By Sharon Byrne
The Police Chief and City Hall recently reported gang violence is down. As of last week, it appears it was just in remission.
Remember the article on the tagging of the newly-opened Cacique underpass last week, and how Joel said that it signals trouble is coming?
It came all right. The map (left) shows the locations of events that occurred in the week of the bridge tagging:
Monday April 24:
1 - Westsiders vandalize Cacique underpass – newly opened gateway to the lower Eastside. Story covered only on Santa Barbara View.
Wednesday April 26: Eastsiders scrawl over it:
Sunday April 29:
2 - 9:13 PM Roger (EdHat) reports fight in 1300 block Punta Gorda – 5 males
3 – 11:00 PM Rollover accident black Infinity sedan at Punta Gorda and Canada St. Car was stolen at gunpoint from Eastside resident.
Going into Monday April 30:
4 -12:05 AM – possible shots fired, another fight at 1100 E Mason, vehicle collision. Two suspects fled to residence in 1300 block E Mason
5 – Police surround residence and arrest Ernesto Lopez and Augustine Cruz, who had been stabbed. He declined to articulate by whom. Police suspect the second crash is related to second fight on Mason.
6:00 AM – KEYT’s John Palminteri films graffiti removal crew washing gang scrawls from Cacique underpass.
(photo by wonderful neighbor and loyal SB View reader who then cleaned it off)
6 – 7:00 AM Franklin Elementary students walk by blood from fight on sidewalk 1132 E Mason.
Random violence?
Hardly. Stabbing victim Cruz is named in the gang injunction (right):
Like Cruz, Lopez is also an Eastside gang member. The Indy starts down the road of connecting the dots, reporting Monday:
…Cruz, recently bailed out of jail after a judge lowered his bond amount from $500,000 to $100,000 in a 2009 assault case. He and another suspected gang member are accused of brutally beating two men within minutes of each other…
Lopez and another man were arrested in 2008 for assault with a deadly weapon after they reportedly attacked two men in the Milpas Street Jack in the Box. He was also arrested in 2007 for trying to start a gang-related fight during that year’s Santa Barbara High School graduation.
So he’ll be back in the neighborhood by the time you read this.
Circling back to where this started, with graffiti on a brand new bridge, here’s the net:
Gang graffiti = bad.
Warring gang graffiti on same wall = really bad, trouble is coming.
A neighborhood that worked hard to get rid of gang violence is again beset. It started with scrawls, and escalated to known felons fighting, stabbings, gunfire, and crashing cars in the neighborhood. All within one week.
We do indeed have a gang problem.
Granted, we don’t have drive-by shootings, but a carjacking at gunpoint and shots fired… it’s not much of a jump to shootings from there. We certainly don’t have carte blanche to make the mistake of soft-pedaling. Gang activity is like a cancer – it spreads and grows.
Now, hold off on those EdScat-Indy screeds on immigration, parenting, schools, (insert your gripe here). Beware false-choice framing looking for a place to happen! Griping solves nothing at the street level. Besides, there are a lot of rich executives 90 minutes south of here making fortunes promoting ‘it’s hard out here for a pimp’, and similar “Bangin’ in the ‘Hood” memes to all of our children while living in gated communities and chauffeuring their kids to private schools. If you’re going to throw stones, at least land a few in that camp.
As for tools that can help, where’s that gang injunction? The Lower Eastside keeps asking that question. Advocacy groups have charged that the injunction encourages racial profiling and names people who aren’t active gang members.
So fix those cases.
But this, clearly, is not one of them.
Wherever you stand on the gang injunction, you must acknowledge the damage gang activity does to a neighborhood, its families, and its children.
No child should hear gunfire, be awakened by sirens late at night as police chase felons in the area, or walk by bloodshed on the street on their way to school.
Intervention and prevention programs for minors are worthwhile, but Lopez is 23 and Cruz is 21. After-school programs aren’t going to work for them. That’s where the injunction comes in as one tool that can help with the adult felon set.
Wanting safety is not the same thing as profiling all Latino youth, however. It’s another false-choice frame. We can all work to avoid stereotyping and profiling, but it’s a peculiar act of cruelty to deny people, in dire need, access to tools that can help provide them with a safe neighborhood.
What can we do to make our neighborhood safe? We can organize. We can partner with the police. We can watch out for each other. We can text, email, and phone each other when suspicious activities are occurring. We can call in gang graffiti and paint it over.
In short, send out a strong, unified message: there’s no tolerance on this block for gang violence.
A city that is intolerant to gang activity, on every block, is a safe city.
Santa Barbara should, and can, be such a city.
“Clearance Auto” will give you a break if you buy two or more types of insurance. You may also get a reduction if you have more than one vehicle insured with the same company.
It is refreshing to see good logic and compassion for victims, the author provides a compelling case for defining the “boundaries” of what should and should not be tolerated.
It is refreshing to see good logic and compassion for victims, the author provides a compelling case for defining the “boundaries” of what should and should not be tolerated.
Kudos, and good luck.
Frank Hotchkiss got it right a few years ago when he said if you want to join a gang, don’t live in Santa Barbara.
I have a right to live in a safe city.
Thank you so much Sharon. I saw Palminteri doing a story on the new graffiti right after your article ran last week.
As a young scholar in the Criminal Justice, Criminology, and Police Science fields, as well as an applicant to various Police Departments (including my #1 choice of SBPD), i completely agree with your article and anticipate trying to assist in creating programs and policies (if rookies are allowed to) to prevent and control certain problems in a “smart of crime” manner. You hit the nail on the head when you summed up your artile by saying “there’s no tolerance on this block for gang violence.” That is precisely the concept behind problem oriented policing strategies that revolve around the reduction of gang and gun violence. The most famous being Operation Ceasefire which was started in Boston by a sociologist who currently heads the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at my alma mater John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The program brings law enforcement, key community members, gang leaders and memebers, and other professional business and assitance organizations together to make it clear that the gang violence is unacceptable and, more importantly, not a solution to the problems perceived by the youth and gangs. i hope that the department I become a part of will allow me as an officer to assist in creating programs and problem oriented policing strategies that seek to solve problems instead of handle them.
thank you for your great article!
Heaven protect us from yet another committee on gang violence. Instead start a community roar with each individual voice saying “I have a right to live in a clean and safe city”.
Agree. Thanks Sharon.
That was a great article with a lot of good information and research. Thanks
Sharon Byrne’s posts are some of the best analyses I’ve read in years on Santa Barbara’s gang problems. But what’s up with the incredibly long author bio at the end? Is this a pre-campaign for the next City Council race?
This is saddening to read. Why is there a severe gang problem where the majority of population is speculated to be rich upper class. If there is going to be sloppy gangs like that then why atleast not make it productive and organized to match the income of “rich upper class crimes.” I’m just saying I was considering to make a move to a town where the rich got along and status was equal. But the gang scum is not my taste. Thanks for the article don’t think I’ll move where not even SBPD gets paid enough to keep my rich @ss alive. Santa Barbara you loosing status and word of mouth is traveling as we speak. Clean it up or be the next dirty town like Oakland Watts Compton etc.
Good grief. The majority of the local populations is NOT “rich upper class”.
There are a relatively few mega-wealthy in Hope Ranch and Montecito which are hardly a cross-section of local over-all demographics. 17% of all City of SB housing units are permanently dedicated low-income subsidized. Per capita income of this city and area is quite low.
No sense perpetuating misinformation because it only fuels unproductive class envy and class wars which solve nothing. It is the concentration of an escapist liberal population bias that results in over-tolerance of poor behavior choices which perpetuates this city’s current lawlessness; not its economics.
Not exactly rich, not exactly poor, either; statistics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_locations_by_per_capita_income
Thanks for the link: And there you have it folks, Ventura County is mega-wealthy compared to SB County per capita income.
Even Montecito only ranks as the 20th wealthiest city in California. Why is Coast Village Road free from vagrants and buskers? Since CVR has more money than SB, why are they not lined up like cord wood with their hands out there, instead on State Street where we are far poorer?
Santa Barbara was claimed a town of beauty and a place to retire. I was concerned of false advertising of this city sure enough what a dump. I say you need to start doing protocol and profiling to solve some growing problems. I will retire maybe in a better country hmm what’s the stats on Ireland? Also ya we get it not everyone is rich upper class but middle class strives to live as descent as the next higher paying person, but as stated, “I’ll take my rich @SS somewhere else!” Good luck Santa Barbara keep doing those sweeps!
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