Gang Injunction Waiting on Juvenile Court

City lawyers and the District Attorney’s Office have filed petitions with the juvenile court to release the records of offenders named in Santa Barbara’s proposed gang injunction, but are awaiting a court date in front of a juvenile court judge.

Deputy DA Michael Carrozzo told Judge Colleen Sterne Monday morning they had filed petitions on all 27 gang injunction defendants with juvenile records, along with briefs substantiating their position. Those petitions received opposition from eight to nine of the defendants, Carrozzo said.

The city’s controversial plan — first announced in March 2011 — would prohibit gang members from wearing certain types of clothes and from associating with other gang members in proposed “safe zones” around the city. They wouldn’t be allowed to have weapons, use drugs or alcohol, or recruit for their gang in these zones.

Along with the entire Eastside and Westside gangs, the city named 30 individual defendants, men and women officials have called the “baddest of the bad.” Initially the city — in evidence it intended to use to prove the need for an injunction — included 1,200 pages of information that cited juvenile records of more than 100 alleged gang members. A judge determined the public release of this information — normally kept under seal — was not allowed without permission of the juvenile court, and that the city would have to petition the court.

So the city has done that, and is now awaiting hearings in juvenile court regarding 27 of the 30 defendants. Three of the people named in the injunction do not have juvenile records, so no petition was made in those cases. While officials were hoping for a trial this month, the process has been bogged down by the juvenile proceedings.

The matter will be back in Judge Sterne’s court in January.