Getting Off the Gang List….FINALLY

In May of 2007, WLA reported that Rocky Delgadillo’s office had announced that there was now a way for a former gang member who was no longer active—or someone who never was a gang member to begin with—- to hit certain marks and thereby be taken off the list for a gang injunction.

Yet for another year and nearly five months, it didn’t happen. And then finally, on Thursday, it did.

Here’s the deal:

In the past two and a half decades, more than 11,000 Los Angeles residents have been named in gang injunctions—which is fine if one is an active gang member. But such isn’t always the case. And during all those years, there’s been no way to get off the list once you’re on.

In fact, in the state of California, no one has ever successfully gotten his or her name removed from a gang injunction, with the exception of two people who hired attorneys and fought it in court. Not the gang intervention worker who was put on the list for trying to break up the fight, or the college bound 17-year old with the 3.25 grade point average and no previous record. Honestly, the horror stories of people wrongly arrested, or fearful of arrest are many and varied. (There are dead people still on the injunction list.)

Community activist groups, like the Youth Justice Coalition and the Watts Gang Task Force, have been pressing for a policy change for years, without success . Then finally, a breakthrough. The offices of City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo announced that they were introducing new injunction procedures: 72-page list of gang injunction guidelines that, for the first time, included a way off the injunction list for individuals who never belonged there in the first place.

The idea was that, if a young man or woman could petition to be taken off the list if they could show “good cause”-–for instance, if they could, say, demonstrate they are not and never were a gang member, or if they were once a member of the gang but clearly weren’t any more.

Seems reasonable, right?

But between now and May of 2007, nothing happened.

Then finally yesterday, the City’ Attorney’s office announced that finally the wheels of justice turned…….for one guy.

(Better than nothing I suppose.)

The LA Times has more:

For the first time ever, the Los Angeles city attorney’s office has removed a former gang member from one of its numerous gang injunctions, which cover more than 11,000 people.

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, accompanied by several council members, said Thursday that an ex-gang member had become the first to complete a new gang injunction removal petition process his office has set up. Authorities declined to identify the individual.

[SNIP]

“It is not only about crime suppression but individual constitutional rights,” said Police Commission President Anthony Pacheco. “It is about humanity.”

Uh, yes. One would like to think so.