Are you aware of this recent article that reviews the need for a Santa Barbara "Gang Injunction"? Finally a reporter willing to use true crime data, to bad he blew it with a racial epithet in his article.
Dazed Dogs of Summer
Injunction Conjunction, What’s Your Function?
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Actually this is my response to Mr. Welsh's article, but his story and a link as well as the public comments appear right after my venting. Finally someone in the media is willing to be some what honest about the need for a "Gang Injunction". Sadly though Nick Welsh turned out to be just as racist as the rest of them. Madame Mayor and City Council no more back door meetings claiming the "Gang Injunction is a done deal, as I heard several weeks ago. Its bad enough that in both the City and District Attorney's most recent budgets both make a point to state it is their goal to getting the 'Gang Injunction"done. As Mr. welsh pointed out "astonishingly, without the City Council holding a single public hearing." Now why do you think that was? Maybe so that all the people who left public comments after Mr. Welsh's story would never be given a public forum. Mr Welsh you missed the boat here with this part of your article. "In one, popular Mesa rat “Bobby I” was stabbed to death at Hendry’s Beach, but only after beating the crap out of a gang punk who called him a “Spenser,” an epithet denoting extreme geeky whiteness. "
First off I am almost 52 years old and I didn't have a clue what a Spenser was. Really Mr. Welsh this is what you want to put out in your article, SHAME on you. Am I mistaken or is "gang punk" also an epithet denoting racism? If I am following your thinking here I can now confront you PHYSICALLY and you will be ok with it because your use of "gang punk" insulted me. NONE OF IT IS OK. You used the words "gang punk" to describe someone and I am insulted by that. The truth is the indecent was over leaving cigarette butts on the ground. And the man that got his butt kicked got up and shook the hand of the man that bettered him. Sadly though there was a coward present and he is allegedly the person who caused the death of what I have been told was a great guy.
To add insult to the beat down the person took that day, he was falsely arrested for the crime and dragged the the media just like you did in this article. Everyone knew he was not the responsible party how was the arrest possible.
I will give you credit for taking on the gang injunction but don't stop now with just that tease. Include the recent comments by Judge Eskin during the Vargas sentencing." At Benjamin Vargas’s sentencing hearing, the judge again called out the authorities, taking the time to note his disappointment with the probation officer’s report — usually done in preparation for sentencing to help inform the judge’s decision — calling it “so biased against the defendant that the Court could not rely on the information, the analysis or the recommendation presented.” Eskin said the bias of the report, wherein the officer recommended the upper term of 11 years, was palpable."
Share how he was brave enough to call out the District Attorneys office for not proving the charge of Murder one."At the end of the trial, the judge had concluded the jury would not be able to consider first-degree murder in its deliberations, finding that no rational trier of fact could find Vargas guilty of first-degree murder, which requires premeditation and deliberation." He then called them out again for the Grand Jury indictment of two females."It was another hiccup for Almgren in what proved to be a complicated and emotional case. In October, a Grand Jury indicted Maria Vargas and Karen Medina as accessories to the homicide, as authorities accused Medina of assaulting Velasquez during the attack, and Vargas was accused of driving the car away from the crime scene. They spent eight days in jail before posting bail.
But in March, the charges against both women were dismissed after Eskin concluded there wasn't enough evidence to support the indictments. He said that “a properly informed grand jury would have declined to find probable cause to indict”
You have no idea what our youth go through here in Santa Barbara. Let me ask you something Mr. Welsh just imagine that our city was creating a D.U.I. injunction and in the paper work the asked for 300 John Doe's who could be named later at law enforcement's discretion. Let's be honest Mr. Welsh there is no way in hell anyone in Santa Barbara would go along with that. That is unless it is against our youth and included in a "Gang Injunction" add that bit of information to your follow up article please. I am available to meet with you any time you want to go over the framing of a 14 year old boy named Ricardo Juarez for a murder everyone knew he did not commit.
Respectfully
Larry Mendoza
www.
www.
Dazed Dogs of Summer
Injunction Conjunction, What’s Your Function?
Thursday, July 19, 2012
TALK VS. ACTION: When no quick-and-easy solution is available, it’s tempting — irresistible, actually — for elected officials to look like they’re taking action. So long as their gyrations are confined to blue-ribbon committees that crank out white papers on matters of civic consternation, no real injury is inflicted. But when their grand gestures — however well-intentioned — threaten to encroach on the civil liberties of target populations who happen to be brown-skinned — as Santa Barbara’s proposed gang injunction would — even middle-aged whiteys like myself have cause for alarm. The good news is that for the third summer since the gang injunction was first proposed — astonishingly, without the City Council holding a single public hearing — City Hall’s effort to target the “baddest of the bad” has been caught up in the quicksand of litigation. But better yet is how the Westside Boys & Girls Club —which has been quietly doing the nuts-and-bolts work of providing fun alternatives to young kids most demographically susceptible to the gang scene — is kicking serious ass.
Angry Poodle
Given that the Westside club — shoe-horned in next to Bohnett Park — has been on financial life support for most of this year, that’s cause for celebration. Earlier this year, it appeared all the member clubs of the United Boys & Girls Club organization were looking at turning out the lights. An emergency fundraising freak-out scared up the $300,000 needed to reactivate lines of credit, but did little to alleviate the structural problems afflicting the Westside club — which serves Santa Barbara’s poorest and most densely packed neighborhoods. Stepping up to help eliminate the Westside’s $100,000 operating deficit is the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, which just announced it would dedicate the proceeds of its annual golf tournament fundraiser that takes place later this summer to the Westside club. Last year’s tournament raised $90,000. The year before that it raised $113,000. I don’t pretend to know how this came to pass, but when Westside director Magda Arroyo’s involved, things have a habit of happening.
That extra $100,000 should allow Arroyo to work miracles, sending more kids camping in the Sierras, on field trips, or to the beach. With daily enrollment jumping from 130 a day to 200, costs have increased. The Chumash money might pay off a $15,000 sewage-repair bill that just popped up, or buy a much-needed new basketball floor. Mindful of the gang-tinged reputation Bohnett Park has in the public mind, Arroyo has already made changes to allay the concerns of some parents and administrators at nearby schools. There’s now a check-in area at the front desk so that club personnel can keep better track of who’s coming and going. There’s a new phone system that makes it easier to page kids and their parents. And there are more structured activities; kids don’t just show up and hang out. Some of it’s serious stuff. The Teen Talk program allows kids to drop written questions — safely and anonymously — into a wooden box (and discuss them in a group setting) that if asked about out loud would require Arroyo to call county social workers. But it’s also about having a good time. There are teen dances: massively successful, routinely attended by hundreds of kids, and thus far with conspicuous lack of incident. Later this summer, there will be a tamale cook-off that promises to pack the club with parents and kids alike. Increasingly, Arroyo is targeting programs for the parents, like Zumba lessons for moms. The strategy is simple: The more parents are involved, the better they’ll get to know each other’s kids, and ultimately, the safer the neighborhood will be. “It’s better than Neighborhood Watch,” Arroyo said. “It’s the neighborhood.”
With the Chumash cash, Arroyo is hoping to get away from traditional “fire-drill” financing. For Arroyo and the Westside Boys & Girls Club, $100,000 is make-or-break money. By contrast, the City of Santa Barbara spent at least half a million bucks just getting the gang injunction to court. And that’s chump change compared the cost of legal hours spent since then sparring with attorneys representing some of the 30 designated baddest apples. Right now, the lawyers are slogging through the quagmire of confidential juvenile records to determine what evidence of past delinquent behavior can be used to make the case against those named. I’d bet $100,000 they won’t be done by September when the case is scheduled for trial. And given that half are already behind bars, why bother? I’m not opposed to gang injunctions as a matter of political theology; Santa Barbara just doesn’t need one. Last month, Police Chief Cam Sanchez announced gang incidents were down 11 percent from the year before. In April, he stated the number of year-to-date gang-on-gang encounters had dropped to 18. That’s compared to 64 the previous year. In the past two years, there have been no gang-related killings. More cops have been assigned to work gang patrol; the number of hours gang cops are in the field has increased, as well; bread-and-butter police work, it appears, has paid off.
The gang injunction emerged after three non–gang members were killed in three separate altercations with gang members. By then, the out-of-town gang czar City Hall had hired with great fanfare and great expense had flopped. Politically, something had to be done, the populace assuaged, sabers rattled. In two of those three killings, however, gang involvement appears to have been coincidental. In one, popular Mesa rat “Bobby I” was stabbed to death at Hendry’s Beach, but only after beating the crap out of a gang punk who called him a “Spenser,” an epithet denoting extreme geeky whiteness. While tragically stupid, Bobby I’s death was caused by the lethal mix of testosterone and alcohol. If the folks at City Hall need to take symbolic action, I’d suggest they ban people from calling one another “Spenser.” It would be as effective as an injunction, but at less cost to the taxpayer and less violence to civil rights. Better yet, the City Council should declare victory, drop the gang injunction, and invest the savings in programs like the Westside Boys & Girls Club.
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The gang injunction was/is racist in motivation. This community like most has the ability to scapegoat without reflection. We do have systemic racial problems resulting phobic reactions. We elected council members, like Randy Rowse who while addressing another mesa gang, of really an all anglo crowd before him, praised them and actually flashed a 3-fingers down gang sign while saying "Go Mesa!" The flashing of Rowses peoples gang sign was not just an insensitivity but a provocation that no one seems to care about because they are part of the problem. Otherwise we should have been aghast. We've got a major malfunction going on here. The problem starts with our chamber of commerce type club members who use people, chews them up and then spits them out when they find they are of little use to them.
Wow, good job Chumash, Westside Boys and Girls club, but I disagree with the Poodle on this one. I think they should proceed with the injunction, and go after this gang thing on all fronts. There are white gangs too. Gang guys grow up and it gets into a more organized crime situation, which I think needs to be addressed now rather than later. Ok, only 18 gang on gang encounters, but how many other BS bullying events do these punks portray on the youth in the area just to establish their alpha gansta crap that go unreported out of fear? Go injunction, COPS stay on em, and the efforts of the Boys and Girls Club combined with philanthropy are the way to go.
Next thing, Don will be accusing Cam Sanchez of racism in his enforcement of the injunction.
The last name of Sanchez doesn't necessarily equate with brown skin (i.e. Native American ancestry.) Spanish surnames came from.. Spain!
That said, I'm not prepared to call Sanchez a racist unless facts prove that to be the case. I just think equating a last name with a race or ethnicity is a slippery slope.
Kudos to the Chumash as well.
That said, I'm not prepared to call Sanchez a racist unless facts prove that to be the case. I just think equating a last name with a race or ethnicity is a slippery slope.
Kudos to the Chumash as well.
"The gang injunction was/is racist in motivation."
I can't say for sure whether it is or isn't, but based on overall political trends, I would say it's just another case of society passing yet another law to control people as opposed to dealing with the cause of the problem.
Drug laws, the Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, and anti-gun laws are a reflection of a culture that would rather put band-aids on our problems as opposed to digging to find the root causes, as well as that societies' refusal to realize that the proposed solution to a problem sometimes makes the problem worse.
if someone calls you a "Frank Spencer" in the UK, they're saying you're inept:
Example:
"Wayne Scoles is a bit of a Frank Spencer when it comes to interpersonal communications skills"
there will be a public informational forum on the gang injunction held august 16th sponsored by the neighborhood advisory council.
As this boondoggle was started to put on an appearance that the city council is doing something, anything to fight crime, we can only wonder why then the five city council members who support this would not want more exposure and attention by discussing their good ideas in a public meeting.
Supporters of this gang injunction don't realize it could also apply to them.
Just in case the vegetative botany doesn't get it John_Adams explains the Cheif Sanchez conversion to support this wasteful, ineffective and racist inspired injunction. It was political.
It's good to know that Don condones chief Sanchez's support for "racist" policies if it is for "political" purposes only.
To be clear; It is terrible. We need representation not politics.
I don't recall hearing this detail before >>> In one, popular Mesa rat “Bobby I” was stabbed to death at Hendry’s Beach, but only after beating the crap out of a gang punk who called him a “Spenser,” <<< Is that really how it went down? Really makes council member Randy Rowse actions even more deplorable.
I adore the constitutionally vetted gang injunction.
I also like the Westside Boys and Girls Club.
Both are necessary.
I also like the Westside Boys and Girls Club.
Both are necessary.
Mr Welsh you missed the boat here with this part of your article. "In one, popular Mesa rat “Bobby I” was stabbed to death at Hendry’s Beach, but only after beating the crap out of a gang punk who called him a “Spenser,” an epithet denoting extreme geeky whiteness. "
First off I am almost 52 years old and I didn't have a clue what a Spenser was. Really Mr. Welsh this is what you want to put out in your article, SHAME on you. Am I mistaken or is "gang punk" also an epithet denoting racism? If I am following your thinking here I can now confront you PHYSICALLY and you will be ok with it because your use of "gang punk" insulted me. NONE OF IT IS OK. You used the words "gang punk" to describe someone and I am insulted by that. The truth is the indecent was over leaving cigarette butts on the ground. And the man that got his butt kicked got up and shook the hand of the man that bettered him. Sadly though there was a coward present and he is allegedly the person who caused the death of what I have been told was a great guy.
To add insult to the beat down the person took that day, he was falsely arrested for the crime and dragged the the media just like you did in this article. Everyone knew he was not the responsible party how was the arrest possible.
I will give you credit for taking on the gang injunction but don't stop now with just that tease. Include the recent comments by Judge Eskin during the Vargas sentencing." At Benjamin Vargas’s sentencing hearing, the judge again called out the authorities, taking the time to note his disappointment with the probation officer’s report — usually done in preparation for sentencing to help inform the judge’s decision — calling it “so biased against the defendant that the Court could not rely on the information, the analysis or the recommendation presented.” Eskin said the bias of the report, wherein the officer recommended the upper term of 11 years, was palpable."
Share how he was brave enough to call out the District Attorneys office for not proving the charge of Murder one."At the end of the trial, the judge had concluded the jury would not be able to consider first-degree murder in its deliberations, finding that no rational trier of fact could find Vargas guilty of first-degree murder, which requires premeditation and deliberation." He then called them out again for the Grand Jury indictment of two females."It was another hiccup for Almgren in what proved to be a complicated and emotional case. In October, a Grand Jury indicted Maria Vargas and Karen Medina as accessories to the homicide, as authorities accused Medina of assaulting Velasquez during the attack, and Vargas was accused of driving the car away from the crime scene. They spent eight days in jail before posting bail.
pazzingtime (anonymous profile)
July 24, 2012 at 6:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)
July 24, 2012 at 6:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)
But in March, the charges against both women were dismissed after Eskin concluded there wasn't enough evidence to support the indictments. He said that “a properly informed grand jury would have declined to find probable cause to indict”
You have no idea what our youth go through here in Santa Barbara. Let me ask you something Mr. Welsh just imagine that our city was creating a D.U.I. injunction and in the paper work the asked for 300 John Doe's who could be named later at law enforcement's discretion. Let's be honest Mr. Welsh there is no way in hell anyone in Santa Barbara would go along with that. That is unless it is against our youth and included in a "Gang Injunction" add that bit of information to your follow up article please. I am available to meet with you any time you want to go over the framing of a 14 year old boy named Ricardo Juarez for a murder everyone knew he did not commit.
Respectfully
Larry Mendoza
www.
www.
pazzingtime (anonymous profile)
July 24, 2012 at 6:40 p.m. (Suggest removal)
July 24, 2012 at 6:40 p.m. (Suggest removal)
S.B.C.C.C. The place where COMMON SENSE never goes out of style!
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