Orange County’s top attorney dismissed all active gang bans Tuesday, making it the latest California jurisdiction to get rid of controversial court orders in recent years.
district. Atti. Todd Spitzer said the decision comes after the 2022 General Assembly bill significantly narrowed the legal definition that constitutes a California gang or gang activity. The ban against 13 gangs was rejected, affecting 317 people including Santa Ana, Anaheim, Fullerton, San Clemente, Garden Grove, Placenta, San Juan Capistrano and Orange. Spitzer said some bans have come into effect since 2006.
“After multiple reviews and years of proactively removing individuals from these bans, we are now satisfied that these 13 gang bans have met their intentions and are now seeking to dissolve,” Spitzer said in a statement. “Gang bans are not intended to be permanent; they are designed and implemented to correct criminal acts.”
A gang ban is an order of a civil court that prohibits suspected gang members from wearing certain clothing or interacting with other suspected members in communities considered gang territory.
Their purpose is to curb a gang's ability to rule through public places. A person does not have to be convicted of a crime, and violating an order can prompt a temp to file a crime in a criminal court.
Spitzer described the move as “proactive,” but the district attorney’s decision came after increasing legal pressure on the Center for Peace and Justice Law, which sent a letter in March that the continued use of the ban violated California’s racial justice law and the 2022 General Assembly Act mentioned in his press release.
Sean Garcia-Leys, executive director of the center, said the bans were racially biased because although Orange County is home to many white supremacist gangs, they targeted so-called Latino criminal groups that have never been subject to any ban.
“Gang bans turn daily activities into crimes for a generation. They are based on race profiles, deliberately used to bypass due process, and for these reasons, almost all other counties in California have been abandoned.”
“The Trump administration has armed such racist gangs with weapons to undermine due process across the country,” he said. “More than ever, we make sure all communities in Orange County are treated the same as the law.transparent
A spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office did not immediately answer other questions from the New York Times. Spitzer said his office could make new injunctions based on the legal definition of California law if needed.
The relics of California's efforts to surge in gang crime in the 1990s have been repeatedly challenged as civil rights groups are too broad and harsh, especially as gang violence plummeted sharply over the past few decades.
The 2020 court settlement effectively bans Los Angeles from enforcing 46 different bans against thousands of people. In the years leading up to this, a city audit showed more than 7,000 people were banned.
Over the past decade, officials in Long Beach, San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego have announced reviews of their ban plans or have stopped enforcing them altogether under legal threats.
Garcia-Leys said it was nearly impossible for people to evacuate from the forefront ban volumes. Atti. Tony Rackauckas. However, Spitzer conducted a review process, resulting in at least 200 people being released from court orders in recent years.
Garcia-Leys said the ban often leads to ridiculous restrictions. He said one of his clients was arrested by Fullerton police for taking out trash after 10 p.m., violating a curfew element of a ban.
Another was charged with violating a court order to participate in a family position with his brother-in-law because both men were subjected to injunctions related to the same gang and were unable to gather in public.
In Los Angeles, some bans prevent people from wearing Dodge merchandise in Echo Park in the neighborhood where Dodge Field is located, because baseball team jerseys are considered gang utensils.
“Growing up without a good example in a community with gang bans, I made a mistake,” Omar Montes, one of the Orange County bans, said in a statement. “However, the system did not help me, but instead imposed a gang ban.
“It's a humiliation to enforce the ban,” he said. “It makes me feel silent, less than human. I'm often harassed by police.”
