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City Attorney Announces Injunction Against Columbus Street Gang

Matt Pressberg |
February 28, 2013 | 5:17 p.m. PST

Editor-at-Large

The gang injunction will cover 2.7 square miles in North Hills. (Matt Pressberg)
The gang injunction will cover 2.7 square miles in North Hills. (Matt Pressberg)
Five days before Los Angeles voters decide whether to grant him a second term in office, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich announced the filing of a preliminary gang injunction against one of the Northeast San Fernando Valley’s most notorious criminal syndicates, the Columbus Street Gang.

The proposed injunction will bar identified members of the Columbus Street Gang from engaging in activities such as associating with other known gang members and carrying weapons within a 2.7 square mile “safety zone” roughly bounded by Plummer Street, Sepulveda Boulevard, Saticoy Street and Woodman Avenue in North Hills. If approved, it will be the 45th active gang injunction in the city of Los Angeles.

“For too long, the Columbus Street Gang has used intimidation, violence and fear in holding this community hostage through its nefarious activities,” Trutanich said.

The Columbus Street Gang currently has more than 200 members who range in age from juveniles to adults in their forties. According to Trutanich, the gang leader is a “made” member of the Mexican Mafia, making the group even more dangerous. The group is alleged to have been responsible for a wide range of crimes, including murder, assault, drug sales and threatening potential witnesses.

“This is something that’s mandated by the community—by the people who live there, by the people who have to be subjected to this ongoing harassment, this ongoing intimidation, this ongoing fear of the gang and the gang activity that’s related to it,” LAPD Mission Community Captain Todd Chamberlain said.

Trutanich began his legal career as a prosecutor based out of the Compton Courthouse and has campaigned on that experience, selling himself as someone not afraid to take on “hard-core gang” members. He ran a commercial during his failed race for Los Angeles County district attorney highlighting an instance when he came under fire from gang members at a South Los Angeles park, an episode that has not been proven to have occurred.

The city attorney fell under heavy criticism for his decision to chase the district attorney job, breaking a pledge he made to run for two full terms during his successful 2009 campaign for his current position. He currently finds himself in a tight three-way race for reelection against former Assemblyman Mike Feuer and private practice lawyer Greg Smith.

Former city controller Laura Chick, a supporter of Trutanich in his 2009 run, blasted him in an open letter last September, accusing him of lying and self-promotion. Trutanich has been criticized for his heavy-handed approach to political protesters, street artists, marijuana dispensaries and other minor criminals, while presiding over a department that has reduced its amount of gang prosecutions.

Nearing the eve of the election, Trutanich hopes that taking action against one of the city’s most dangerous gangs resonates with voters, particularly in the San Fernando Valley, home of the Columbus Street Gang and an area that often swings city elections.

“This is a great day for the Mission District because what’s going to end up happening is it’s going to be a lot safer,” Trutanich said.

Asked about the constitutionality of gang injunctions, which tend to criminalize otherwise legal behavior when conducted between certain people in a certain geographic area, Trutanich defended them as a necessary tool to protect vulnerable communities.

“The question becomes this,” Trutanich said. “Do you have to wait for a crime to be committed to police, or can you be proactive based upon the conduct that you know is going to occur as a result of the history? If I come up to you and punch you in the face 25 times, when you see me the 26th time, are you going to duck, or are you going to stand there and take it? Well, this is tantamount to the same thing. It is constitutional.”

Read more of Neon Tommy's coverage of Carmen Trutanich here.

Reach Editor-at-Large Matt Pressberg here.



 

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