New Weapon in Gang Wars : Compton Police Serve Written Notice of Street Terrorism Act

COMPTON —  “Hey, Sleep!” Red Mason yelled out the window of the unmarked police car as it rounded the corner onto Rose Avenue, a narrow street lined with big trees and small houses that range from neatly kept to ravaged.

“He’s already been served,” said Mason, who sat in the front passenger’s seat.

Edward (Red) Mason is a 19-year veteran of the Compton Police Department’s gang unit.

Sleep is an “O.G.,” shorthand for original gang member, in this case the Santana Block Crips, who control a narrow stretch of neighborhood squeezed between Santa Fe Avenue and the Southern Pacific railroad tracks that cut Compton in two.

Special Attention

Mason, Patrolman Mark Anderson and two officers in the car behind them were serving special-delivery notices on the Santanas. The Santanas, one of the city’s oldest gangs, has been targeted for special attention under the state’s newest anti-gang weapon, the Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act.

Dubbed “Baby RICO,” because it mimics the federal racketeering statute (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), the law says gang membership can be a felony. Police and sheriff’s deputies in Compton, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Pomona and Pasadena are serving written notices about the law on members of 11 gangs that Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner has identified so far through police and court records as engaging in criminal activity.

“What’s your name, man?” Mason asked out the window as Anderson, cruising south on Spring Street, stopped the car.

“Charles,” answered a handsome 18-year-old known as “Black.”

Mason climbed out of the car, asking Black what gang he belonged to. Black, trying to sound cooperative at the same time he was trying to back down the sidewalk, said he used to belong to a gang. Doesn’t anymore, he insisted, not since he did time on a weapons charge. Looking for work now, he said. Has to support his new baby daughter, he said.

“What set (gang) you from?” Mason asked again in an undemanding tone.

“No set,” Black said.

“You want to go over to Lueders with me?” Mason asked casually, as if inviting a neighbor to take a ride with him to the hardware store. Lueders, a city park 10 blocks away, is in Blood territory. Crips are not welcome.

Using the police car hood as a writing surface, Black signed the 4-by-5-inch notice that is designed in triplicate like a credit card receipt. It said that Black has been notified that Santana Block is a “criminal street gang” under the provisions of the new law. The top copy went to Black, the second into police files and the third to the district attorney.

Under the law, which has not yet been tested in court, Black could get up to three years in prison for just being a Santana. Police say, however, what is most likely to happen is that prosecutors will produce the notice if Black is convicted of a felony and will argue that he should get more time in prison for being in what he was warned was a criminal gang.

“Hey, come here, Snap,” Anderson suddenly yelled at a young man who stepped out the door of a house, spotted police and tried to duck back inside.

“You hear about these papers we’re serving, the gang terrorism act?” asked Anderson, a boyish-looking officer who has spent 12 years keeping tract of Compton’s 36 gangs.

Wearing a Beeper

Short, and with a beeper clipped to the waist of his stone-washed blue jeans, Snap grinned broadly. Twenty-one Santanas had already been served notices before the gang unit spotted Black and Snap on a late afternoon cruise through Santana turf.

Like most gang members, Snap refused to sign the notice, so Anderson wrote “refused to sign” on the signature line before handing Snap his copy. Refusing to sign does not alter the possibility of being prosecuted under the new law, law enforcement officials say.

Mason and Anderson bantered awhile with Snap, talking about a rival gang and asking about Potato Head (Paul Watson, a Santana being sought in connection with the April 2 drive-by murder of a gang member and a bystander in Kelly Park).

They asked Snap to pull up his shirt so they could see “SBC,” the Santana Block Crips’ tattoo. Bullet scars decorated Snap’s torso.

One Died

Back at the wheel of the car, Anderson said: “He and his brother and another kid were shot standing in front of the liquor store down there.”

The youth with Snap and his brother at the liquor store died in the June, 1988, shooting.

Making a sharp left when he recognized the driver of an older model gold car, Anderson pulled up behind the car and yelled out his window, “Pull over, Spank!”

Spank, a pudgy, 19-year-old in blue shirt and pants, wore a beeper on his belt. He was on his way home, he said, to take a nap before going to work. The police asked where he works and what he does.

“I do all kinds of things, can’t pinpoint no one thing,” Spank said.

“You heard about this program, right?” Anderson said, sliding a notice across the hood of the police car and asking, “You know how to read?”

“Yeah, I know how to read,” Spank said defensively. He declined to sign the notice.

2 Carloads Approach

Cruising in the car again, Mason slouched in his seat until the sight of two carloads of young men approaching from the opposite direction made him bolt upright and signal the officers in the car following him and Anderson to stop the approaching vehicles.

“Look who’s in the back,” Mason said, greeting old acquaintances as they piled out of the cars. “Ced and Sag.”

“They don’t do any shooting. They’re into dope,” Mason said, prompting a chorus of “Not me, not me,” from the men, whom he identified as O.Gs.

Sag, in a white tank top and new-looking wide-whale corduroy pants and suede shoes, is a celebrity in Santana territory. He has been on various network television shows and been interviewed by reporters from newspapers across the country. Making use of the unexpected meeting with the police, he complained they were not doing enough to keep the Atlantic Drive Crips from “pressing” the Santanas.

“Aw, that’s bull,” the police said in unison.

Supported by Drugs

Back in the gang unit’s office, a basement room in which gang paraphernalia--T-shirts, hats, snapshots and piles of funeral programs--cover the walls and the tops of desks, Mason recalled that he knew Sag and his friends when Santanas were “doing drive-bys on a bicycle. Now they got AKs (semiautomatic weapons) and cars.”

Drugs, Mason said, gave the gangs an economic base that they did not have when they first sprang up in Compton in the late 1960s and early ‘70s.

Mason and other members of the gang unit welcomed the new anti-gang law. By itself, they say, the law will not eradicate gang violence but it is one more tool, an enhancement to other laws, that may help take more gang members off the streets.

“What it’s for,” Mason said, “is the guy who’s been slipping through, the guy who’s been riding in the back seat on the drive-by.”