Gang Injunction Removal

Dear John Russo, April 15, 2010
City Attorney, Oakland CA
RE: Gang Injunction Removal

We, the three candidates for Mayor of Oakland, Orlando Johnson, Don Macleay and Dr. Terence Candell, ask you to withdraw the Oakland Gang Injunction. Instead, your office, the Alameda DA’s office and the Oakland Police Department should spend those resources needed to enforce gang injunctions on implementing policies known to work and known not to provoke civil rights lawsuits. Policies, such as classic police work, “street outreach” and “restorative justice”, normal criminal prosecution, and tactics developed working together with community task forces should be implemented in areas affected by gang violence in Oakland.

This gang injunction is a violation of the spirit of due process and is unconstitutional. If the city does not have the proof to arrest and prosecute alleged gang members, then they will not limit freedoms guaranteed to individuals under the Constitution of the United States of America. Indeed, the Gang Injunction targets directly and exclusively African American and Latino men. That is called race discrimination!! As the majority of arrests made in this city for gang and drug-related incidents involve African American and Latino youth, the gang injunction is a violation of their 14th Amendment rights.
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Sec. 1. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
This is also an ethical issue. It is not a civil issue. It is a criminal issue and should remain such. If you have so much evidence, why don’t you just go and pick them up? I’m sure we’d all feel a lot safer! Until then, let’s stop perpetrating and trying to take their money for something they haven’t even been convicted of doing. Oakland does not need to fall short on our commitment to due process.
In fact, the injunction is violation of 1st Amendment rights and is a precursor to broaden the city’s ability to violate all of our 1st Amendment rights:
First Amendment - Religion and Expression
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble…”
Whose rights are next? Yours? Mine?
None of us should ever lose our civil liberties because of our racial or ethnic background; because of the way we look; or because of what others think they know about what we are doing.

Due to the wording of the injunction, there is room for very loose interpretation by police officials. An anti-gang injunction is a recipe for the kind of abuse that Oakland has seen too much of in the past and again, will open the floodgates for more unwinnable lawsuits…

This injunction will have a marginal effect on crime, but will have a highly detrimental effect on the youth in our community, particularly African American and Latino. As even Chief Batts notes, “We will not be able to arrest our way into a peaceful, civil community.” There is a high probability that the injunction will make a bad situation worse among certain communities. Let’s keep it criminal. It appears that we want to collect the blood money of criminals. Is that the purpose of this injunction? Are we that hard up for cash?

At-risk youth, who are not attracted to gang membership, will now find their peer group under attack. Even if the injunction is only for certain named persons, others of their age, ethnicity and cultural habits will also feel targeted. Therefore, the target list will increase… This will cause the youth culture to fold in on itself and identify MORE with the gangs, and to shun both the police and the mainstream society... all because of a bad policy.
We all know that we have the right to trial by jury under the 6th Amendment, right? Well, there is also the very real possibility that the list of persons named is wrong or exaggerated; but, we will never know, because a jury will never see the case! No, my friend, there is far too much room for abuse. Don’t let this happen to you.
The public has every right to expect you and other city officials to do all you can to fight crime, but the gang injunction will not work.

Signed by the following Oakland Patriots:

___________________
Dr. Terence Candell
Candidate for Mayor

___________________
Orlando Johnson
Candidate for Mayor

___________________
Don Macleay
Candidate for Mayor