Haubert Keeps Pressure On Gang Members
By JONATHAN VAN DYKE | PUBLISHED: April 20, 2011 at 12:47 p.m. | UPDATED: May 27, 2021 at 1:28 a.m.
There have been more than 100 prosecutions of gang members in Long Beach for violating a gang injunction in the last year, city prosecutors say, and another injunction is on the way.
The process of cracking down on gang members is an ongoing battle, City Prosecutor Doug Haubert said, but it is one where progress has been made – especially in the last year with two more gang injunctions being approved since 2010.
“This is by far the most (gang injunction prosecutions) we’ve had in this office for one year,” Haubert said.
The point of emphasis on gang members goes beyond just using the injunctions, he added, but also to crimes of a gang-related nature. Recently, the prosecutor’s office helped elevate a graffiti crime that was clearly gang-related. By elevating that misdemeanor to a “gang status,” the consequences are greater – the graffiti tagger received a 6-month jail sentence. The tagger also was forced to register as an official gang member.
“That graffiti isn’t just vandalizing a wall, it’s sending a message of intimidation and we have to stop that,” Haubert said.
Another gang injunction will be announced before the end of the summer, he added, which should help further deal with issues that have plagued a good portion of the city.
“It may not be a big problem in certain parts of the city, but overall it is a big problem,” he said. “(The prosecutor’s office and Long Beach Police Department) are taking it more seriously than they ever have before in the history of Long Beach.”
The most recent gang injunction was announced last November. It covers much of North Long Beach – including all of the Ninth City Council District and the northern part of the Eighth Council District (north of Del Amo Boulevard). It was unique because it targeted members of the North Side Longos and Surenos – a group of gangs affiliated with the Mexican Mafia. The naming of Surenos was of particular importance, officials said, because the term covers many different smaller gangs and many gangs that are not home-based in Long Beach but still travel through the city.
“This is very powerful stuff and it’s new stuff that we’ve never done before, and so far it’s been very effective,” Haubert said.
According to Lt. Alex Avila of the LBPD Gang Enforcement Section, the naming of Surenos has really increased the effectiveness of the injunctions.
“That is proving to be very successful, in my opinion, because of the way it’s structured,” he said.
Avila said methods and success have drastically changed when it comes to combating gang problems in comparison to 20 or 30 years ago – even much more recently. The LBPD has Officer Christopher Zamora working directly with the prosecutor’s office.
“It’s a special detail,” Avila said. “We loan him over to the city prosecutor’s office so he can act as a liaison between us. It’s been easier to have someone over there.”
Avila said communication has been great for the most part with the prosecutor’s office for as long as he can recall and that has been the same since Haubert took over last July.
The injunction work itself, he said, also has moved forward and taken advantage of technology – computer databases allow for better tracking and linking of gang members.
“In the past, we just went off of handwritten lists,” he said.
Injunctions first started in Long Beach about 10-15 years ago, said Raymond George, deputy city prosecutor. Currently, there are four injunctions (the oldest started in 2005) for the city. The gangs include the West Side Longos, East Side Longos, Insane Crip Gang and North Side Longos/Surenos.
There are a series of criteria that allow the prosecutor’s office to serve specific gang members. Once they are served, gang members can be arrested for specific actions that previously might only have garnered them a citation (“A member literally had his gang logo written on his sneaker,” George said, of a recent case). Members cannot be seen together publically and they have a curfew in many circumstances.
“If they don’t assemble, they generally can’t do their gang activity,” George said.
The idea of not allowing gang congregations, means officials said they hope people will feel safer using public areas that are out in the open.
There is even an opt-out possibility for the gang injunction for those members seeking to leave that life behind, Haubert said. If the member goes through a stringent process to prove he is no longer affiliated, he may be removed from the list (to this date no member has opted out, although two have approached the office about it).
Haubert said he named gang activity his top priority when he came into office, and he thinks progress is being made – and still needs to be made on many different fronts.
“I deal with some of the gang intervention groups,” he said. “I don’t view my role solely as prosecuting them because if I can keep a kid out of a gang, I’m preventing a lot of prosecution work in the future.”