WAKE COUNTY: U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement announced Tuesday that 93 foreign nationals now face federal criminal charges or deportation as part of Operation Community Shield, a nationwide effort to combat violent street gang activity.
Agents and officers arrested 50 gang members and their associates in the Raleigh area and 43 in Winston-Salem. The arrests were part of a multi-city enforcement operation over the summer to dismantle the criminal organizations across the country.
ICE Assistant Secretary Julie L. Myers announced Tuesday that the organization has arrested 1,313 gang members, gang associates, and illegal aliens across the country since June.
"Violent foreign-born gang members and their associates have more than worn out their welcome, and to them I have one message: good riddance," Myers said.
Authorities said the foreign nationals are linked to nearly 20 different street gangs, including MS-13, Surenos 13 and Brown Pride.
Anyone with information on gang-related crimes should call NC WANTED toll free at 1.866.43.WANTED (1.866.439.2683) or click on "Report a Tip" Your identity will be kept confidential.
ALL COUNTIES: Is anyone alarmed yet?
Gang culture has permeated nearly every community in North Carolina, including the outerlying regions once considered safe havens.
In western North Carolina, Asheville police are blaming gangs for a string of recent high-profile shootings. On October 5, they charged a 14-year-old boy with attempted first-degree murder in a gang shooting. A 12-year-old boy was critically injured after being shot in the head, and two 17-year-old girls suffered minor injuries. The three were not targets in the shooting.
Those shootings led the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office to form a gang task force to begin gathering data and reports on possible gang activity. Authorities report that gang activity has spread beyond Asheville's city limits into Buncombe County's country and rural sections.
In neighboring Henderson County, Sheriff's Det. Doug Hill says authorities there have identified as many as seven gangs. They have also identified gang-related assaults, assaults with weapons, vandalism and graffiti.
Officers in Haywood County say they are noticing possible gang activity
McDowell County reports evidence of "turf marking,"
What can be done?
The citizens of North Carolina can band together to help identify those involved with illegal gang activity.
Anyone with information on gang-related crimes should call NC WANTED toll free at 1.866.43.WANTED (1.866.439.2683) or click on "Report a Tip" Your identity will be kept confidential.
Gang Laws Being Met With Resistance
State lawmakers have a plan to combat the rise of gangs in North Carolina, but one group, trying to improve the lives of young African-Americans, is not sold on the idea.
The Street Gang Prevention Act would make it a crime to be part of gang that engages in criminal activity, to organize a gang, to coerce people to join gangs or to threaten them if they want to leave. Under the bill, the offenses would be felonies, which would likely mean prison time.
Mayors and police officers statewide came to the Legislature to support the bill's sponsors, but some activists said the bill focuses too much on locking people up and not enough on keeping kids from heading into gang life in the first place.
Durham Mayor Bill Bell recently urged a House committee to pass the anti-gang legislation.
"It's truly a tool we need to deal with gang activity across the country, across the state," he said.
However, the Triangle Lost Generation Task Force said longer sentences are a failed strategy. Officials said the bill will only lead to more racial profiling and a disproportionate number of minorities in prison. Plus, critics like Otis Lyons, a former gang member, argue increased prison time only increases gang cohesion.
"Prisons don't work for the majority because prison is designed to send them back out there like animals," he said.
The group would like to see more money spent on keeping kids from joining gangs in the first place.
"Funds that are to be allocated to the governor's Crime Commission, which can actually be used for suppression as well as prevention and intervention, is only allocated in the first year and is to the tune of $3 million," said Landon Adams, of the Lost Generation Take Force. "If, after five years, the conservative fiscal projections hold true as we stand today, the money spent in the street gang prevention will be 95 percent toward incarceration and 5 percent to intervention."
Under the bill, communities would be allowed to apply for grants to prevent gang activity.
Cities Are Fighting Back By Suing Gangs
Fed up with deadly drive-by shootings, incessant drug dealing and graffiti, cities nationwide are trying a different tactic to combat gangs: They're suing them.
Fort Worth and San Francisco are among the latest to file lawsuits against gang members, asking courts for injunctions barring them from hanging out together on street corners, in cars or anywhere else in certain areas.
The injunctions are aimed at disrupting gang activity before it can escalate. They also give police legal reasons to stop and question gang members, who often are found with drugs or weapons, authorities said. In some cases, they don't allow gang members to even talk to people passing in cars or to carry spray paint.
"It is another tool," said Kevin Rousseau, a Tarrant County assistant prosecutor in Fort Worth, which recently filed its first civil injunction against a gang. "This is more of a proactive approach."
But critics say such lawsuits go too far, limiting otherwise lawful activities and unfairly targeting minority youth.
"If you're barring people from talking in the streets, it's difficult to tell if they're gang members or if they're people discussing issues," said Peter Bibring, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. "And it's all the more troubling because it doesn't seem to be effective."
Civil injunctions were first filed against gang members in the 1980s in the Los Angeles area, a breeding ground for gangs including some of the country's most notorious, such as the Crips and 18th Street.
The Los Angeles city attorney's suit in 1987 against the Playboy Gangster Crips covered the entire city but was scaled back after a judge deemed it too broad.
Chicago tried to target gangs by enacting an anti-loitering ordinance in 1992 but the U.S. Supreme Court struck it down in 1999, saying it gave police the authority to arrest without cause.
Since then, cities have used injunctions to target specific gangs or gang members, and so far that strategy has withstood court challenges.
Los Angeles now has 33 permanent injunctions involving 50 gangs, and studies have shown they do reduce crime, said Jonathan Diamond, a spokesman for the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office.
The injunctions prohibit gang members from associating with each other, carrying weapons, possessing drugs, committing crimes and displaying gang symbols in a safety zone - neighborhoods where suspected gang members live and are most active. Some injunctions set curfews for members and ban them from possessing alcohol in public areas - even if they're of legal drinking age.
Those who disobey the order face a misdemeanor charge and up to a year in jail. Prosecutors say the possibility of a jail stay - however short - is a strong deterrent, even for gang members who've already served hard time for other crimes.
"Seven months in jail is a big penalty for sitting on the front porch or riding in the car with your gang buddies," said Kinley Hegglund, senior assistant city attorney for Wichita Falls.
Last summer, Wichita Falls sued 15 members of the Varrio Carnales gang after escalating violence with a rival gang, including about 50 drive-by shootings in less than a year in that North Texas city of 100,000.
Since then, crime has dropped about 13 percent in the safety zone and real estate values are climbing, Hegglund said.
Other cities hope for similar results.
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued four gangs in June after an "explosion" in gang violence, seven months after filing the city's first gang-related civil injunction.
Fort Worth sued 10 members of the Northcide Four Trey Gangsta Crips in May after two gang members were killed in escalating violence, said Assistant City Attorney Chris Mosley.
"Our hope is that these defendants will be scared into compliance just by having these injunctions against them," Mosley said.
However, some former gang members say such legal maneuvers wouldn't have stopped them.
Usamah Anderson, 30, of Fort Worth, said he began stealing cars and got involved with gangs as a homeless 11-year-old. He was arrested numerous times for theft and spent time in juvenile facilities.
Anderson says if a civil injunction had been in place then, he and his friends would have simply moved outside the safety zone.
"That's the life you live, so you're going to find a way to maneuver around it," said Anderson, a truck driver who abandoned the gang life about seven years ago and has started a church to help young gang members.
The ACLU and other critics of gang injunctions favor community programs. The Rev. Jack Crane, pastor of Truevine Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Worth, is helping Anderson's group provide gang members with counseling, shoes and other resources needed to help them escape that life.
"We don't want to lose another generation," Crane said.
Some residents in the Fort Worth safety zone say they feel better with the injunction in place.
Phoebe Picazo, who recently moved to the city to care for her elderly parents, said she hears gunfire almost every night.
"This has always been a quiet community with a lot of seniors, but now we're having to keep our doors locked," Picazo said. "With the injunction, I feel better for my folks."
