Posted on Sat, Dec. 31, 2011

Officer Bob Meredith handed out several police badge stickers to a group of children playing in their front yard during a patrol of a south Modesto neighborhood troubled by gang activity.

The children's mother greeted Meredith and his colleagues from the Modesto police Street Gang Unit, thanking the officers for watching out for them. The woman, however, did not want her name in this story, fearing gang retaliation.

"It's good that you guys are patrolling," the woman told the officers. "Right here, people will do bad things to you just for the color of T-shirt you're wearing."

Authorities say there are fewer Norteño gang members strutting around in bright red clothing on the streets of "Deep South Side Modesto," a neighborhood that two years ago was overwhelmed with crime.

Instead, authorities say gang members fear arrest for violating an injunction that restricts their activities within the neighborhood boundaries.

Defense attorneys say the young men listed in the injunction feel harassed by police, which was evident in the mood of three men stopped by the Street Gang Unit during a patrol last fall. They declined to speak to The Bee about the injunction.

They reluctantly answered the officers' questions — their name, physical features such as tattoos and home address — as parents walked home with their children and other residents mowed their lawns and cleaned their driveways.

Meredith said he notices more people outside doing their daily activities, instead of being holed up inside their homes with fear.

"Ninety-nine percent of the people in this neighborhood want us here," Meredith said. "Unfortunately, it's a small population that don't who are causing all the trouble."

Anthony Bejaran, a Stanislaus County sheriff's spokesman, said there's less fear and intimidation mainly because the Norteños on the injunction list can't loiter in front of their homes or neighborhood stores.

"(The gang members) don't blatantly hang out on street corners anymore," said Bejaran, who was a gang investigator for several years. "They're not out in the open intimidating the residents."

Fewer injunction violations

The injunction lists 103 members of the Deep South Side Norteños, who are believed to have 150 members and associates. It bans those listed from congregating, but it doesn't stop them from hanging out with gang members not listed.

Soon after the injunction went into effect in the fall of 2009, Modesto police would spot an injunction violation about once every two days, Meredith said. The violations tapered off after that.

"They first had to test the waters a bit," Meredith said. "They had to see what they could get away with."

Police agencies received training to learn how to properly identify an injunction violation. The rule of thumb for police on the street is don't make an arrest unless it's a clear violation.

Bejaran said there might be some Deep South Side Norteños trying to avoid being added to the injunction list by resurrecting the name of a Norteño gang that had since faded from the scene.

Some freshly spray-painted graffiti declares a return of the "Nite Owls" gang that was prevalent in the '70s and '80s, said Bejaran, who grew up in a nearby Modesto neighborhood.

The injunction was written by prosecutors to specifically target the Deep South Side Norteños or other names the gang had used, not the Nite Owls.

Some might be trying to avoid the injunction list, but Meredith said the gang members who are listed stay indoors now. Standing outside and protecting their turf can result in an arrest.

"That draws attention," Meredith said. "For these guys now, they don't want that attention. Everyone is very clear now about where they can and cannot be."

There are some Norteños not listed in the injunction who walk in south Modesto "flamed up," or wearing a lot of red clothing, said Froilan Mariscal, a gang investigator with the Stanislaus County district attorney's office. He calls them "walking targets" for rival gang members.

The public is safer, Mariscal said, because fewer Norteños wearing red mean there are fewer stray bullets from drive-by shootings hitting innocent bystanders.

Budget cuts, however, have made it difficult for some police agencies to monitor south Modesto. The neighborhood includes both county and city jurisdictions, so several law enforcement agencies enforce the injunction.

Officers a visible deterrent

Police officers, sheriff's deputies, probation officers and gang investigators routinely have detailed information on each gang member in the injunction, including photos, descriptions and aliases.

The Modesto police Street Gang Unit provides enforcement in neighborhoods throughout the city, gathering gang intelligence, responding to gang-related calls and acting as a visible deterrent to gang activity.

The Sheriff's Department used to have a similar gang investigation team, but it was disbanded last year because of budget cuts. Bejaran was on that investigation team, and he said the former gang investigators have been reassigned to fill jobs vacated by layoffs.

Without gang investigators, Bejaran said, it's difficult for the Sheriff's Department to conduct proactive enforcement to deter gang activity, especially in south Modesto. There still are the same number of deputies who patrol the neighborhood, but they don't have time to learn of tension that can lead to violence.

"You're not going to know who is calling the shots in the neighborhood," Bejaran said.

Even with budget cuts, authorities say the gang injunction gives them an edge to curb crime that frightens residents.

Simple restrictions such as the curfew have helped reduce the amount of gang graffiti spray-painted across neighborhood fences and walls, Bejaran said.

Before the injunction, gang graffiti would appear overnight as soon as a home would become vacant, destroying the property and leaving an ugly scar for neighbors to see, he said.

"If they can't hang out in public, they can't commit crimes," Bejaran said. "The gang injunction gives us the tool to prevent them from doing it."

Just because gang graffiti has disappeared in some areas, there are some walls that remain covered in gang slurs and slogans. These are areas, authorities said, that are not easily spotted from the street.

One of these graffiti-covered areas is an alley adjacent to Emanuel Baptist Church on Frazier Street. Vandals have created a makeshift memorial to a slain Norteño gang member, and the alley is clogged with trashed furniture, tires and other debris to slow pursuing police.

"These alleys are gangster highways," Meredith said.

Just because the injunction is in place in south Modesto doesn't mean the gang problems that plague the neighborhood have disappeared, said Mariscal, who helped produce the injunction.

"It's an ongoing project to combat gangs," Mariscal said. "That's why the injunction is forever."

Bee staff writer Rosalio Ahumada can be reached at rahumada@modbee.com or (209) 578-2394.