A closer look at local gangs |
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San Bernardino County The sheriff's gang unit is broken into two regional teams, a High Desert team and a Central Valley' team. One sergeant, one detective and two deputies are assigned to monitor gang activity in the High Desert, including Victorville, Hesperia, Apple Valley, Adelanto and Barstow. The same staffing is used to monitor gang activity in the Central Valley from Rancho Cucamonga to San Bernardino. Each team is supplemented by one California Highway Patrol officer and one county probation officer. There are an estimated 362 active gangs with 12,828 gang members in San Bernardino County, said sheriff's spokeswoman Cindy Beavers. Plans for possible expansion of the county's SMASH, or San Bernardino Movement Against Street Hoodlums, team a task force of law-enforcement agencies throughout the county to combat gang crime may be in the cards. Riverside County just allocated $5 million to its Sheriff's Department to form a countywide task force, broken into seven regions, with 44 members assigned to combat gangs. "It will be necessary as (San Bernardino County) grows and the population grows," Beavers said. "It will be something the department will have to plan for."
COLTON The Colton Police Department has three full-time gang officers, a corporal and two patrol officers, complemented by personnel from the detective bureau, narcotics unit and neighborhood enrichment team to combat its six street gangs comprising about 450 members, Lt. Mark Owens said. The gang unit also participates in the countywide SMASH task force, conducts periodic gang sweeps, Owens said. Only four of the city's six gangs, however, are actively committing crimes in Colton and surrounding cities, Owens said. These gangs, Owens said, include:
With the exception of the Colton City Crips, each gang is primarily Latino and claims as its turf the boundaries of the city affiliated with its gang name. The Colton City Crips is composed primarily of blacks and claims as its turf the Arbor Terrace Apartment complex in the 2100 block of North Rancho Avenue and various neighborhoods in Rialto, Owens said. No gang injunctions have been issued. Instead, police and city officials have found it more effective to use existing laws that mandate crimes committed by gang members or for the benefit of street gangs result in harsher penalties and prison sentences. During the last two years, Colton's gang unit has completed gang enhancements on more than 70 gang members resulting in sentences ranging from five years to life in prison, Owens said. Police are currently investigating 20 active gang crimes. The suspects in those cases are looking at an average sentence of 22 years in prison if convicted. Most of the cases are now pending in court, Owens said. FONTANA The Fontana Police Department has historically maintained the largest gang unit of all police departments in San Bernardino County. It currently has seven full-time officers assigned to the unit to combat about 10 active street gangs comprising between 750 and 1,000 members, Capt. Terry Holderness said. Typically, 10 officers are supposed to be assigned to the unit, and police hope to bring the numbers back up to that staffing level. "We're running three vacancies because the department's expanding. As we're doing a lot of expanding, that's been a bigger priority on patrol," Holderness said. The city had seen a downward trend in gang activity in the 1990s, but in the last two years there has been an uptick, Holderness said. Many of the city's gangs are Los Angeles implants coming from families who moved to the area to escape the gang threat there and to find cheaper housing who brought the gang lifestyle to Fontana. Their children were so immersed in the gang lifestyle it was already too late, police said. The largest street gang in Fontana, South Side Fontana, had its origins in the city, with offshoot affiliate gangs Neighborhood Locos and Tiny Hood Locos, or THL. Together, the Latino gangs are about 1,000 strong, police said. Members of the Los Angeles-based 18th Street gang also reside in Fontana. It is the largest street gang in Southern California, comprising about 20,000 members, police said. Police work with state parole officials to identify gang members recently released from prison by having them attend orientation programs informing them of the various programs and services available in the community to help them get back on their feet. "One of the side benefits is we identify everybody's gang affiliation. ... As soon as one thing happens we're all over it because we know who's involved," Holderness said. The city had an injunction against one Southridge area street gang in the 1990s, but it was deemed ineffective, Holderness said. Gang activity continues to taper off in the city as it continues to grow. "Traditionally, gangs tend to work and be more prevalent in economically disadvantaged areas," Holderness said. HIGHLAND Two deputies are assigned full time to the sheriff's Highland station's multiple enforcement team, which combats street crimes, including gangs, Lt. Tom Neely said. Gangs known to claim the city are North Side Redlands and Colonial Trece also a Redlands-based gang that has claimed Highland and established offshoot gangs the East Siders and East Side Highland, Neely said. Other gangs known to reside in the city include SGV, or San Gabriel Valley, Florencia 13, West Side Verdugo and the Crips affiliate Pimps, Playboys, Hustlers and Gangsters, Neely said. No injunctions have been leveled against any of the gangs, Neely said. "Injunctions are very effective, but I don't think (gangs are) prevalent enough (in the city) to rise to that level," Neely said. ONTARIO Ontario police Lt. John Evans refused to disclose the number of officers on the city's gang unit, but he did say four to seven gangs comprising about 1,000 members operate in the city. Most other gang members are transitory and spill over from other areas, he said. "They are going outside their city. There is a bigger market when you go outside," Evans said. "Typically, gangs used to fight over turf. In general, it's no so much about turf wars anymore." He said the gang unit part of the Police Department's investigations unit develops intelligence on gang members and monitors activity in the city by analyzing crime data. Police run tabs on all parolees and those on probation who have gang ties and are being released into the city, Evans said. Thay also keep real-time statistics that show crime patterns in the city on a daily basis, Evans said. The biggest gang in the city is the Ontario Black Angels, with offshoots Ontario Varrio Sur and Sunkist, with about 800 members. The Latino gangs all originated in the city, said a sheriff's deputy who is a member of the Police Department's gang unit. REDLANDS Redlands has two major gangs: North Side Redlands, or NSR, and VarrioRedlands. Both originated in the city and still claim Redlands. Colonia 13, aka Colonial Trece, also originated in Redlands but now claims Highland, said Officer Cindy Gourlay of the Police Department's multiple enforcement team, which combats street crime including gangs. The team is made up of one sergeant, a corporal and eight officers. No injunctions against gangs are currently in place. Injunctions are used, for example, "when hard-core gang members make it so good people can't go to a park without feeling as though it's unsafe," Gourlay said. RIALTO The Rialto Police Department is trying to regroup its gang unit, which disbanded in June because of a personnel crunch, interim Police Chief Frank Scialdone said. So current estimates on the number of gangs and gang members are not availab le, said police Detective Kurt Kitterle. Two officers participate in periodic gang sweeps with the county's SMASH task force. Among the gangs in the city are North Side Rialto and South Side Rialto, which are mostly Latino. The Crips affiliate gang Pimps, Playboys, Hustlers and Gangsters also has a number of members living in the city, Kitterle said. All three gangs have been tied to homicides and shootings in the city and elsewhere, Kitterle said. "We do have a lot of factions of Blood and Crips," Kitterle said. "We do have a lot of single gang members that claim different sets. We have a lot of problems with the tagging crews. We know they're out there." One of the first things on Scialdone's agenda is examining the staffing levels and trying to determine if some assignments can be shifted and the gang unit be reactivated. "We think it is possible, and we think it is necessary," Scialdone said. "The only responsible thing to do is to have some kind of gang enforcement." SAN BERNARDINO San Bernardino has eight police officers and a sergeant assigned to its gang unit. The city has an estimated 3,038 gang members. Two more gang officers will be added to the unit in January, police Lt. Mark Garcia said. Verdugo Flats is by far the largest gang in the city with about 3,000 members, police said. Affiliate gangs include Seventh Street and Mount Vernon. The city has injunctions against the following gangs:
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