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St. Paul takes gang to court today in effort to ban members from Cinco de Mayo
Prosecutors aim to ban 10 reputed members from Cinco de Mayo
By Mara H. Gottfried
[email protected]
Updated: 04/23/2009 11:19:04 PM CDT
Police stopped a car in St. Paul this month and found three things of interest: a gun, at least two reputed gang members and the city's legal papers seeking to restrict the pair's actions if they show up at the Cinco de Mayo festival.
One of them, Luis Fernando Gaytan, told the Pioneer Press on Wednesday that he had been out of the Sureño 13 gang for a long time. "That's messed up," the 19-year-old said of the city's claim that he is a gang member.
But the five people in the car, including Gaytan, told police April 3 they were Sureño 13 members, said an affidavit filed by a gang unit officer.
Today, prosecutors will go before a Ramsey County district judge and seek a temporary injunction against the Sureño 13. It's the first attempt in the state to use a Minnesota law passed in 2007 that lets cities ask a judge to declare a gang a public nuisance and try to prevent gang activities by restricting where its members go and what they do.
In this case, St. Paul is seeking a court order to stop 10 alleged Sureño 13 leaders from associating with other gang members, using gang signs, wearing gang colors and other activities during the Cinco de Mayo festival next weekend on the West Side.
"I'm hoping it sends a message to these gang members that this is not a place they can cause havoc or violence, and also to the citizens of Minnesota that the Cinco de Mayo festival is a place they can take their families without having to deal with harassment or gang activity,"
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said Rep. John Lesch, DFL-St. Paul, who sponsored the gang injunction bill in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
At last year's festival, a fight broke out between rival gangs. Police broke it up, but within an hour or two, a fight between the gangs erupted in a nearby residential neighborhood and 14- and 17-year-old boys were shot. Both survived, though the younger teen was seriously injured.
To get the injunction, the city must prove, among other elements, that the gang is a public nuisance because its members have been involved in at least three instances of gang activity in the past 12 months. Officers documented 13 incidents in court papers.
The seven adults and three juveniles who would be subject to the injunction "are among the most active and influential members in the Sureño criminal gang activities within St. Paul," St. Paul police Sgt. Kevin Moore wrote in his affidavit.
The adults named are: Luis Fernando Gaytan, aka "Chukklez," 19; Salatiel Nicolas Hernandez-Patino, "Chucky," 18; Jesus Jacobo, "Jesse," 19; Heriberto Lopez, "Lil' Cuete," 18; Juan Quintero Jr., "Big Happy," 19; Ivann Alexander Valencia, "Sniper," 18; and Jorge Luis Vargas, "Loner," 21. The juveniles' names aren't public.
Three of the adults — Gaytan, Quintero and Vargas — were reached by the Pioneer Press and said they aren't gang members.
Regardless of the potential injunction, Gaytan said he wasn't planning to go to Cinco de Mayo this year because his job as a roofer keeps him too busy. He said he won't be going to court today to try to fight the injunction.
"I ain't even trying 'cause I know I'm not going to win," he said.
Since Gaytan was stopped in a car April 3, when a gun was allegedly found and he was arrested on suspicion of possession of a firearm by an ineligible person, police haven't presented the case to the Ramsey County attorney's office to consider charges, according to the county attorney's office. The juvenile who was in the car and is also named in the injunction action pleaded guilty April 6 to being a person under age 18 in possession of a firearm for the benefit of a gang, the affidavit said.
Quintero said he wrote a letter to Mayor Chris Coleman to complain he was falsely being labeled a gang member, but the mayor's office said they had no record of receiving it.
St. Paul police say Quintero told them in 2007 that he was "jumped in" as a Varrios King Kobra Sureño member a year earlier, according to a criminal complaint charging him with fourth-degree criminal damage to property. He was accused of putting gang graffiti on a vacant house and was convicted.
Vargas hasn't been convicted of any crimes as an adult. Whether he had a juvenile record wasn't known Thursday.
"When I was arrested, I stupidly told them I was in the Sureño," he said in March. "I have a daughter now, and I decided to get away and not be in all that stupid stuff. For two years, I've been out. I changed my ways."
Lesch, who is an assistant St. Paul city attorney when the Legislature isn't in session, said he has heard the excuse before.
"I'm certain that Tony Soprano wouldn't say he's a member of an organized gang organization, either," he said. "They all consider themselves legitimate businessmen."
City Attorney John Choi said he couldn't comment Thursday on the three people purporting to not be gang members "because of the immediate pending nature of the hearing."
None of the 10 defendants named in the injunction action has filed a response with the court.
Quintero said he contacted the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota to see if it could help him. Another of the alleged gangsters also contacted the ACLU, but executive director Chuck Samuelson said his organization didn't have time to decide whether it could provide attorneys.
Decisions about which cases to handle go through committees, which Samuelson said can take up to six weeks. The gang case was filed March 26.
Samuelson said the city will "almost certainly gain this injunction." The city must prove its case by a preponderance of evidence, a lesser burden of proof than the requirement for a criminal case, which is beyond a reasonable doubt.
He said he was "disturbed they're using civil law for criminal proceedings" — it's a misdemeanor to violate the injunction.
"The reality is if they go in that area, they will be arrested by the police," Samuelson said. "That might not be what the order says, but that's how government works. The city will have delivered a message: 'We're in charge, stay out of Dodge.' "
Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at 651-228-5262.
FYI
Go to districtdelsol.com for information about St. Paul's Cinco de Mayo festival on May 1-2.
St. Paul takes gang to court today in effort to ban members from Cinco de Mayo
Prosecutors aim to ban 10 reputed members from Cinco de Mayo
By Mara H. Gottfried
[email protected]
Updated: 04/23/2009 11:19:04 PM CDT
Police stopped a car in St. Paul this month and found three things of interest: a gun, at least two reputed gang members and the city's legal papers seeking to restrict the pair's actions if they show up at the Cinco de Mayo festival.
One of them, Luis Fernando Gaytan, told the Pioneer Press on Wednesday that he had been out of the Sureño 13 gang for a long time. "That's messed up," the 19-year-old said of the city's claim that he is a gang member.
But the five people in the car, including Gaytan, told police April 3 they were Sureño 13 members, said an affidavit filed by a gang unit officer.
Today, prosecutors will go before a Ramsey County district judge and seek a temporary injunction against the Sureño 13. It's the first attempt in the state to use a Minnesota law passed in 2007 that lets cities ask a judge to declare a gang a public nuisance and try to prevent gang activities by restricting where its members go and what they do.
In this case, St. Paul is seeking a court order to stop 10 alleged Sureño 13 leaders from associating with other gang members, using gang signs, wearing gang colors and other activities during the Cinco de Mayo festival next weekend on the West Side.
"I'm hoping it sends a message to these gang members that this is not a place they can cause havoc or violence, and also to the citizens of Minnesota that the Cinco de Mayo festival is a place they can take their families without having to deal with harassment or gang activity,"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advertisement
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said Rep. John Lesch, DFL-St. Paul, who sponsored the gang injunction bill in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
At last year's festival, a fight broke out between rival gangs. Police broke it up, but within an hour or two, a fight between the gangs erupted in a nearby residential neighborhood and 14- and 17-year-old boys were shot. Both survived, though the younger teen was seriously injured.
To get the injunction, the city must prove, among other elements, that the gang is a public nuisance because its members have been involved in at least three instances of gang activity in the past 12 months. Officers documented 13 incidents in court papers.
The seven adults and three juveniles who would be subject to the injunction "are among the most active and influential members in the Sureño criminal gang activities within St. Paul," St. Paul police Sgt. Kevin Moore wrote in his affidavit.
The adults named are: Luis Fernando Gaytan, aka "Chukklez," 19; Salatiel Nicolas Hernandez-Patino, "Chucky," 18; Jesus Jacobo, "Jesse," 19; Heriberto Lopez, "Lil' Cuete," 18; Juan Quintero Jr., "Big Happy," 19; Ivann Alexander Valencia, "Sniper," 18; and Jorge Luis Vargas, "Loner," 21. The juveniles' names aren't public.
Three of the adults — Gaytan, Quintero and Vargas — were reached by the Pioneer Press and said they aren't gang members.
Regardless of the potential injunction, Gaytan said he wasn't planning to go to Cinco de Mayo this year because his job as a roofer keeps him too busy. He said he won't be going to court today to try to fight the injunction.
"I ain't even trying 'cause I know I'm not going to win," he said.
Since Gaytan was stopped in a car April 3, when a gun was allegedly found and he was arrested on suspicion of possession of a firearm by an ineligible person, police haven't presented the case to the Ramsey County attorney's office to consider charges, according to the county attorney's office. The juvenile who was in the car and is also named in the injunction action pleaded guilty April 6 to being a person under age 18 in possession of a firearm for the benefit of a gang, the affidavit said.
Quintero said he wrote a letter to Mayor Chris Coleman to complain he was falsely being labeled a gang member, but the mayor's office said they had no record of receiving it.
St. Paul police say Quintero told them in 2007 that he was "jumped in" as a Varrios King Kobra Sureño member a year earlier, according to a criminal complaint charging him with fourth-degree criminal damage to property. He was accused of putting gang graffiti on a vacant house and was convicted.
Vargas hasn't been convicted of any crimes as an adult. Whether he had a juvenile record wasn't known Thursday.
"When I was arrested, I stupidly told them I was in the Sureño," he said in March. "I have a daughter now, and I decided to get away and not be in all that stupid stuff. For two years, I've been out. I changed my ways."
Lesch, who is an assistant St. Paul city attorney when the Legislature isn't in session, said he has heard the excuse before.
"I'm certain that Tony Soprano wouldn't say he's a member of an organized gang organization, either," he said. "They all consider themselves legitimate businessmen."
City Attorney John Choi said he couldn't comment Thursday on the three people purporting to not be gang members "because of the immediate pending nature of the hearing."
None of the 10 defendants named in the injunction action has filed a response with the court.
Quintero said he contacted the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota to see if it could help him. Another of the alleged gangsters also contacted the ACLU, but executive director Chuck Samuelson said his organization didn't have time to decide whether it could provide attorneys.
Decisions about which cases to handle go through committees, which Samuelson said can take up to six weeks. The gang case was filed March 26.
Samuelson said the city will "almost certainly gain this injunction." The city must prove its case by a preponderance of evidence, a lesser burden of proof than the requirement for a criminal case, which is beyond a reasonable doubt.
He said he was "disturbed they're using civil law for criminal proceedings" — it's a misdemeanor to violate the injunction.
"The reality is if they go in that area, they will be arrested by the police," Samuelson said. "That might not be what the order says, but that's how government works. The city will have delivered a message: 'We're in charge, stay out of Dodge.' "
Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at 651-228-5262.
FYI
Go to districtdelsol.com for information about St. Paul's Cinco de Mayo festival on May 1-2.
