John Russo On Oakland Gang Injunction and Gangs in Oakland

This video blogger talked with Oakland City Attorney John Russo about his response to a video featuring Michael Siegel of the Oakland civil rights law firm Siegel and Lee, and the focus of a blog entry of last week. One that got under the skin of Russo and his assistant Alex Katz.

Within two days, John and Alex called to ask for this blogger to come and conduct a video interview to get their side of the Oakland Gang Injunction issue. The result is the 20 minute video.

In 2010 Oakland became the third city in the San Francisco Bay Area to implement injunctions against a specific set of street gangs, the North Oakland Crime Organization and another called The , which, according to Russo, is a terribly violent gang.

What Is A Gang Injunction?

To start, we got out of the way just what a gang injunction is. "A gang injunction is a civil court order that the city pursues against a uh, known criminal enterprise," Russo said. "It's defined, the term "gang" is used - a street gang is the state law. It's a law that was passed in the 1980s by the California Legislature." Russo - who's level of understanding of the details of the history of the gang injunction "tool" shows how involved he's been in the issue - explains that the law was upheld as constitutional by the California Supreme Court in 1997. "It is a civil order in the manner of a restraining order," he says, "It allows a city attorney or a district attorney to bring an injunction against a group of individuals who have conspired to commit crimes or otherwise terrorize innocent people in a community." (Photo by CBS Channel 5, San Francisco.)

Russo says Oakland has had two such injunctions, one approved by the Alameda Superior Court in June after being created in February and is called The North Side Oakland Injunction.

The second injunction request filed in October impacts Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood and involves a gang called The Nortenos.

Oakland's Better Injunction

Russo asserts that Oakland's injunctions are formed with a concern for due process and civil rights, a bit of a slap at the injunctions of other cities. "The others are constitutional. A city can go to a court and say 'We're going to prove this gang exists,' and leave it to the police to determine on the street, who's part of the gang. By contrast, Oakland uses the court system and what Russo says is "clear and convincing evidence" to say that a person's part of a gang. That, at least is supposed to, eliminate the possibility of racial profiling or at least reduce the chance of such habits working in this case.

In Oakland's system, the objective is to prove that the individual is part of the criminal organization. John says that in many cases the persons of interest self identify via Facebook, YouTube, and other ways.

Are Federal Dollars The Objective?

Michael Siegel contends that the gang injunction is a way to sweep more people of color up into the police prison system and gain Federal dollars in the process. Russo says that the idea that's true springs from Siegel's head. Russo says they don't get Federal or State dollars from using the gang injunctions. Russo blasts both Michael and his dad Dan Siegel for deliberately mis-reporting what the law says.

An Open Door To The Riders Case?

Russo says that the gang injunction is not an open door for another "Riders" case. In that unfortunate year 2000 episode in Oakland's history, four officers - Frank Vazquez, Clarence Mabanag, Jude Siapno and Matt Hornung - were accused of beating gang and crime suspects in West Oakland, and planting evidence on them.

Called "The Riders," their actions were revealed by a whistle-blower Oakland Police Officer, Keith Batt,  (who is that no more) and resulted in a $10.5 million payout by the City of Oakland to West Oaklanders who were terrorized by the cops, and a Federal consent decree governing the Police Department that was to remain to 2010.

Again, Russo says that because Oakland's Gang Injunction System calls for in-court identification of suspects using judge, jury, and law, it takes the issue of determining who's part of a gang our of the hands of the Oakland Police on the street.

Injunctions Working?

Russo says the Oakland injunction's will be successful because they're focused on the individual. But the basic point is it's too early to tell if the injunctions are totally successul or not. It's in the process of being applied and is new. Russo says "It's not a be all end all. It's a tool." He says it comes up via the Neighborhood Crime Prevention Councils which are neighborhood watch groups like the one for Lake Merritt's Adams Point we call 14x. That group uses a Yahoo Group to share crime information with the Oakland Police representative for that area.

Gang Injunctions Racist?

On the idea that the Oakland Gang Injunction is racist, focusing on black and brown in poor Oakland neighborhoods, Russo gets pissed. "It's racist," he charges," to allow innocent people to be terrorized," by criminals in the areas that happen to be black and brown, and do nothing about it for fear of being called racist for taking action.

But Russo saves his greatest venom for the Siegels Dan and Michael and their law firm Siegel and Lee, who he says are going to Oakland Schools with bullhorns and openly lying to teenagers about the Oakland Gang Injunction saying that it's directed at them. "There's no one under 18 on the injunction list, and there never will be anyone under 18 on the injunction list," Russo blasts.

A Better Way

To this blogger, the real problem is that Oakland lacks a systems approach to deal with this problem. A crime is more than a police issue, it's an economic development and housing issue too. We should know if the people involved had jobs and if not, why not. Then work to get them employed. Instead, all we do is lock people up. It's massively stupid and only temporarily effective at best. The Oakland Gang Injunction is but one tool, the problem is the City of Oakland doesn't know how to use the other tools at its disposal, like Redevelopment, together with it. And by Redevelopment, I do not mean population removal, but population resource improvement.

Stay tuned.