When authorities started calling what would become the largest one-day law enforcement action ever seen in Santa Barbara “Operation Gator Roll,” the name seemed to fit the bill. The task force had one clear, if difficult, mission: to render helpless the Eastside gang.
By the end of 2007, the fact that gang violence had escalated 223 percent in three years was not lost on Police Chief Cam Sanchez, or just about anyone else in the city. The wake-up call came in March, when a gang fight resulted in a 15-year-old boy being stabbed to death in front of Saks Fifth Avenue. Public outcry and common sense told all Santa Barbara law enforcement, from city police to the county DA’s office, that something dramatic had to be done — and fast. “At first, we were trying to figure out whether to do a small joint operation,” explained Senior Deputy District Attorney Hans Almgren, one of three gang prosecutors in Santa Barbara DA’s South County office. Eventually, a very large joint operation formed that included the FBI and U.S. Attorney Thomas O’Brien, head of the Department of Justice’s Central District of California in Los Angeles. The task force soon focused on the Eastside gang as the main perpetrators of the worst crime and violence in the city. Working together for more than a year, 18 federal, state, and local agencies were finally ready to strike by the fall of 2008.
By Paul Wellman
At a press conference the day of the bust, Police Chief Cam Sanchez (center, with the late DA Christie Stanley and then U.S. attorney Thomas O’Brien) lauded law enforcement efforts to take down the Eastside gang.
Inside the Dome of Doom
Operation Gator Roll hit Santa Barbara’s Eastside gang like a bolt of lightning. None of them saw it coming. In the early morning of October 15, more than 400 law enforcement officers descended on 71 locations, busting down doors from Los Angeles County to Santa Maria. Nearly 60 suspects were rounded up that day and brought to Earl Warren Showgrounds, where the taskforce had set up the command headquarters. Police cars, buses, SUVs, and all manner of law enforcement jammed the parking lot as groups of young men and women were led into the round auditorium, which some officers started calling the “Dome of Doom.” There they were swiftly processed in a scene of bureaucratic efficiency and young male bravado. Chests puffed out; gang signs flashed. Of the dozens of suspected gang members, some were immediately released, some were booked on state charges, and 28 were arrested on a Federal Grand Jury indictment. It was all over but the shouting.
RICO = Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act conspiracy
VICAR = Violent Crime in Aid of Racketeering
Ages: as of October 15, 2008
(All charges were brought in federal court.)
At 11 a.m., U.S. Attorney O’Brien, DA Christie Stanley, and Chief Sanchez held a press conference to announce that Operation Gator Roll was an unqualified success. The main prize was the 28 men who were on their way to a federal jail in Los Angeles. When those guys started realizing that they were not headed for the familiar confines of Santa Barbara’s lockup, some of the swagger began to fizzle. It really toughened up for 19 of those men, who were indicted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. A rare but powerful law enforcement tool, the RICO Act had never before been brought to the Central Coast. Now, almost two years later, all those facing federal charges have pled guilty to some sort of state or federal crime and are either serving their time, have served their time, or await sentencing.
In 2009, according to the district attorney’s office, gang-related cases dropped for the first time in three years. To many Santa Barbarans, Operation Gator Roll had accomplished its mission. As a high school teacher who has worked with many gang-affiliated kids put it, “There was a disturbance in the forest that day.”
Welcome to Santa Bruta
The gang lifestyle is nothing new to Santa Barbara; it’s been here in one form or another since the mid twentieth century. There have been bike gangs such as the Hell’s Angels and racist gangs such as the North Side White Boys; there was even a rumored Montecito rich boys gang in the 1980s. And, of course, there has long been the State Street territorial divide now generally staked out by Hispanic street gangs. Robert “Babo” Sosa, a top commander for the prominent prison gang Nuestra Familia now serving a 20-year federal sentence, was from the city. For those living within the gang culture of drug dealing and violence, Santa Barbara has long been known as “Santa Bruta.”
In 2007, Santa Barbara police reported 768 known gang members to the Grand Jury. Then, as now, the largest gang was the Eastside, which has four sub-cliques: Krazies, Traviesos, La Familia, and The Gang. Eastsider territory generally runs east of State Street to Alameda Padre Serra and from Anapamu Street to the beach. Their principal rivals are Westsiders, who claim the neighborhoods west of State Street as their own, and Bohnett Park and Guadalajara Market as their main hangouts. Other Santa Barbara gangs include Carpas in Carpinteria and a number of smaller Goleta gangs.
Audio Clip
Poodle Radio #34
On this week’s Poodle Radio, Colin Marshall is joined first by Indy reporter Chris Meagher to discuss his cover story on the effects of Operation Gator Roll, Santa Barbara’s largest one-day law enforcement action ever.
Gang graffiti pops up most everywhere around town, sometimes as a threat or challenge to other gangs. Tattoos on chests and arms, and occasionally on heads and faces, advertise gang affiliations. Kids flashing gang signs are a common sight, even in photos on MySpace, where Westsiders form a “W” and Eastsiders an “E.” Drive by Pennywise Market near the Franklin Center, a common Eastsider hangout, and you’ll often see the “W” in the store sign scratched out, just as Westsiders will use “3” instead of “E” in their graffiti.
Gang wannabes must “put in work” before joining. Only shot callers, older members of the gang, can decide when someone can be “jumped in” — an initiation ritual where the gang novitiate is beaten up for 10 seconds or so. It becomes an all-encompassing lifestyle, like “a disease,” said former gang member Christopher Diaz. “You get sucked into it, and you just become a person you don’t want to be.”
By Paul Wellman
Suspected gang members involved in the stabbing murder of Angel Linares are detained on State Street in March 2007.
Violent Uprising in Paradise
The most recent gang crime wave began in early 2007. For decades, police and young street toughs had what might be described as a working relationship. Slowly, however, gang members began flaunting their allegiances openly. Violence and crime became more brazen. Respect for authority seemed to disappear. A notable moment came during a routine street encounter, when one Eastside gang member began yelling at officers: “Fuck you, cop. I’ll kick your ass. Come on, bitch. I’ll fuck you up right now.”
The most violent of these gangs in 2007 and 2008 was the Eastside, a member of which was responsible for the March 2007 Saks Fifth Avenue stabbing that took place on State street in the middle of a sunny, weekday afternoon.
Incidents of alleged gang-related knife attacks were becoming so numerous they could almost be called commonplace:
Name: Edwin Bay, 20
Pleaded to: illegal reentry
Sentence: deportation after serving sentence
• In May, a 30-year-old man was hospitalized after being stabbed by a group demanding to know where he was from, a common challenge issued by gang members. Eastsider Edwin Bay (one of the 28 federally indicted men) was arrested for the attack later that night.
• In June, a fight at Rusty’s Pizza on Cabrillo Boulevard left an Eastsider with three stab wounds to his upper left arm and chest. The fight started outside the restaurant but spilled inside, startling family customers. The same month, three Eastsiders armed with knives and a bat attacked a Westsider.
• In mid July, 16-year-old Westsider Lorenzo “Nemo” Carachure was stabbed to death. Another gang-related stabbing occurred days later on upper State Street.
• On September 20, a 17-year-old was stabbed several times after being attacked by armed suspects on the lower Westside. Four days later, a 20-year-old known gang associate was stabbed as he walked alone near Haley and Nopal streets by three teenagers who shouted a gang slogan before repeatedly stabbing him.
• On October 14, a man was allegedly attacked by three Eastsiders who punched him and stabbed him three times in the back in the parking lot of the Spearmint Rhino.
• In November, several gang members, one of whom was brandishing a knife, smashed windows on the Westside. Also that month, an Eastsider stopping at a Westside gas station stabbed a man he believed to be from a rival gang.
In 2008, police reported 12 alleged gang-related stabbings or serious assaults. The death of Emmanuel Roldan, a 15-year-old who was stabbed once in the heart on July 4, 2008, marked the third time in 18 months a Westsider died from knife wounds. Only a month before Operation Gator Roll was launched, two men were shot in a gang fight on the Westside, and in another incident, a young man who was scheduled to testify against the Eastsider charged in the Saks Fifth Avenue murder was himself brutally stabbed multiple times. He survived and went on to testify despite a collapsed lung.
myspace
From left: Brothers Robert Martinez and Ruben Mize.
The Mize Guys
It turns out the central figure in this story of Santa Barbara gang life was sitting in Juvenile Hall on the day of Operation Gator Roll. Ruben Mize was 16 at the time and already facing life in prison for the murder of Carachure, plus two other attempted murder charges. Since then, he has been charged with an additional attempted murder, an assault on another Juvenile Hall inmate, and a jumping-in gang crime.
Name: Robert Martinez, 22
Pleaded to:RICO conspiracy, conspiracy to distribute cocaine
Sentence: pending
In a way, this is not surprising, since just about every male member of Mize’s family has been connected to some form of gang and criminal activity. His two older brothers, Anthony and Robert Martinez, and his uncles Carl Flores and Leslie Mize, as well as his cousin, Christopher Diaz, were at one time or another all members of the Eastside.
His father, Paul Martinez (Ruben Mize uses his mother’s last name), then 46 years old, was arrested the morning of Gator Roll, charged with threatening a witness at his son’s preliminary hearing in the Carachure murder case. Though he eventually pled no contest and received probation and time served, his past criminal record impressed Judge Brian Hill. Martinez has had two stints in prison and has been convicted of theft at least five times, the most recent in 2001 for stealing two bottles of tequila. His defense was that he needed the alcohol because he was a heroin addict who wasn’t using. More recently, he was arrested during a probation search of his home, where drugs suspected to be heroin and materials connected to a San Diego street gang were allegedly found. He is still in jail awaiting trial.
Mize’s oldest brother, Anthony, called “Bullet,” was in Folsom State Prison at the time of Gator Roll, where he was still serving a sentence. He has since died, apparently of natural causes, on August 5, 2010, at the age of 26. Ruben’s other brother, Robert, 23 years old and known as “Lil Bullet,” was in Santa Barbara jail facing an accessory to murder charge in the Carachure case, the same murder that Mize is accused of committing. Robert, who was the stabbing victim at the Rusty’s Pizza knife fight, is also charged with attempting to murder the man he believed attacked him. As a result of Operation Gator Roll, Robert was one of the 19 men charged under the RICO Act, and he was also charged federally with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, criminal forfeiture, and the sale of a firearm to a prohibited person. He now faces up to 40 years in a federal prison.
Uncle Carl Flores was also in S.B. jail on the same attempted murder charge as Robert. He allegedly bought an illegal stun gun with the intention to incapacitate the supposed Rusty’s Pizza stabber in order to more easily kill him. Flores, too, is one of the 19 men now charged under the RICO Act.
Mize’s cousin Diaz was, in his own way, central to Operation Gator Roll: He was the taskforce’s principal informant. Now, after many dangerous years of working with police, he, his girlfriend, and their child have been put in the witness protection program and moved out of Santa Barbara and into a new life.
Paul Wellman
Ruben Mize, in the center of the investigation, is alleged to be responsible for serious violence on Santa Barbara’s streets.
Chiko Loko Comes of Age
Ruben Mize, who was born in Santa Barbara in 1991, first came to the attention of the law when he was nine years old and ran into Detective Gary Siegel on the street. Since then, there have been more than 30 police reports on him, the first being a month after he turned 12, when he allegedly assaulted a grown man he thought was “mad-dogging” him. The reports went on to include the theft of a vehicle with his brother Robert and another car pursuit in which he allegedly threw a gun out the window. Finally, he was arrested in 2008 for the Carachure murder, which occurred when he was 15 years old. His parents could not control him. Family members have reported that Mize would sneak out the window every time his parents tried to ground him. A teacher described him as cunning and a boy who always “knew what he was doing.”
Now 18, Mize looks like a grown man, hardened beyond his years. Tall, muscular, and sneering, Mize, who has tattoos all over his face and body, has gained a street reputation, not only for his growing criminal record, but for being an accomplished gangster rapper. “You know me, Dog, I could care less what happens,” Mize, known within the gang as “Chiko Loko”, wrote from jail in a letter recently. “This is the life I chose to live.”
A Santa Barbara jury was recently deadlocked on whether Mize, along with three other defendants, committed first-degree murder in the death of Carachure, though jurors said a second-degree murder conviction was almost certain had they been allowed to consider it. He was, however, convicted of an attempted murder in a different case, and now faces 15 years to life in prison. The prosecution is now planning to retry Mize for Carachure’s death.
It was the investigation into Carachure’s murder that led to the formation of Operation Gator Roll. In the weeks following the murder, “witnesses were not crawling out of the woodwork to help,” said Chief Sanchez. But then in walked Christopher Diaz.
By Paul Wellman
Prosecuter Hans Almgren
The Wire and Other Friends of the Law
Diaz, a big man with a jolly laugh, had been an Eastside gang member since the late 1990s and had a prior conviction for possessing a weapon. He was also a cousin to Mize and the Martinez brothers. But he was getting tired of gang life. “I was 22, 23, kickin’ it at a park with 15-year-olds,” he testified during Mize’s murder trial. “It was time to grow up.” One day in 2007, he was hanging with Mize and Mize’s father, Paul Martinez, and another Eastsider, Bryan Medinilla, talking about the recent Carachure killing. According to Diaz, Mize described how he had “stuck Carachure in the neck.” Some time later, Medinilla, who became a codefendant in the case, allegedly told Diaz that he had stabbed 16-year-old Carachure in the stomach.
Lorenzo Valentin Carachure
“If that had been my son, I wish someone would’ve come forward,” Diaz said about his decision to go to Det. Siegel and to begin cooperating with police. It was Diaz’s idea to wear a wire because, as a seasoned criminal and longtime gang member, he was afraid no one would believe him. Several months later, on April 1, 2008, he and Mize were driving along San Pascual Street when Mize began describing the killing of “Nemo” Carachure. “That’s where we parked when we stuck Nemo,” Mize was recorded saying on tape. “The thing that helped us out,” he went on, was that the victim was hit in the head and couldn’t get up. Carachure’s “arms were on the ground like he passed out,” Mize said, and that’s when he gave him the kill shot in the throat. Later in the tape, Mize also admitted to stabbing another Westsider several months later, leaving that victim for dead.
While the recording was critical evidence against Mize, Diaz recorded other Eastsiders talking about other crimes, as well. “Anywhere I went with a gang member, I had a recording,” he said. It was Diaz who was with Mize’s uncle Flores when he was buying the stun gun. Diaz testified in the preliminary hearing of that case.
Flipping Like Dolphins
Operation Gator Roll might never have been such a success without Diaz and his gutsy wearing of a wire. But since then, many other gangsters, now facing serious charges, are flipping like dolphins. Robert Martinez, for instance, who was facing the prospect of life in prison, has now testified against his brother Mize and other Eastside gang members in exchange for a plea deal. “I could get beat up, I could get stabbed, I could possibly get killed,” Martinez told the jury, but he no longer considers himself a member of the gang.
Paul Wellman (file)
Ricardo Nava
“In my experience,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Aveis, no stranger to prosecuting serious gang crime, “[gangsters] only care about their own survival. Absent the federal charges, I’m confident Robert Martinez would never have come forward to testify against his brother.” At least 12 really good arrests were first “linked by a kernel of information that we were able to pursue,” according to police spokesperson Lieutenant Paul McCaffrey. One gang member helped crack the case of a June 2007 attack by leading police to Ricardo Nava, also accused in the Carachure murder. He, along with Eastsiders Omar Ramos and Erick Roman, eventually pled guilty to attempted murder with a gang enhancement and all received prison sentences of at least 17 years. The convictions are directly connected to the Carachure homicide and Operation Gator Roll, as was the discovery of an illegal weapons operation that was outfitting gang members with knives and stun guns, and the solving of the 2007 attack on a Westsider who suffered at least 30 stab wounds (Mize was allegedly involved in that attack). In all, 160-plus arrests would be made in connection with Gator Roll. “It really is a gift that keeps on giving,” said Hilary Dozer, the prosecutor in the DA’s South County office, recently named administrator of the gang unit.
Promises and False Hopes
It’s just another Monday morning in Judge George Wu’s courtroom on the second floor of the historic federal building on Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. But for the 28 defendants from Santa Barbara who have made their way through Wu’s court in recent months, the feeling is anything but familiar. No more familiar bailiffs, no more familiar lawyers, no more familiar sentences, no more red tile roofs. Federal convictions are not eligible for parole, and often federal prisoners are sent out of state. Terms of probation are stricter, and penalties for violating probation are severe.
Name: Ivan Quezada, 23
Pleaded to:VICARSentence: 13 months, with significant credit from state sentence
On this particular day in May, two indicted defendants from Operation Gator Roll are in court. One defendant, Edwin Bay, has his case continued to another day. He eventually pled to an illegal reentry immigration charge, and, after serving time, will be deported. The other defendant, Ivan Quezada, is being sentenced for attacking a man with a baseball bat because he thought the victim was not from the Eastside. Though he had already served two years for the crime in a state prison, he was being sentenced on federal charges for the same offense. Quezada has a rap sheet dating back to a 2001 battery for which he was placed in boot camp. He escaped in 2002 from Juvenile Hall, and over several years received several other battery charges until he was arrested for the baseball-bat assault. Quezada is now a 24-year-old and the father of a daughter who was born while he was in federal custody. She is in the courtroom. His lawyer explains that Quezada has taken classes at S.B. City College and wants to participate in a tattoo removal program. Judge Wu sentences him 13 months, or the time he has been in custody since his Gator Roll arrest.
Other Gator Roll defendants are claiming that the experience in federal prison has given them a chance to reform, such as Joshua Rodriquez, who wrote to the judge that he planned to move to Oregon with a family member to get away from the Eastside.
Name: Miguel Parra, 20
Pleaded to: conspiracy to distribute cocaine
Sentence: 23 months with credit from state sentence
Miguel Parra, now serving 23 months for conspiracy to distribute cocaine, said his time behind bars has given him a chance to grow up after a childhood with his father in prison, his mother working three jobs, and him turning to alcohol and drugs: “My life was drastically changed the first weeks of October 2008 … My incarceration gives me an opportunity to get away from my old environment, and dead-end lifestyle that I entered under false hopes and promises.”
Several defense attorneys here in town, however, questioned the need for Gator Roll. “You wonder if a Santa Barbara street gang is a RICO situation,” one attorney said. “Federal laws are pretty intense stuff.” Another said that arresting Mize alone probably did more to lower the violent crime rate in Santa Barbara than Gator Roll ever did.
But statistics from the DA’s office indicate that while gang-related cases have gone up countywide from 2005 to 2009, the city’s have gone down from the high of 112 in 2007 to 76 in 2009. A review by this paper of serious gang-related assaults reported by the police department shows gang crimes have decreased dramatically since the bust. Thus far in 2010, there have only been two alleged gang-related stabbings. The most recent July 4 and Fiesta holidays, often hot times for gang violence, were quiet. “It almost shut down certain types of gang violence,” said Dozer.
By Paul Wellman (file)
Cam Sanchez at the Gator Roll press conference.
Up and Down the Gang Chain
But that’s not to say all incidents of gang activity have vanished. Gang graffiti and gatherings of gang “types” still worry neighbors. For example, in April 2009, the Franklin Center Medical Clinic was placed on lockdown for roughly 40 minutes because 20 or so suspected Eastside gang members had gathered outside and begun throwing hand signs at some people inside associated with a Westside gang. Police arrested four individuals, including an 18-year-old, who, now 19, is sitting in state prison. Joaquin Perez, or “Silent,” had been arrested on witness intimidation charges as part of Gator Roll, and was out on bail at the time of the Franklin Center incident. In June, he was sentenced to three years in state prison, with two strikes against him when he gets out. He eventually pled no contest to a battery of a police officer charge in the Franklin Center incident, as well.
The word on the street is that some of those who did time in federal prison as a result of Gator Roll have been strutting around, talking about how tough they are. A gangster rap song was produced by Eastsiders that brags about their federal indictments. A local school teacher who has taught several gang members said at first many were happy when Gator Roll happened, but that it didn’t take long for gang members, especially the young ones, to start making noise again. “They were right back at it a few months later,” he said. Gator Roll, by taking out a lot of the leaders, created new opportunities for the younger kids to step up. “I don’t think it has dissuaded anyone.”
Nearly everyone, law enforcement included, agrees that prosecution is but one tool in the bag to rid the streets of gangs and keep the community safe. Matt Sanchez, who works closely with at-risk youth and gang members, said that he himself needed a stint in prison to learn his lesson and turn his life around. “I knew I had to be locked up,” he said. Indeed, there are plenty of programs and services attempting to reach at-risk youth. Newly elected DA Joyce Dudley has made youth violence a priority and pledged to get her office — first and foremost tasked with prosecuting crime — out in the community, supporting programs trying to stop kids from joining gangs in the first place. Jacqueline Inda, who works with both gang members and their families, said there needs to be an intensive support system, but that now there is little to help families except law enforcement and suppression. Neighborhood activist Ken Rivas asked, “Is there a noticeable change from Gator Roll? … My answer would be yes and no … Absent major violence, it seems to be business as usual.”
Well-written for covering so many facts that could otherwise be just a boring litany. Well done to law enforcement for being persistent in taking some of these people off the streets, although it seems to be a never-ending problem.
Nice write up. The story about Mize reminds me of a great book called "All of God's Children" by Fox Butterfield. This kind of violence and disregard for life doesn't come from nowhere. It can be traced to family structure, socioeconomics and even history.
It would be interesting to know whether the crackdown on the Eastsiders had any effect on the Westside gang. Has there been a rise in their activity since? It is interesting that the stabbing at Hendry's Beach involved Westsiders.
A very well reseached story, thank you Indie and Chris Meagher. Where did these young men turn from children to criminals? Didn't they walk the same city streets and attend the same schools as their law-abiding peers? I wonder how many have siblings who lived under the same roof, with the same upbringing, yet are not criminals. People can rise above their circumstances, or can make choices that plunge themselves into ruin. Where is the indignation or embarrasment? Can the next generation of criminal losers be averted?
WOW, they should round up all the "gangsters" around town and take them to East or South LA for a night to scare them straight. SB gangs are a joke to everyone but gangsters in SB, the media is giving them too much credit and empowering them. enough is enough SB Independent.
"People can rise above their circumstances, or can make choices that plunge themselves into ruin."
Quite easier said than done. Even "Chico Loko" is convinced his life of crime is a matter of his own free choice. But was it really? Could it have been any other way?
Most certainly not. This story is entirely predictable, from start to finish.
No. He literally had no choice. He doesn't know any better. Add to that, if family history is in any way reliable, and I would argue that it most certainly is, he's most likely a sociopath with a defective genome.
This doesn't mean we can't hold him accountable. What the man did was objectively wrong. Our criminal justice system inflicts punishment designed to alter future behavior so that those that have the capacity to contribute to society in constructive ways will hopefullly so if given another opportunity. Others, we've deduced, don't have that capacity and we lock them up for life, or kill them like barbarians.
I have known people brought up in the same circumstances and not go this way. Could something else been done? Probably. I have been a witness to many cases of child abuse and neglect which I should have reported. Then again I have reported some cases and nothing is done. Our system has problems and they usually come back to bite us in the behind. IVConcerned- They will be meeting gangsters from those places soon enough, unfortunately it becomes a learning experience for them. One of two things will happen, either our hometown gangsters can't hang or they become more learned in their ways which make for a more unified crime syndicate out on the streets. A very good example is Robert "Babo" Sosa, who is one of those gangsters from the "American Me" era. This man became a gangster when there was some real scary stuff going on in and out of prison and he went up against all these LA gangsters that should have been more seasoned than him. Determination and commitment can be the deciding factors in any battle-good or bad.
Wow, I cannot believe all this has been going on in SB. It saddens me to read some of the names knowing some of the boys/men had played youth sports with my own son, who I raised as a single parent. How or why do these kids make these choices coming from good hardworking families? I am so disheartened by this.
i think out of respect for there moms no one should judge you do no not no how these moms tried to keep there kids out of trouble s.b does not have thing to keep these kids out of truoble well there moms and dads work s.b is so worried about there tourist that they let these kids slip though there hands remeber it takes a village to raies a kid and this village must have been sleeping these boys may be your worest nightmare but there are sons and we love them no matter what and we will never give up on them
What we need to remember is that these are not people who are born psychotic a la Charles Manson or Ted Bundy, these criminals are created by their environment.
Before people use the argument "some people are born with advantages others don't have", I will preemptively address that by saying that one huge disadvantage these guys have is that we do not have an honest discussion about how Americans perceive Mexican people, and my criticism and frustration are aimed at the Left as much as the Right.
Num1UofAn is correct in bringing up the issue of history. While we can praise the police for this crackdown, and this is praise which is deserved, I think we all can see that there are many, many, more of these guys coming down the slide so this is like putting out a forest fire with a wet rag.
Until society collectively sees the cause and effect of an immigration policy which disregards the "Melting Pot" concept in favor of pleasing multiculturalists *and* big business, (in other words, seeing Mexican immigrants not as human beings but as expendable cogs of an economic Ponzi Scheme and deluded social agenda) there is no chance this situation will ever improve.
"We can do better." No, immigrants from Mexico and their descendants can do better. Santa Barbara is full of immigrants from countries just as dysfunctional as Mexico, but who learn English and take maximum advantage of our educational system and economic opportunities.
The real hard question is why immigrants from China, Vietnam, Korea and Eastern Europe do on aggregate far better than Mexican immigrants. For example, 40% of the University of California undergraduate population is Asian, and less than 30% is white -- so much for a Eurocentric, white-oriented higher educational system. An even harder question is whether our immigration system should be mainly an escape valve for Mexico. Mexico provides 24% of legal immigrants, far larger than any other group (China is next at 5%). Mexico further receives an obvious preference in immigration through our tolerance of illegal entry and residence.
Instead of glorifying the gangs with a cover story, the Indy could serve the immigration debate better by conducting a round-table interview of non-Latino immigrants in Santa Barbara. It would be interesting to hear their feelings about issues like 90% Spanish-education in so-called "dual-immersion" schools and entry-level hiring biases towards Latinos couched as "bilingual/bi-cultural" requirements. Hearing how non-Latino poor immigrants tend to stay out of gangs from the round-table would also be useful. (yes, I realize California does have Asian and Eastern European gangs, but they just do not seem as prevalent.)
Right on Revisionist!!! The media keeps glorifying this "gang" life: tv/movies/radio/theIndependent...all seem to show how "awesome" it is to be in a "gang". If there wasn't so much focus on it, it would eventually not be as "cool".
And can someone get these girls and boys some contraceptives? Jeeze!
Well, obviously, the circumstances are never exactly the same. Water doesn't flow uphill.
But we aren't just talking about circumstances. I'll say again, the man's mental health plays an integral role as well. He obviously has a propensity for impulsivity and is probably unable to empathize with others in a meaningful way. These are discrete neurological abnormalities that can be effectively manipulated with the proper pharmaceutical cocktail.
I'm not in any way advocating for an across the board increase in the use of pharmacological therapies to correct the gang problem. My only point here is that to alter these kinds of outcomes, we need to alter the inputs. More focus on academics, more parent education, more youth programs for at-risk young people and, where applicable, medical intervention, can prevent deviant behavior.
In short, we can do a lot more, but this isn't just for their benefit. I'd like to live in safer neighborhoods and send my children to safer schools. To do that effectively, we can't just run around and lock everyone up after the fact.
Revisionist-"No, immigrants from Mexico and their descendants can do better." Really? There are many Mexicans who can disprove that statement, including some who are on the Forbes Richest Persons list. As far as Mexican gangs being more prevalent, could it be, because as you stated, Mexicans make up more of the immigrant population? As I recall Asians do have their gangs and so do Italians, Irish, Jews; as a matter of fact I challenge you to name one ethnic group who does not have a gang or criminal syndicate. I cannot believe all you people who believe this is about glorifying the gang life, you seem like naive, ignorant gangbangers if you believe this is about glorifying this lifestyle. People have lost their lives to the grave and to jail, and these guys that claim to live this life have violated the code which they were supposed to live by.Anybody who has watched a gangster movie in their lives surely knows the possible outcome of violating the code of the streets and the law of the land. There is no glory, just like there are no old gangters.
"The real hard question is why immigrants from China, Vietnam, Korea and Eastern Europe do on aggregate far better than Mexican immigrants." -Revisionist-
Because the poorest and least educated cannot jump on a plane from those countries to get over here, so we get the best educated of their cultures, and because American has low expectations of Mexican immigrants and this contributes to the problem.
Are parents financially penalized for their childrens' crimes? If parental discipline isn't the ***root*** of the problem, then what is? Bad-@$$ kids only gain prestige among other bad-@$$es by going through juvenile detention.
Adonis_Tate: it's also our American culture of spare the rod and spoil the child. Kids get away with more stuff up here, and add to that the fact that many Mexican immigrant parents are working so many hours that they simply cannot be home to supervise their kids.
The schools and social programs have taken the place of parents and we see the results.
OK, excessive liberalism rots youth, at home and in custody.
Juvenile offenders' parents have the advantage of knowing how to spoil Jr's big pimp dreams. I'm not talking about older drug dealers. Young kids depend on parents for pricey toys, etc. If parents get fined, pricey toy will come immediately to parent's mind.
Do courts ever sentenced juveniles to pick up litter and paint over graffiti in their own neighborhoods on weekends while wearing pink, flowery cover-alls? If they're banging to cultivate an image, then the consequences should involve public humiliation. Prolonged litter pick-up along highways might be enuf to make them think twice next time.
We Americans take our cues from the mass media, whose hidden agenda is to rot the social fabric. Lemmings, lemmings....
Sherrif Joe Arpaio's reforms saved a lot of money AND reduced recidivism in Arizona. But in California, if it don't work, we don't fix it. Meanwhile, classrooms are getting more crowded because teachers are being laid off. Is it because teachers' unions and prison guards' unions are contributing to different parties? How about companies that supply prisons?
"Nice, nice, very nice So many people in the same device."
Would public campaign financing return some sanity to government? What have we got to lose by trying it? I think we'd save a LOT of money by buying the politicians ourselves!
Sorry, but Sheriff Arapaio's reforms didn't decrease recividism. The laws here in AZ are strict and lock up people longer, so that is why recividism is lower. Actually things have gotten worse, which is why bills like 1070 have passed. They don't want crime to be as bad as CA, so they are trying to see what will work. The juvenile system here is also being reduced like in CA because kids are being tried as adults and being sent to prison. The only thing I do have to say about the system here in AZ is that they are strict but give you a chance to prove yourself and be able to expunge your record once you complete probation. In CA once you are a felon, there is no going back.
"Because the poorest and least educated cannot jump on a plane from those countries to get over here, so we get the best educated of their cultures, ..." -- billclausen
If one looks at the early Asian immigrants to California from China and Japan in the 1800's, they were predominantly uneducated low wage laborers. Their descendants are now the American kids going to school at UC and their numbers eclipse those of recent international ("foreign") students from those same countries.
So I'm not sure I buy the notion that an educated class of immigrants from Asia has had that much effect on overall collegiate achievement statistics. However, if one considers achievement in something else, like business, that might be a different story.
Just for fun, I wanted to see if Revisionist's undergrad stats are accurate. Surprisingly to me, they are. If we look at the latest system-wide UC ethnicity statistics taken from the Office of the President:
The breakdown is shown below. But note that there is a category for "International" (which is only 3% of the system-wide undergraduate population). So for example, "Japanese" below should be interpreted as "Japanese-American", Americans who were either born or naturalized here.
UC system enrollment by Ethnicity for the Fall 2009 quarter
Ethnicity Undergrad %Undergrad International 5,285 3% American_Indian 1,008 1% African_American 6,125 3% Chicano/Chicana 22,425 13% Latino/Latina 7,117 4% Filipino/Pilipino 7,890 4% Chinese 27,998 16% Japanese 3,357 2% Korean 8,484 5% Other_Asian 14,353 8% Pakistani/East_Indian 8,977 5% White 57,159 32% Not_Stated/Unknown 7,610 4% Total 177,788 100%
If one adds up the the percentages for Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Other-Asian, you get 35%. If you add Pakistani/East_Indian, you get 40%.
OK, here is a dirty little secret you need to know: "EastBeach" is our pod leader. We dolphins who patrol the waters of East Beach have been having wars with the dolphins of West Beach on a regular basis. Sometimes dolphins swim up from Rincon and we have to deal with them too.
Curious what you would think if a group of people, unknown, began assassinating gang members while they were selling drugs. (Not just SB, LA etc) Cleaning the streets with sniper rifles. All comments welcome. - AB in SB
To the gang banging dolphins- Watch it or you might get Gator Rolled; you will be in the Dome of Doom and your mommy and daddy will be in INS detention.
The astonishing viciousness of the narco-gangs in Mexico recently is well documented. Human sacrifice by the Aztecs is also part of Mezo-American history. Add to that the incredible viciousness of the Spanish slaughter and enslavement of the native people the conquistadors exploited and you have a many hundred year history of a culture of machismo and cruelty. ( Please note that the Spaniards and the indigenous peoples of the New World were of very different gene pools so this is not an issue of so called "race" a rather, bogus construct to begin, with but one of culture) It is a very difficult cycle to break and I suspect it will be several more generations if ever until it is changed. Mexicans, although incredibly hard workers in most cases, are not being integrated fully into our culture and society in too many cases. How many of you know people who have been in this country for decades and yet speak little or no English? Sadly, I suspect that we will need many more "Operation Gator Rolls" in the future.
Good point about meso-American and conquistador machismo, Noletaman. Not to paint everyone with the same can, but Mexican culture is extremely macho.
On each of my two vacations to Costa Rica, I heard several jokes and references to Mexican machismo. Being tall and brown, and formerly in good shape myself, I've seen my share of twisted looks of hatred and resentment on male Mexican faces, plus jeers from moving vehicles and oblique insults from fellow pedestrians. When I drove nine-ton trucks for the postal service, it was a regular occurence that Mexican drivers stopped at side streets would pull forward a couple of feet as I entered the intersection, just to fake me out and restore the balance of machismo. Some Mexican immigrant men need to slam their car doors after midnight in residential neighborhoods, just so no one mistakes them for maricones. They slam even in safe neighborhoods, but in more predatory neighborhoods, machismo equals survival.
Machistic pre-occupation is an impediment to cultural advancement, a fact sometimes noted by Mexican men not so pre-occupied. I sometimes think that everything in the universe somehow relates to machismo in the minds of hard cases, in ways that "Anglos" could never fathom.
Noletaman says Mexicans are not being integrated fully into our culture in too many cases. I couldn't agree more, at least where machismo is concerned.
Stopping the over-crowding by pinching off immigration would help, obviously. (And please nobody call me names that they wouldn't also call Cesar Chavez. Ya estuvo. Gano Mexico.) Often-times it's easy to spot an immigrant man at a glance by the hard face. The second generation is usually more relaxed.
Adonis_Tate- All immigrants have that hard face; its the face of hard work and determination to get something better, that somehow never meets their expectations no matter what they acomplish.
All of the gang members convicted and sentenced under the RICO laws will be going to a USP. (United States Penitentiary)
Note: The link below will give a list of links to each of the Federal Prisons, as well as an Inmate Search for you to look up and see what USP they have each been assigned to:
What is a USP? Let's put it this way...since the feds have been charging gangbangers with the RICO statute and putting them away for 'a year and a dark day', and there is little chance they will see freedom for many years, the USP is now known in the system as Gladiator School.
Think about it... Hundreds of gangs and tens of thousands of gangbangers from all over the country, no rehabilitation, no education, no chance of freedom for 20+ years, all crammed into 21 facilities known as USP's. This = despair, violence, chaos, death and bad news.
This isn't being written by an advocate or to be judgemental, it is to let you know the 4th chapter.
Lock up 23 hours out of the day is not Gladiator School. DVI-Tracy was Gladiator School for real, back in the day. Book armour, and prison-made spears, long knives, or swords that was Gladiator School.
USP's should provide three hots and a lobotomy. Or a kindness cocktail of thorazine and saltpeter? Scrambled ecstasy for breakfast? Dose their coffee with oxytocin? Hey, I'm just suggesting humane alternatives to caning and castration!
Relax, I'm kidding. Maybe science will come up with something targeted and precise to soothe the savage breast of career criminals, and the rest of the world will adopt the practice while USA goes bankrupt.
Voting yes on prop 19 will address your suggestions. I'm sure every prison guard would love to serve up MJ brownies for breakfast...and lunch and dinner
BTW, AZ2SB, I didn't mean to imply that all immigrants have flinty faces. There are many jolly & friendly ones, natch. But there's a distinct look that goes with grim survival. You often see it on the hardest-working poor people in Mexico.
This message is for all the idiots... you all comment... why? because on here you are anonymous? Sure we all know people who have grown up in bad situations, but have YOU grown up in a bad situation? for those that have, You know how difficult it is to even try to stay out of that path... You know how lucky you are if you get out of that path. Sure to anyone who has NEVER been in the situation... it's like... "oh what's the big deal, they have a choice, they know whats right and wrong..." BUT HAVE YOU EVER BEEN THREATENED TO GET BEAT UP? HAVE YOU EVER BEEN CALLED A Bi***, HAVE YOU EVER BEEN CALLED A PUNK OR A PUS**, HAVE YOU EVER HAD TO WALK WITH YOUR HEAD DOWN BECAUSE YOU WERE SCARED... face it, you haven't... "oh but this this and that" I could hear you now... trying to give me an example of how tough life was for you. but your sad little story is B***S***! cry your sad story to another person who has never been in harms way. and for the TOUGH GUY who said "Leslie, no wonder they use nicknames" ...I WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOU SAY THAT TO HIS FACE. I know a Leslie, Loren, Shannon... and trust me... they wait for some jack@$$ like you to come along to make their day! you would shrink and shut your mouth real quick! stay anonymous... right? same goes to the idiots who are talking about anchor babies and the parents that are not documented... most of them work twice as hard as any of us... and you want to disrespect them? they don't control their kids... blah blah blah... do you work two maybe three jobs? if so, have you tried to keep your kids inline? And if not... SHUT YOUR MOUTH! but no, there is always going to be that fake person out there thinking that they had a tough child hood. give me a break. better yet, give yourself a break and stop feeling sorry for yourself...
iPitTyU said: "...you all comment... why? because on here you are anonymous?" You said your name is what? And who's calling people bia-tch? Gangbangers? Your points have obvious merit, been when has a Santa Barbara teen ever been murdered for not joining a gang?
Here's an example of just straight-up-Hate: iPitTyU: "and trust me... they wait for some jack@$$ like you to come along to make their day! you would shrink and shut your mouth real quick!" Punching first, ask questions later... all this energy is put to Hate. Why can't we all just get along? Seriously?
...and to think I thought the only gangs to fear went by the names Enron, Wells Fargo, Congress, and BP. Now you tell me there are more dangerous gangs than all of these put together? Whew, guess I better arm myself with a bigger shovel!
iPityU- You ask why all the talk? Because this is the U.S. and we have the fredom of speech. Given, everybody has a different opinion, but no one can agree that anything described in this article is positive. I know you are just venting, but how about being a little more constructive and offering solutions instead? BTW- Been there done that, and there is a choice.
Mize says "This is the life I chose to live." Well, that's kind of like me saying I chose to be a white male of privilege. No doubt he made some bad decisions along the way, but the deck was stacked against him and the majority of these individuals from the time they were born. Unfortunately addressing the root issues of crime violence (which stem from our own often unacknowledged racism) doesn't yield the immediate, albeit temporary, results of a huge police sweep. I am sympathetic to the emotions on all sides of this issue, but I for one would gladly help fund longer term approaches to reducing the worse aspects of gang activity. How about the rest of you who are privileged?
For such a supposedly "macho" subculture, these guys are sure afraid to do anything without a bunch of other brave souls to back them up. Do they have any sense of individuality at all? It looks like self-imposed slavery to me. Be MEN, not sheep, fer chrissakes!
To acknowledge Tegrat's comment I am hoping his/her comment about hidden racism would include those who insist they are not racist while arguing that we must have everything in Spanish.
I know the argument that the gang members are usually born and raised in the U.S., but the problem starts when people--even well meaning people--isolate the parents with the approach of linguistic multiculturalism.
Racism can take the form of traditional hatemongering or the more subtle approach patronzining immigrants, but either way it's about segregation.
Mize says "This is the life I chose to live." Maybe Mize hit the nail on the head, or thumb. If it all goes to krud, you can still take pride in being good at being bad, and standing up to all adversities thrown at you by rivals and the law. Inverted honor is still honor. So, it's a creed. But being neighborhood-specific, it's less than a creed, it's a cult.
Therefore, they need aggressive cult deprogramming. City of SB, you & I have been waiting for eachother (director, only 150k)!
Hold on A_T, you can't do this alone. I will be your assistant for a mere 100K, and will sacrifice my perks if you'll raise my salary to 120K. This has to be a community effort.
Don't forget your life long, gauranteed pension of 85K a year BC...you earned it it after all. I'll be going back to work to make sure I have enough to pay for it and the welfare, subsidzed homes for the shiftless, afterschool freebies for the "at risk", multilanguage education et al and of course a raise for our underprivledged boys in blue! God forbid we leave them out of any handouts...
sa1 (anonymous profile) September 1, 2010 at 1:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Gangs are formed as a response to a complex set of circumstances but, "boredom" is a theme that seems difficult to ignore when reading about gang enrollment, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, etc. "Family" is another theme that pops up again and again. Joining a gang may increase social coherence and provide a way to pass the time.
Participation in extra-curricular activities is generally believed to be a good predictor of gang resilience in youth (Tiet, et al., 2010). Encouraging children and adolescents to join music, sports and theatre groups may be one way to counteract gang enrollment.
Has anyone here read "Monster" by Sanyika Shakur or "Blue Rage, Black Redemption: A Memoir" by Stanley Tookie Williams? How about, Hunter S. Thompson's musings on the Hell's Angels?
"Encouraging children and adolescents to join music, sports and theatre groups may be one way to counteract gang enrollment."
Unfortunately it seems sports is overemphasized. If the intellectual/artistic disciplines you mentioned were more emphasized, I think that would be a good thing.
Bear in mind too that gang culture is very down on such nerdlike pursuits, which means striking at the root of what causes that mindset would be the second half of the equation.
Delinquency "prone" youth do appear less likely to participate in after school activities (Cross et al., 2009).
Fear of alienation may be one possible reason that youth avoid, "nerdlike" pursuits. Why would someone who feels alienated or disconnected from the community join a group that may increase feelings of alienation (e.g., band, choir, theatre)? It's too great a risk. Joining a gang, on the other hand, may be an attempt to retaliate against the community that has rejected the individual.
Again, there are many reasons for the formation of gangs. The question I believe we should be asking is, "What can each of us do to promote social coherence in our community?"
Kingprawn- Now that is the truth. It is difficult to help when these kids avoid it like the plague. We need more people to be able to communicate with these kids and let them know it is okay to be successful. Unfortunately, nobody is ashamed to pursue these interests in jail. This is still a small community and there is plenty we all can do to help reduce this problem. Apathy is the greatest crime.
Fear of alienation ... perhaps there's something there. Has anyone ever noticed how few Hispanic kids there are at the skateboard park on Cabrillo? There were none the last time I was there, yet the place was packed.
I happen to know a great HS kid whose parents appear to be very good providers. He was kiteboarding at Led's after school and we started talking about how expensive his wetsuit, board, and kite were ($1600 for one kite, and you often need more than one for different wind conditions!). He also sails and participates in other activities with a "price barrier". I often wonder how different this community would be if all kids could experience these kinds of activities together. It makes me think economic disparity exacerbates other differences (social, cultural, etc.). One piece of the puzzle perhaps.
"Bear in mind too that gang culture is very down on such nerdlike pursuits ..." -- billclausen
You're a great contributor here, but dude, "down" is the new "up"! As in, "I'm down with your comments" :) Maybe in a few years the context will flip again, haha.
I suppose you're right about that. But I have a feeling you'll be ok east will always be east and west will remain west. Nonetheless, please define "near miss" when it was a near hit?
I agree. A socio-economic status model of alienation seems very plausible here in SB. It seems likely that most Hispanic teens simply do not have the financial resources to participate in extra-curricular activities.
Here's an interesting article that touches on both illegal immigration and the benefits of extra-curricular activities (in this case, cross-country running): http://www.runnersworld.com/article/1...
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Comments
Well-written for covering so many facts that could otherwise be just a boring litany. Well done to law enforcement for being persistent in taking some of these people off the streets, although it seems to be a never-ending problem.
tabatha (anonymous profile)
August 26, 2010 at 8:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I'm waiting for a vigilante gang of Montecito matrons to jump into the mix.
Pinatubo (anonymous profile)
August 26, 2010 at 8:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Vote YES on Prop 19 in November, let the police resources focus on the REAL criminals like these guys!
bronc (anonymous profile)
August 26, 2010 at 9:34 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Nice write up. The story about Mize reminds me of a great book called "All of God's Children" by Fox Butterfield. This kind of violence and disregard for life doesn't come from nowhere. It can be traced to family structure, socioeconomics and even history.
It would be interesting to know whether the crackdown on the Eastsiders had any effect on the Westside gang. Has there been a rise in their activity since? It is interesting that the stabbing at Hendry's Beach involved Westsiders.
Num1UofAn (anonymous profile)
August 26, 2010 at 10:16 a.m. (Suggest removal)
A very well reseached story, thank you Indie and Chris Meagher. Where did these young men turn from children to criminals? Didn't they walk the same city streets and attend the same schools as their law-abiding peers? I wonder how many have siblings who lived under the same roof, with the same upbringing, yet are not criminals. People can rise above their circumstances, or can make choices that plunge themselves into ruin. Where is the indignation or embarrasment? Can the next generation of criminal losers be averted?
wonarrowfan (anonymous profile)
August 26, 2010 at 10:30 a.m. (Suggest removal)
WOW, they should round up all the "gangsters" around town and take them to East or South LA for a night to scare them straight. SB gangs are a joke to everyone but gangsters in SB, the media is giving them too much credit and empowering them. enough is enough SB Independent.
IVconcerned (anonymous profile)
August 26, 2010 at 10:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"People can rise above their circumstances, or can make choices that plunge themselves into ruin."
Quite easier said than done. Even "Chico Loko" is convinced his life of crime is a matter of his own free choice. But was it really? Could it have been any other way?
Most certainly not. This story is entirely predictable, from start to finish.
TheJesus (anonymous profile)
August 26, 2010 at 11:17 a.m. (Suggest removal)
He had no choice but to join a gang and stab people?
Pinatubo (anonymous profile)
August 26, 2010 at 1:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
No, he just decided to be statistic.
AZ2SB (anonymous profile)
August 26, 2010 at 1:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
No. He literally had no choice. He doesn't know any better. Add to that, if family history is in any way reliable, and I would argue that it most certainly is, he's most likely a sociopath with a defective genome.
This doesn't mean we can't hold him accountable. What the man did was objectively wrong. Our criminal justice system inflicts punishment designed to alter future behavior so that those that have the capacity to contribute to society in constructive ways will hopefullly so if given another opportunity. Others, we've deduced, don't have that capacity and we lock them up for life, or kill them like barbarians.
TheJesus (anonymous profile)
August 26, 2010 at 1:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I have known people brought up in the same circumstances and not go this way. Could something else been done? Probably. I have been a witness to many cases of child abuse and neglect which I should have reported. Then again I have reported some cases and nothing is done. Our system has problems and they usually come back to bite us in the behind.
IVConcerned- They will be meeting gangsters from those places soon enough, unfortunately it becomes a learning experience for them. One of two things will happen, either our hometown gangsters can't hang or they become more learned in their ways which make for a more unified crime syndicate out on the streets. A very good example is Robert "Babo" Sosa, who is one of those gangsters from the "American Me" era. This man became a gangster when there was some real scary stuff going on in and out of prison and he went up against all these LA gangsters that should have been more seasoned than him. Determination and commitment can be the deciding factors in any battle-good or bad.
AZ2SB (anonymous profile)
August 26, 2010 at 1:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Wow, I cannot believe all this has been going on in SB. It saddens me to read some of the names knowing some of the boys/men had played youth sports with my own son, who I raised as a single parent. How or why do these kids make these choices coming from good hardworking families?
I am so disheartened by this.
clcred805 (anonymous profile)
August 26, 2010 at 2:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
i think out of respect for there moms no one should judge you do no not no how these moms tried to keep there kids out of trouble s.b does not have thing to keep these kids out of truoble well there moms and dads work s.b is so worried about there tourist that they let these kids slip though there hands remeber it takes a village to raies a kid and this village must have been sleeping these boys may be your worest nightmare but there are sons and we love them no matter what and we will never give up on them
cheppa56 (anonymous profile)
August 26, 2010 at 8:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)
>>"No. He literally had no choice."
I don't think you know what the word "literally" means.
Pinatubo (anonymous profile)
August 26, 2010 at 10:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
What we need to remember is that these are not people who are born psychotic a la Charles Manson or Ted Bundy, these criminals are created by their environment.
Before people use the argument "some people are born with advantages others don't have", I will preemptively address that by saying that one huge disadvantage these guys have is that we do not have an honest discussion about how Americans perceive Mexican people, and my criticism and frustration are aimed at the Left as much as the Right.
Num1UofAn is correct in bringing up the issue of history. While we can praise the police for this crackdown, and this is praise which is deserved, I think we all can see that there are many, many, more of these guys coming down the slide so this is like putting out a forest fire with a wet rag.
Until society collectively sees the cause and effect of an immigration policy which disregards the "Melting Pot" concept in favor of pleasing multiculturalists *and* big business, (in other words, seeing Mexican immigrants not as human beings but as expendable cogs of an economic Ponzi Scheme and deluded social agenda) there is no chance this situation will ever improve.
We can do better.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
August 27, 2010 at 4:03 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"We can do better." No, immigrants from Mexico and their descendants can do better. Santa Barbara is full of immigrants from countries just as dysfunctional as Mexico, but who learn English and take maximum advantage of our educational system and economic opportunities.
The real hard question is why immigrants from China, Vietnam, Korea and Eastern Europe do on aggregate far better than Mexican immigrants. For example, 40% of the University of California undergraduate population is Asian, and less than 30% is white -- so much for a Eurocentric, white-oriented higher educational system. An even harder question is whether our immigration system should be mainly an escape valve for Mexico. Mexico provides 24% of legal immigrants, far larger than any other group (China is next at 5%). Mexico further receives an obvious preference in immigration through our tolerance of illegal entry and residence.
Instead of glorifying the gangs with a cover story, the Indy could serve the immigration debate better by conducting a round-table interview of non-Latino immigrants in Santa Barbara. It would be interesting to hear their feelings about issues like 90% Spanish-education in so-called "dual-immersion" schools and entry-level hiring biases towards Latinos couched as "bilingual/bi-cultural" requirements. Hearing how non-Latino poor immigrants tend to stay out of gangs from the round-table would also be useful. (yes, I realize California does have Asian and Eastern European gangs, but they just do not seem as prevalent.)
revisionist (anonymous profile)
August 27, 2010 at 7:16 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Right on Revisionist!!!
The media keeps glorifying this "gang" life: tv/movies/radio/theIndependent...all seem to show how "awesome" it is to be in a "gang".
If there wasn't so much focus on it, it would eventually not be as "cool".
And can someone get these girls and boys some contraceptives? Jeeze!
howaboutContraception (anonymous profile)
August 27, 2010 at 10:16 a.m. (Suggest removal)
he had a choice he just decided to take the easy road which was the wrong road, theres always a choice.
IVconcerned (anonymous profile)
August 27, 2010 at 10:48 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I have a firm grasp of what literally means. To clarify, he didn't choose a socially-deviant lifestyle anymore than water chooses to run downhill.
TheJesus (anonymous profile)
August 27, 2010 at 10:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Then how do you explain the hundreds of kids that grew up in the exact same circumstances, but didn't become criminals? Water flowing uphill?
Pinatubo (anonymous profile)
August 27, 2010 at 11:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Well, obviously, the circumstances are never exactly the same. Water doesn't flow uphill.
But we aren't just talking about circumstances. I'll say again, the man's mental health plays an integral role as well. He obviously has a propensity for impulsivity and is probably unable to empathize with others in a meaningful way. These are discrete neurological abnormalities that can be effectively manipulated with the proper pharmaceutical cocktail.
I'm not in any way advocating for an across the board increase in the use of pharmacological therapies to correct the gang problem. My only point here is that to alter these kinds of outcomes, we need to alter the inputs. More focus on academics, more parent education, more youth programs for at-risk young people and, where applicable, medical intervention, can prevent deviant behavior.
In short, we can do a lot more, but this isn't just for their benefit. I'd like to live in safer neighborhoods and send my children to safer schools. To do that effectively, we can't just run around and lock everyone up after the fact.
TheJesus (anonymous profile)
August 27, 2010 at 1:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Revisionist-"No, immigrants from Mexico and their descendants can do better." Really? There are many Mexicans who can disprove that statement, including some who are on the Forbes Richest Persons list. As far as Mexican gangs being more prevalent, could it be, because as you stated, Mexicans make up more of the immigrant population? As I recall Asians do have their gangs and so do Italians, Irish, Jews; as a matter of fact I challenge you to name one ethnic group who does not have a gang or criminal syndicate.
I cannot believe all you people who believe this is about glorifying the gang life, you seem like naive, ignorant gangbangers if you believe this is about glorifying this lifestyle. People have lost their lives to the grave and to jail, and these guys that claim to live this life have violated the code which they were supposed to live by.Anybody who has watched a gangster movie in their lives surely knows the possible outcome of violating the code of the streets and the law of the land. There is no glory, just like there are no old gangters.
AZ2SB (anonymous profile)
August 27, 2010 at 1:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"The real hard question is why immigrants from China, Vietnam, Korea and Eastern Europe do on aggregate far better than Mexican immigrants." -Revisionist-
Because the poorest and least educated cannot jump on a plane from those countries to get over here, so we get the best educated of their cultures, and because American has low expectations of Mexican immigrants and this contributes to the problem.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
August 27, 2010 at 4:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Are parents financially penalized for their childrens' crimes? If parental discipline isn't the ***root*** of the problem, then what is? Bad-@$$ kids only gain prestige among other bad-@$$es by going through juvenile detention.
Adonis_Tate (anonymous profile)
August 27, 2010 at 6:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Adonis_Tate: it's also our American culture of spare the rod and spoil the child. Kids get away with more stuff up here, and add to that the fact that many Mexican immigrant parents are working so many hours that they simply cannot be home to supervise their kids.
The schools and social programs have taken the place of parents and we see the results.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
August 27, 2010 at 7:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)
OK, excessive liberalism rots youth, at home and in custody.
Juvenile offenders' parents have the advantage of knowing how to spoil Jr's big pimp dreams. I'm not talking about older drug dealers. Young kids depend on parents for pricey toys, etc. If parents get fined, pricey toy will come immediately to parent's mind.
Do courts ever sentenced juveniles to pick up litter and paint over graffiti in their own neighborhoods on weekends while wearing pink, flowery cover-alls? If they're banging to cultivate an image, then the consequences should involve public humiliation. Prolonged litter pick-up along highways might be enuf to make them think twice next time.
We Americans take our cues from the mass media, whose hidden agenda is to rot the social fabric. Lemmings, lemmings....
Adonis_Tate (anonymous profile)
August 27, 2010 at 9:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Sherrif Joe Arpaio's reforms saved a lot of money AND reduced recidivism in Arizona. But in California, if it don't work, we don't fix it. Meanwhile, classrooms are getting more crowded because teachers are being laid off. Is it because teachers' unions and prison guards' unions are contributing to different parties? How about companies that supply prisons?
"Nice, nice, very nice
So many people in the same device."
Would public campaign financing return some sanity to government? What have we got to lose by trying it? I think we'd save a LOT of money by buying the politicians ourselves!
Adonis_Tate (anonymous profile)
August 28, 2010 at 12:33 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Sorry, but Sheriff Arapaio's reforms didn't decrease recividism. The laws here in AZ are strict and lock up people longer, so that is why recividism is lower. Actually things have gotten worse, which is why bills like 1070 have passed. They don't want crime to be as bad as CA, so they are trying to see what will work. The juvenile system here is also being reduced like in CA because kids are being tried as adults and being sent to prison. The only thing I do have to say about the system here in AZ is that they are strict but give you a chance to prove yourself and be able to expunge your record once you complete probation. In CA once you are a felon, there is no going back.
AZ2SB (anonymous profile)
August 28, 2010 at 9:12 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"Because the poorest and least educated cannot jump on a plane from those countries to get over here, so we get the best educated of their cultures, ..."
-- billclausen
If one looks at the early Asian immigrants to California from China and Japan in the 1800's, they were predominantly uneducated low wage laborers. Their descendants are now the American kids going to school at UC and their numbers eclipse those of recent international ("foreign") students from those same countries.
So I'm not sure I buy the notion that an educated class of immigrants from Asia has had that much effect on overall collegiate achievement statistics. However, if one considers achievement in something else, like business, that might be a different story.
Just for fun, I wanted to see if Revisionist's undergrad stats are accurate. Surprisingly to me, they are. If we look at the latest system-wide UC ethnicity statistics taken from the Office of the President:
http://www.ucop.edu/ucophome/uwnews/s...
http://www.ucop.edu/ucophome/uwnews/s...
The breakdown is shown below. But note that there is a category for "International" (which is only 3% of the system-wide undergraduate population). So for example, "Japanese" below should be interpreted as "Japanese-American", Americans who were either born or naturalized here.
UC system enrollment by Ethnicity for the Fall 2009 quarter
Ethnicity Undergrad %Undergrad
International 5,285 3%
American_Indian 1,008 1%
African_American 6,125 3%
Chicano/Chicana 22,425 13%
Latino/Latina 7,117 4%
Filipino/Pilipino 7,890 4%
Chinese 27,998 16%
Japanese 3,357 2%
Korean 8,484 5%
Other_Asian 14,353 8%
Pakistani/East_Indian 8,977 5%
White 57,159 32%
Not_Stated/Unknown 7,610 4%
Total 177,788 100%
If one adds up the the percentages for Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Other-Asian, you get 35%. If you add Pakistani/East_Indian, you get 40%.
EastBeach (anonymous profile)
August 28, 2010 at 2:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
A gangster named Leslie? No wonder they use nicknames.
EastBeach (anonymous profile)
August 28, 2010 at 3:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)
OK, here is a dirty little secret you need to know: "EastBeach" is our pod leader. We dolphins who patrol the waters of East Beach have been having wars with the dolphins of West Beach on a regular basis. Sometimes dolphins swim up from Rincon and we have to deal with them too.
sixdolphins (anonymous profile)
August 28, 2010 at 6:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Yo Flippa!
Bring the pod down to Stearn's Wharf at 2:00 am. We're gonna rumble at the harbor buoy tonite!
EastBeach (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2010 at 1:44 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Curious what you would think if a group of people, unknown, began assassinating gang members while they were selling drugs. (Not just SB, LA etc) Cleaning the streets with sniper rifles. All comments welcome. - AB in SB
andrewbaker77 (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2010 at 3:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
AB-It has been done before. What do you think happens when a more organized gang wants to take over a profitable drug area?
AZ2SB (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2010 at 6:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)
To the gang banging dolphins- Watch it or you might get Gator Rolled; you will be in the Dome of Doom and your mommy and daddy will be in INS detention.
AZ2SB (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2010 at 6:53 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Don't go 6D unless ya wanna get fluked. It's a sting set up by the Black and Whites (Orcas).
sa1 (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2010 at 7:17 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The astonishing viciousness of the narco-gangs in Mexico recently is well documented. Human sacrifice by the Aztecs is also part of Mezo-American history. Add to that the incredible viciousness of the Spanish slaughter and enslavement of the native people the conquistadors exploited and you have a many hundred year history of a culture of machismo and cruelty. ( Please note that the Spaniards and the indigenous peoples of the New World were of very different gene pools so this is not an issue of so called "race" a rather, bogus construct to begin, with but one of culture) It is a very difficult cycle to break and I suspect it will be several more generations if ever until it is changed. Mexicans, although incredibly hard workers in most cases, are not being integrated fully into our culture and society in too many cases. How many of you know people who have been in this country for decades and yet speak little or no English? Sadly, I suspect that we will need many more "Operation Gator Rolls" in the future.
Noletaman (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2010 at 7:25 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I ain't afraid of no orcas. I'll fluke 'em right in the blowhole.
eightdolphins (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2010 at 10:07 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"I ain't afraid of no orcas. I'll fluke 'em right in the blowhole."
Dolphins aren't the only creatures swimming in the sea. By the way, I hear you want to have us for...I mean over for dinner.
Queenprawn (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2010 at 3:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Good point about meso-American and conquistador machismo, Noletaman. Not to paint everyone with the same can, but Mexican culture is extremely macho.
On each of my two vacations to Costa Rica, I heard several jokes and references to Mexican machismo. Being tall and brown, and formerly in good shape myself, I've seen my share of twisted looks of hatred and resentment on male Mexican faces, plus jeers from moving vehicles and oblique insults from fellow pedestrians. When I drove nine-ton trucks for the postal service, it was a regular occurence that Mexican drivers stopped at side streets would pull forward a couple of feet as I entered the intersection, just to fake me out and restore the balance of machismo. Some Mexican immigrant men need to slam their car doors after midnight in residential neighborhoods, just so no one mistakes them for maricones. They slam even in safe neighborhoods, but in more predatory neighborhoods, machismo equals survival.
Machistic pre-occupation is an impediment to cultural advancement, a fact sometimes noted by Mexican men not so pre-occupied. I sometimes think that everything in the universe somehow relates to machismo in the minds of hard cases, in ways that "Anglos" could never fathom.
Adonis_Tate (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2010 at 5:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Arpaio himself commissioned the AZU study on recidivism rates vs incarceration conditions, sez Google. At least he was trying!
What does work?
Adonis_Tate (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2010 at 5:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Noletaman says Mexicans are not being integrated fully into our culture in too many cases. I couldn't agree more, at least where machismo is concerned.
Stopping the over-crowding by pinching off immigration would help, obviously. (And please nobody call me names that they wouldn't also call Cesar Chavez. Ya estuvo. Gano Mexico.) Often-times it's easy to spot an immigrant man at a glance by the hard face. The second generation is usually more relaxed.
Adonis_Tate (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2010 at 5:35 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Adonis_Tate- All immigrants have that hard face; its the face of hard work and determination to get something better, that somehow never meets their expectations no matter what they acomplish.
AZ2SB (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2010 at 7:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Part 1: The Cop, The Gang
Part 2: The Takedown, The Surprise
Part 3: The Conviction, The Sentencing
Part 4: I'm going to tell you now:
All of the gang members convicted and sentenced under the RICO laws will be going to a USP. (United States Penitentiary)
Note: The link below will give a list of links to each of the Federal Prisons, as well as an Inmate Search for you to look up and see what USP they have each been assigned to:
http://www.jailexchange.com/Search/Fe...
What is a USP? Let's put it this way...since the feds have been charging gangbangers with the RICO statute and putting them away for 'a year and a dark day', and there is little chance they will see freedom for many years, the USP is now known in the system as Gladiator School.
Think about it... Hundreds of gangs and tens of thousands of gangbangers from all over the country, no rehabilitation, no education, no chance of freedom for 20+ years, all crammed into 21 facilities known as USP's. This = despair, violence, chaos, death and bad news.
This isn't being written by an advocate or to be judgemental, it is to let you know the 4th chapter.
Can you guess what Chapter 5 will be about?
JAILexchange (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2010 at 7:56 p.m. (Suggest removal)
>>"Can you guess what Chapter 5 will be about?"<<
User profile: JAILexchange
Joined: Aug. 29, 2010
Comments posted: 1 (view all)
Umm, where we can buy your book?
Pinatubo (anonymous profile)
August 29, 2010 at 11:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Lock up 23 hours out of the day is not Gladiator School. DVI-Tracy was Gladiator School for real, back in the day. Book armour, and prison-made spears, long knives, or swords that was Gladiator School.
AZ2SB (anonymous profile)
August 30, 2010 at 7:11 a.m. (Suggest removal)
USP's should provide three hots and a lobotomy. Or a kindness cocktail of thorazine and saltpeter? Scrambled ecstasy for breakfast? Dose their coffee with oxytocin? Hey, I'm just suggesting humane alternatives to caning and castration!
Relax, I'm kidding. Maybe science will come up with something targeted and precise to soothe the savage breast of career criminals, and the rest of the world will adopt the practice while USA goes bankrupt.
Adonis_Tate (anonymous profile)
August 30, 2010 at 5:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
A_T,
Voting yes on prop 19 will address your suggestions. I'm sure every prison guard would love to serve up MJ brownies for breakfast...and lunch and dinner
sa1 (anonymous profile)
August 30, 2010 at 5:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
BTW, AZ2SB, I didn't mean to imply that all immigrants have flinty faces. There are many jolly & friendly ones, natch. But there's a distinct look that goes with grim survival. You often see it on the hardest-working poor people in Mexico.
Adonis_Tate (anonymous profile)
August 30, 2010 at 5:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
This message is for all the idiots... you all comment... why? because on here you are anonymous?
Sure we all know people who have grown up in bad situations, but have YOU grown up in a bad situation?
for those that have, You know how difficult it is to even try to stay out of that path... You know how lucky you are if you get out of that path.
Sure to anyone who has NEVER been in the situation... it's like... "oh what's the big deal, they have a choice, they know whats right and wrong..."
BUT HAVE YOU EVER BEEN THREATENED TO GET BEAT UP?
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN CALLED A Bi***,
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN CALLED A PUNK OR A PUS**, HAVE YOU EVER HAD TO WALK WITH YOUR HEAD DOWN BECAUSE YOU WERE SCARED...
face it, you haven't... "oh but this this and that" I could hear you now... trying to give me an example of how tough life was for you. but your sad little story is B***S***! cry your sad story to another person who has never been in harms way. and for the TOUGH GUY who said "Leslie, no wonder they use nicknames" ...I WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOU SAY THAT TO HIS FACE.
I know a Leslie, Loren, Shannon... and trust me... they wait for some jack@$$ like you to come along to make their day! you would shrink and shut your mouth real quick!
stay anonymous... right?
same goes to the idiots who are talking about anchor babies and the parents that are not documented... most of them work twice as hard as any of us... and you want to disrespect them? they don't control their kids... blah blah blah... do you work two maybe three jobs? if so, have you tried to keep your kids inline?
And if not... SHUT YOUR MOUTH!
but no, there is always going to be that fake person out there thinking that they had a tough child hood. give me a break. better yet, give yourself a break and stop feeling sorry for yourself...
iPitTyU (anonymous profile)
August 31, 2010 at 12:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)
iPitTyU said: "...you all comment... why? because on here you are anonymous?" You said your name is what? And who's calling people bia-tch? Gangbangers? Your points have obvious merit, been when has a Santa Barbara teen ever been murdered for not joining a gang?
Adonis_Tate (anonymous profile)
August 31, 2010 at 2:05 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Here's an example of just straight-up-Hate:
iPitTyU: "and trust me... they wait for some jack@$$ like you to come along to make their day! you would shrink and shut your mouth real quick!"
Punching first, ask questions later... all this energy is put to Hate.
Why can't we all just get along? Seriously?
howaboutContraception (anonymous profile)
August 31, 2010 at 8:12 a.m. (Suggest removal)
...and to think I thought the only gangs to fear went by the names Enron, Wells Fargo, Congress, and BP. Now you tell me there are more dangerous gangs than all of these put together? Whew, guess I better arm myself with a bigger shovel!
brimo7272 (anonymous profile)
August 31, 2010 at 12:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
iPityU- You ask why all the talk? Because this is the U.S. and we have the fredom of speech. Given, everybody has a different opinion, but no one can agree that anything described in this article is positive. I know you are just venting, but how about being a little more constructive and offering solutions instead?
BTW- Been there done that, and there is a choice.
AZ2SB (anonymous profile)
August 31, 2010 at 1:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Mize says "This is the life I chose to live." Well, that's kind of like me saying I chose to be a white male of privilege. No doubt he made some bad decisions along the way, but the deck was stacked against him and the majority of these individuals from the time they were born. Unfortunately addressing the root issues of crime violence (which stem from our own often unacknowledged racism) doesn't yield the immediate, albeit temporary, results of a huge police sweep. I am sympathetic to the emotions on all sides of this issue, but I for one would gladly help fund longer term approaches to reducing the worse aspects of gang activity. How about the rest of you who are privileged?
tegrat (anonymous profile)
August 31, 2010 at 3:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
For such a supposedly "macho" subculture, these guys are sure afraid to do anything without a bunch of other brave souls to back them up. Do they have any sense of individuality at all? It looks like self-imposed slavery to me. Be MEN, not sheep, fer chrissakes!
Walter (anonymous profile)
August 31, 2010 at 4:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
To acknowledge Tegrat's comment I am hoping his/her comment about hidden racism would include those who insist they are not racist while arguing that we must have everything in Spanish.
I know the argument that the gang members are usually born and raised in the U.S., but the problem starts when people--even well meaning people--isolate the parents with the approach of linguistic multiculturalism.
Racism can take the form of traditional hatemongering or the more subtle approach patronzining immigrants, but either way it's about segregation.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
August 31, 2010 at 7:48 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Mize says "This is the life I chose to live." Maybe Mize hit the nail on the head, or thumb. If it all goes to krud, you can still take pride in being good at being bad, and standing up to all adversities thrown at you by rivals and the law. Inverted honor is still honor. So, it's a creed. But being neighborhood-specific, it's less than a creed, it's a cult.
Therefore, they need aggressive cult deprogramming. City of SB, you & I have been waiting for eachother (director, only 150k)!
Adonis_Tate (anonymous profile)
September 1, 2010 at 12:17 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Hold on A_T, you can't do this alone. I will be your assistant for a mere 100K, and will sacrifice my perks if you'll raise my salary to 120K. This has to be a community effort.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
September 1, 2010 at 5:53 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Don't forget your life long, gauranteed pension of 85K a year BC...you earned it it after all. I'll be going back to work to make sure I have enough to pay for it and the welfare, subsidzed homes for the shiftless, afterschool freebies for the "at risk", multilanguage education et al and of course a raise for our underprivledged boys in blue! God forbid we leave them out of any handouts...
sa1 (anonymous profile)
September 1, 2010 at 1:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Gangs are formed as a response to a complex set of circumstances but, "boredom" is a theme that seems difficult to ignore when reading about gang enrollment, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, etc. "Family" is another theme that pops up again and again. Joining a gang may increase social coherence and provide a way to pass the time.
Participation in extra-curricular activities is generally believed to be a good predictor of gang resilience in youth (Tiet, et al., 2010). Encouraging children and adolescents to join music, sports and theatre groups may be one way to counteract gang enrollment.
Has anyone here read "Monster" by Sanyika Shakur or "Blue Rage, Black Redemption: A Memoir" by Stanley Tookie Williams? How about, Hunter S. Thompson's musings on the Hell's Angels?
Kingprawn (anonymous profile)
September 1, 2010 at 3:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"Encouraging children and adolescents to join music, sports and theatre groups may be one way to counteract gang enrollment."
Unfortunately it seems sports is overemphasized. If the intellectual/artistic disciplines you mentioned were more emphasized, I think that would be a good thing.
Bear in mind too that gang culture is very down on such nerdlike pursuits, which means striking at the root of what causes that mindset would be the second half of the equation.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
September 2, 2010 at 3:37 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Bill,
Delinquency "prone" youth do appear less likely to participate in after school activities (Cross et al., 2009).
Fear of alienation may be one possible reason that youth avoid, "nerdlike" pursuits. Why would someone who feels alienated or disconnected from the community join a group that may increase feelings of alienation (e.g., band, choir, theatre)? It's too great a risk. Joining a gang, on the other hand, may be an attempt to retaliate against the community that has rejected the individual.
Again, there are many reasons for the formation of gangs. The question I believe we should be asking is, "What can each of us do to promote social coherence in our community?"
Kingprawn (anonymous profile)
September 2, 2010 at 8:46 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Kingprawn- Now that is the truth. It is difficult to help when these kids avoid it like the plague. We need more people to be able to communicate with these kids and let them know it is okay to be successful. Unfortunately, nobody is ashamed to pursue these interests in jail. This is still a small community and there is plenty we all can do to help reduce this problem. Apathy is the greatest crime.
AZ2SB (anonymous profile)
September 2, 2010 at 12:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Fear of alienation ... perhaps there's something there. Has anyone ever noticed how few Hispanic kids there are at the skateboard park on Cabrillo? There were none the last time I was there, yet the place was packed.
I happen to know a great HS kid whose parents appear to be very good providers. He was kiteboarding at Led's after school and we started talking about how expensive his wetsuit, board, and kite were ($1600 for one kite, and you often need more than one for different wind conditions!). He also sails and participates in other activities with a "price barrier". I often wonder how different this community would be if all kids could experience these kinds of activities together. It makes me think economic disparity exacerbates other differences (social, cultural, etc.). One piece of the puzzle perhaps.
EastBeach (anonymous profile)
September 3, 2010 at 1:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"Bear in mind too that gang culture is very down on such nerdlike pursuits ..."
-- billclausen
You're a great contributor here, but dude, "down" is the new "up"! As in, "I'm down with your comments" :) Maybe in a few years the context will flip again, haha.
EastBeach (anonymous profile)
September 3, 2010 at 1:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I suppose you're right about that. But I have a feeling you'll be ok east will always be east and west will remain west. Nonetheless, please define "near miss" when it was a near hit?
billclausen (anonymous profile)
September 3, 2010 at 3:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
EastBeach,
I agree. A socio-economic status model of alienation seems very plausible here in SB. It seems likely that most Hispanic teens simply do not have the financial resources to participate in extra-curricular activities.
Here's an interesting article that touches on both illegal immigration and the benefits of extra-curricular activities (in this case, cross-country running):
http://www.runnersworld.com/article/1...
Kingprawn (anonymous profile)
September 4, 2010 at 7:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)