall of Justice wearing orange are black or Hispanic. It's not that the cops or DA are overlooking criminal activity by whites or Asians, it's just rare that it happens. I don't know a single white person (friend, family or coworker) that has ever been to prison. The truth is out there but people continue to blame racism and poverty for the problem. Moral poverty yes, but not economic poverty. People commit crimes because they know they can get away with them.
179 agree | 155 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
I grew up in San Francisco and lived a great portion of my life in Southern California. Any person who opposes a gang injunction is sending out an invitation for the city to incur the same gang problems that plague most cities in the Los Angeles area.
178 agree | 171 disagree
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Worried About SF's Future said:
I came here from Milwaukee in 1988. I loved what I thought was SF's bohemian lifestyle among the hip and cool. But, over the years, crime has gotten crazy and affected many people close to me. A coworker was raped in her apartment, and it was by a black guy. Two friends were at a club south of Market and got robbed at gunpoint- by two black guys. Another coworker had his laptop stolen while he was at Starbuck's- by a black guy. When my mom came out for a visit, someone tried to enter my apartment and identified himself as a cop to my mom. She knew better, asked for his ID, and he almost broke the door down. He was Latino and apparently had done this before in Redwood City. When the cop came to take a report, I could hear on his radio that other crimes had just occurred and the suspect's descriptions were being put out. So help me, every suspect was black male this and black male that. I am stunned by the level of crime committed by a fraction of the populace. I fear for SF.
194 agree | 186 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
That the City Attorney continues to cite that gang violence has gone down in Hunter's Point is laughable at-best, and especially that it is a result of the gang injunction. If violence has gone down due to the injunction, I challenge the city attorney to show the proof that he says he has. I have been waiting to see these so-called independent studies. Let's talk about real solutions to real problems, not hyped-up violence prevention strategies that just racial profile communities of color.
200 agree | 173 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
I believe the injunction that the city attorney wants to place on the mission will hurt the culture of the mission. People that are not from gangs will be easily confused and will be harassed by the police. It will give the police more power to abuse their power. I think the city attorney has alterior motives for creating these plans. If this injunction is enforced it not going to do too much because that is such a large area. People are going to continue doing what they do. If anything, the Tenderlion needs more focus than the mission. Living in the Tenderlion is living in anarchy.
182 agree | 154 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Besides the gangs mentioned in the article there others gangs in the Mission areas which make the streets unsafe.
163 agree | 174 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
I've seen the slightly step-up patrols in the Western Addition. There would be 2 or 3 of them standing around ousting out a homeless person, yet when the youths are hanging out across the street from each other, the cops don't get out of their cars. Thank you Supervisor Daly for not automatically giving the SFPD a 23% pay hike. $70,000 a year for a patrol officer is more than plenty; they don't need to be paid $105,000 per year.
191 agree | 173 disagree
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