GANG TIMES

The purpose of this Blog is to provide clear and continuing education about street gangs. Gangs are a criminal street enterprise whose numbers are growing nationwide. Gangs are "equal opportunity employers." There are male gangs and female gangs. Most gangs are based on racial lines; that is, there are strictly Black gangs, strictly Hispanic gangs, and strictly Asian gangs. Infrequently, however, a gang may decide to accept a person of a different ethnicity. My goal is to add at least one new piece of information to this site daily. Sometimes that information will be no more than a powerful thought, an urgent statistic, or substantive recommendation. At other times, that new piece of information will be communicated to you via entire paragraphs, essays, or informational material that I presented while conducting a training seminar. As a result of new information and material being added daily, you will see this Blog grow. That makes only good sense: Since gangs are growing throughout America, our understanding about gangs must also grow. We cannot solve a problem by remaining stagnant and stunted in our growth of knowledge about that problem.

Gangs are a form of domestic terrorism. According to Rockard (Rocky) Delgadillo, the Los Angeles City Attorney, there are 732,000 active street gang members in the United States. That is a staggering number! And you know something? That number is one-half the present size of the United States Army. The Army's census is about 1.5 million soldiers. The nation's gangs are growing and are close to eclipsing the size of the nation's Army. We ought to hang our heads in shame, every time we look at the Statue of Liberty, our symbol of the countless blessings that living in a free country provides. While our Army is dedicated to protecting us, the gangs that maraud through our streets and wreak havoc and devastation in our communities are dedicated only to criminal acts and forms of terrorism. In your mind's eye, visualize a half-dozen members of the Army standing straight and tall before the Statue of Liberty. Now, visualize a half-dozen gangbangers standing before that wonderful Statue of Liberty, facing the six members of the Army. Do you have any confusion about who is dedicated and committed to serving and protecting you, your neighbors, and everybody else in this great nation of ours? Do you have any difficulty in viewing, in your mind's eye, the six gangbangers in front of the Statue of Liberty as treasonous saboteurs of our rights and freedoms and only doers of crimes of terrorism? Do you have any difficulty in understanding that criminal street gangs, not so far from being one million in number, are domestic, community terrorists? What about a threat to our national security? Yes, without question! Criminal street gangs are as great a threat to America as Al-Qaeda is.

As a Superior Court-Certified Expert Witness on Gangs, I am frequently asked to make presentations to attorneys in the area of my specialization. The following information comes from a training seminar I recently conducted for attorneys on the staff of one of the nation's County Public Defense offices; these attorneys provide legal representation to clients who have no funds or ability to pay. I work with the Defense Bar. As a Constitutionalist, I am committed to the idea that everybody deserves a fair trial, no matter what the allegation against them is. I think you will find the following questions and the answers that sprang from our vigorous discussion, to be enlightening.

How can the Defense explain conduct that the Prosecution alleges amounts to participation in a criminal street gang pursuant to Penal Code Section 186.22? This statute as you know is an enhancement and requires evidence the accused committed a felony “for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with any criminal street gang, with the specific intent to promote, further, or assist in any criminal conduct by gang members... .”

The suspect or person of interest has to be persuaded to co-manage his defense and provide contradictory clear and convincing evidence that the appearance of gang activity was not at all what it looked like, even falling short of the legal standard that defines a gang enhancement act. A couple of measures a defendant can take are (1) fill out the form that gives him McLaughlin Rights to question/challenge the “probable cause” employed by the police in procuring and using evidence with which to arrest him; and (2) regarding a Gang Injunction Ordinance, the person of interest should fill out the blank part on the citation form that gives him an opportunity to tell his side of the story, explain his presence, actions, behavior, role, and so forth. More than merely verbalizing his “innocence” and spinning countless arguments against his arrest, documenting his defensive declarations, vis-à-vis the legal forms (cited above) provided him assure that his refutation of the police incident report gets read and addressed in Court.

If, in a typically-male and bull-like way, he merely brays angrily and hurls testosterone-driven accusations at the police (blaming them, inter alia, for “gangism”, “racism,” and “povertyism”) when he appears in court, his position could be highly vulnerable, legally speaking. Why? The Jury will review the incident report and note that he was offered opportunities to explain and document his side of the matter. Failing to take this opportunity might appear to the Jury to be evidence of guilt, while, ironically, his view (of his act of defiance) was that he was doing the least he ought to do to protect his manhood. Sound strange? Not really, when you consider that at the criminal street gang level, the measurement of and judgment about masculinity is a hyper-neurosis among gangbangers. They are neurotically shot through with fear about loss of manhood and driven by that pernicious fear to assert and proclaim their notion of masculinity through their distorted vision of climbing Mt. Everest: committing acts of violence.

Since the statute (PC 186.22) states that a gang act is, inter alia, one that produces a “benefit” for the gang, police officers ought to be questioned in court about what, actually, was the benefit the gang obtained. Not a hypothetical benefit, but an actual benefit. And how did the gang publicize or demonstrate that benefit to others, in act(s) of self-aggrandizement? What did the gang actually do in the community to communicate the word (street intelligence) that it derived that benefit? What advantages diminished, that others enjoyed, as a result of the gang’s obtaining this new benefit? In gangdom, there is a constant teeter-totter effect; so police officers need to be asked, by the Defense, in court about who gained benefits and who lost them as a result of the defendant’s alleged act. What proof did the gang throw out to show it created or drove the particular act that resulted in that benefit? That the police officer being questioned may not be able to cite the concrete benefit(s), may be enough to create reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors.

In the murky world of gangdom, appearances of guilt/complicity/violation are sometimes not what they seem to be; and while they may not be close to being false, the fact that they are not in perfect integration with truth, either, is reason enough, in a nation governed by the rule of law, to vigorously pursue the defense of one so cited/detained/arrested/incarcerated, as though there was a Grand Canyon-like span between his innocence and putative guilt.

When I was on the witness stand in the Butte County courthouse (Oroville, CA), the prosecutor pounded away at me and kept questioning why I would not agree that the shooting into my client’s home, by a gang, only proved my client was himself a gang member. “Are you going to sit here and tell this court, Dr. Shaw, that you disagree?” When I said yes and explained that his assertion was not supported by my research or that of others, nationally, he asked, “Isn’t it true that when somebody’s house gets shot into, that only means they’re involved in illegal acts, are members of a gang, and actually brought heat upon themselves?” When I said no, that that was not true, he asked, “How could you sit where you are and tell this court that none of this is true. How could you do that?” I replied: “About two years, a California Highway Patrol Officer by the name of Tom Steiner was at the Pomona Courthouse, in Southern California, taking care of some law enforcement business. When he finished, he was about to descend the steps of the courthouse when he was suddenly shot in the head by a wanna-be gangbanger (it was later determined) who got out of his car, stopped at a red light, and, standing in the midst of lunch-hour traffic and among witnesses, pulled out a handgun, aimed it straight at Officer Steiner and pulled the trigger. Officer Steiner left a wife, a two-year old child, and a baby on the way. Counsel, according to what you have just asserted, and if I might use your exact wording, Officer Steiner was engaged in illegal acts that ‘brought heat’ upon himself, and was thus to blame for that bullet that came crashing into his skull from the gun of some wanna-be gangbanger.” At this, the prosecutor’s face turned so red he could have lit a match with it. He pulled at his hair, looked frantically at the judge and sputtered out, “Y-y-y-our Honor, I-I-I have no further questions of t-t-t-his witness.”

Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that persons of interest are now saying that, because they were stopped or detained in the midst of putting in gang work, they were not engaged in activities to further or benefit their gang. Said another way, they would [theoretically] only acknowledge their gang enhancement acts only if they would not caught in the act. In their distorted thinking, being arrested stops the act and, therefore, by their reasoning, they were not engaging in it.

What in your opinion is “enough” evidence for an expert to opine that particular conduct constitutes “in associate with” under 186.22?

Occasionally, a defendant will admit to an act that was—per language in the statute--“in association with.” I know a defendant, who was part of a case on which I worked, and got 10 years peeled off his sentence because he performed as an informant for the district attorney (northern California) and testified that he co-founded the “Mob Eleven” group with my client and that the group, in fact, was not a club as the Defense asserted but was a full-out criminal street gang with all the characteristics defined by the Penal Code. The attorney who hired me asked me, in court, what I thought of the document showing the D.A.’s handwritten, two-line agreement that such testimony would hold in abeyance, for the benefit of the informant, the 10-year sentence for which the D.A. would otherwise have argued.

Other forms of “enough” evidence are, of course, concurring statements by one’s co-gang members who, for various reasons and pressures, opt to testify or provide information against the person of interest/defendant. Though the prosecution throughout the country insists on using sworn law enforcement officers as their expert witnesses, I have often found that they are incomplete and insubstantial in their citation of the professional qualifications and background that purportedly qualify them as gang experts.

How do we respond to evidence that asserts that certain conduct was committed to promote, further, or assist? Is having a tattoo enough evidence, a moniker? Do young men by necessity have to adorn these trademarks just to survive in their neighborhood and thus such evidence isn’t really dispositive? Is there any research that would indicate this postulate true?

A tattoo is a symbol. In gangdom, it is a highly suggestive graphic or logo. But having one is not a violation of law, although law enforcement officers’ and jurors’ presumption of guilt might indeed be catalyzed and heightened at the sight of tattoos on the person of interest detained for suspicion of gang activity. For some officers, it rather appears that tattoos enhance confusion about whether the tattoo itself is or embodies an “act” that promotes and benefits a gang, or if there are other concrete and distinct acts that—in, of, and by themselves—legally elevate the person of interest to the level of “suspect.”

The “Three T’s About Tattoos”: Tattoos (1) Tattle (inform); (2) are Taboo, to law enforcement and city officials, as well as to rival gangs; and (3) list or describe the toll. Frequently, tattoos advertise the person wearing them; that is, they inform others of his or her gang affiliation and status. “Assassin” is a gang name that tattles on the currently-living person proudly wearing this appellation. Because gang names (also called “hood names”) are deliberately graphic concoctions meant to be read and taken literally, others reading the name “Assassin” are immediately informed that the person so branded is regarded by himself, his gang, and rival gangs as a human killing machine. The tattoo, “Body Parts”, is the hood name of a currently-living gangbanger in Los Angeles. He likes to shoot persons in their limbs and extremities, to disable them. The tattoo “Baby Clever” bespeaks the wearer’s vaunted street intelligence. And the inscription “Livin’ to Die”, currently worn, in 5-inch block letters on his chest, by a San Gabriel Valley Foothills resident, is meant to proclaim his notion of bravery to the world at large.

The Los Angeles Fire Department has prohibited the wearing of tattoos by its personnel; effective immediately, formerly-obvious tattoos are required to be concealed with long-sleeved shirts or band-aids. The Los Angeles Fire Department apparently does not want its personnel to be perceived as salaried gangbangers, nor does it want known gangbangers, in search of employment, to be attracted to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

There is a gangbanger running around South Los Angeles who has eleven names of gang rivals on his chest. All of them have “x’s” etched through them, his symbol to the world that they are no longer around—dead. When some of the gangbangers in my classroom at the Los Padrinos Juvenile Court told me this, they also stated that he didn’t care whether he lived or died, he had seen so much death already in his young life. Most of the time he ran around the streets without his shirt on, deliberately calling attention to himself, inviting death. As strange as it might seem, no law enforcement officer used this human billboard’s “evidence” against him, and I have not yet heard whether he’s been hauled into court as a perpetrator of or witness to the fate of the persons whose names he etched into his body and then, defacing them, thus memorialized their deaths.

What is your view/critique of law enforcement officers who claim to gang experts? How do we attach the premise of their credentials?

On several occasions I have had to provide testimony to counter or challenge what a law enforcement officer has testified to in court, regarding his professional background as a gang expert. I found holes in: (1) the testimonies assessing and quantifying the “hours” of training purportedly completed; (2) who the training staff was (I am suspect of training done only by the officer’s own department—I place a higher value on P.O.S.T training or on a consortium approach some departments use with other police agencies; (3) the lack of officers’ ability to cite literature and other written references that shaped and formed the predicate for their expert opinion; and (4) officers’ lack of having a direct role as gang training officers (one officer I followed in court merely had been a “gopher” for a training officer, and had done everything from securing flipcharts to making sure PowerPoint could be activated from flash or jump drives. On another occasion, one police officer was clearly stymied when the defense attorney asked him to list the publications, such as university research he had read about gangs, exclusive of department memos. He drew a blank and was genuinely perplexed that department memoranda were questioned as seemingly insufficient as a permanent and irrefutable source of gang culture, gang activity, and gang identification. Police officers ought to be informed that, to be seen as an expert in gang culture, part of that [viewpoint] requires that you train others: other police departments, attendees at professional conferences, school officials, park and playground coordinators, and school resource officers (SRO’s). Said another way, if you think you’re leading, but nobody is following, you’re merely out taking a good stroll.

What kinds/types of discovery should we ask for?

(1) Copies of citations or written documentation of gang activity by a school administrator, teacher, or SRO; (2) probation officer’s report; (3) Field Interview Cards (F.I.C.’s) duly noting whether and if the person of interest identified himself as a gangbanger, gave the name of his gang, and stated when he was “jumped in” or “put on”; (4) photographs of body tattoos showing: (a) name of his or her gang; (b) the number, alphabetical letter, street/avenue name, or other graphic symbol owned by that gang; (c) his or her own peculiar gang name; or (d) slogans, threats or other menacing scrawls; for example, “Killer for Hire” would be such. It is also highly important to possess copies of police documentation or court reporters’ transcripts stating the exact job titles of gang officers. For example, “Head of the African-American Gang Unit” versus “Head of the Gang Unit” has distinct, separate, racial and possibly deleterious implications for African-American defendants facing trial as gang members. The connotation in the former job description might inspire a prejudice toward guilt in the minds of jurors. The officer bearing the latter job title, by contrast, might be seen as an expert in all things gang-related, not merely as somebody focusing on a part or fragment of the whole.


What’s the difference between being a member of a gang versus a “tagging crew” or “party crew"?

Gangs require that all of its members “put in work,” a term that means to engage in criminal activities that promote, benefit, or otherwise further the objectives of the gang. Gang objectives are to dominate, control, inspire fear, suppress, enhance its reputation and be viewed as all-powerful over and above other rival gangs. The constant requirement to put in work is driven by the need to achieve all of these objectives. Putting in work encompasses all forms of criminal activity, from car-jacking, dealing drugs, to murder. Gangs pride themselves on being “equal opportunity workers.” Said another way, there is no crime that a gang would not do, so long as committing that crime enhanced the gang by facilitating the achievement of its objectives.