Baseball, Gangbangers and Me

cartoon characters on gang-style clothing. My girls were the age that it appealed to them, and they thought I was over-reacting to it, but they had not taken a wild ride with me through Oakland yet.

I think Penney’s was the store. It’s understandable that Taz might be picked up by gangsters as a logo, but marketing gang-style clothing with Tweety and Sylvester dressed gang-style was too much. I was pretty angry and I told one of the managers how angry I was that Penneys was choosing profits over the good of the community by legitimizing and mainstreaming gang culture.

Yeah, I’m a bit of a crank.

But it’s not so much about colors as it is neighborhood pride. I am not defending the actions of gang members, but I think it’s easier to deal with the problem when it’s addressed in regards to poverty and a lack of a family structure than to simply classify it as a struggle of blue vs. red, or whatever the case may be. When you feel you have nothing else to be proud of, sometimes you become prideful of the wrong things. People, especially young people, want to be a part of something that they feel is also part of themselves, and unfortunately, this is the path a lot of misguided youth take to express their pride.

Like I said, it doesn’t make it any more rational, but we can all certainly understand what it’s like to be prideful of the area we are from, or even the teams we root for. Fortunately, most of us (MOST of us) are able to express this pride without guns and violence.

Sorry for the rant (Guinness did it), but I work with a lot of kids who are headed down the same path, so I just wanted to put in my two cents. Your main argument is what is most important, and that is the fact that it truly is a sad situation.

The Crips and Bloods don’t have as much influence here as the Mexican Mafia.

This is my third time on a jury, although one of the times I was an alternate and didn’t take part in deliberations. The other two were easier to decide because the evidence was so clear. I have to say that it has been interesting, and I think the best part is seeing how it works, what happens in a courtroom, how evidence is presented, etc. The judge, the DA and the defense attorney spent a lot of time explaining how it all works.

The DA kept telling us that the forensic investigation is nothing like the show CSI, and then he admitted that he’d never watched CSI which I already knew because the investigation techniques described were EXACTLY like the show. I know that they went to great lengths to get it right for tv, and they have an advisor who worked for the FBI’s CSI unit.

This case is actually pretty mundane for the surrounding area of “The Big A”. Although I have never seen the Halos logo used in gang imagery, I often see it used with the LA Dodgers. If you Google CHAZ BOJORQUEZ you can find some imagery that may satisfy your curiosity.

We didn’t like anyone involved in our case, not the victim, not the defendant, nor the witnesses… well, except for one. The guy who testified about how the victim arrived at the scene was the only person who seemed decent; he had managed to stay just outside the gang problems and had removed himself to another community to attend college. He’s in another gang territory, so he’s not clear yet.

The “hostile” witness claimed he didn’t remember anything that was described to him, didn’t know who anyone was, didn’t recognize the defendant, etc. and it got so bad that the judge finally stopped him and said, “Let me get this straight. You don’t remember being in my courtroom a week ago?”

Yeah, he remembered that but nothing else. Then he asked the judge for a restraining order against the entire Santa Ana Police Department. I was amazed that no one laughed out loud, but we all did when we got to the jury room. I was also amazed that the judge didn’t blow his top.

He also claimed he never uses the internet, doesn’t even own a computer, and doesn’t have a MySpace page. I just found his MySpace page not 10 minutes ago and I wasn’t even looking for him (and no, I will not post a link). On his taped statement he describes everyone and everything that happened that night, names and identifies several gang members and tells about their business, which seems to be selling drugs. It’s interesting that everyone we heard from is NOT gang member but they all know who is a member of the Lopers, and no one is a drug dealer except for that one time they got caught, and they had only just started that day.

The star witness would not have won Mother of the Year. She is 28 years old, looks 48, has five children ages 5 – 11 and was picked up in an FBI raid of the complex that netted more than two dozen possible dealers. Her drug conspiracy charges will be dropped for testifying, but she has chosen to endanger her children’s lives rather than give them up to Social Services and probably a relative to raise while she does time. There is a private donor who has given her money to relocate so that she can make herself and her children safe, but she’d have to move her entire extended family in order to be safe from this gang if they decide to retaliate. We did consider that our defendant was one of the smaller fish in the gang, and that it was possible that he was the designated fall guy, but other evidence pointed us toward him as one of the shooters. Oh, the other shooter was a guy named Pollo, who was Star Witnesses boyfriend at the time of the shooting. He’s in Mexico, deported just the month before it was realized that he was involved. There is speculation that the witness will be there within a week of having her own charges dropped.

The defense in this case had one piece of evidence that would have given an alibi to the defendant, if it hadn’t been doctored. It was a 15 minute chunk of video with a time/date stamp that was really just a title that had been added after the DVD was burned. Neither the camera nor the computer were available for the DA to examine, but no matter; he brought in an expert who demonstrated the difference between a real time stamp and a title. For one thing, the dates never display a comma between the month/day and the year. Another point was that the font was all wrong, and another was that the timer disappeared after about 5 seconds no matter where the video was started. I noticed something that was not mentioned: the timer never changed. It was set to 11pm, but we watched at least three minutes of the video, stopping and starting it several times, and the time never changed.

There were so many questions that we wished had been addressed by both sides and, of course, the jury is not allowed to suggest questions for either side to ask, but I am now allowed to do a bit of investigating and I’ve found several articles online that answer some of the questions we had.

Every one of us expected a better showing from one side or the other, and a lot of witnesses that we were told we’d get to hear were cut from the trial. We really wish we had gotten to hear them; one was a child and we wondered if both sides decided to protect that child.

It was a lousy case, not enough evidence to suit any of us, and more than one of us wondered if the defense attorney had done his job properly, but then we considered that maybe that was all he could do. He was interesting. He had been a policeman in the San Diego P.D. and at one time he was assigned to the jail. He told us about how

didn’t hear what I heard, and couldn’t figure out which bits were more important.

I was on a DUI case 18 months ago that should not have gone to court but the defendant wanted to fight her arrest. Her lawyer was freshly minted, so new he almost shone, and he made so many mistakes in who he chose to have speak, including the defendant. I guess she must have insisted, but I think it’s usually not a good idea to have the defendant speak. Her boyfriend was a witness, and calling him to testify was a huge mistake. He was a young idiot, came to court wearing ragged jeans, and there was a bit of a reaction to the information that he was 19 and she was 32. She came to court the second day with a black eye. At the time of the arrest her right leg (or maybe it was her left, she was unsure) was in a cast from a car accident she had on St Patrick’s Day, and of course we all thought that was the result of driving drunk but the DA told us it was not. (Rats!) She was driving a rental when she was arrested on the DUI.
Her attorney attempted a novel defense called the Rising BAC defense, claiming that her blood/alcohol level was just beginning to rise at the time of the arrest and that she was tested about 45 minutes later so that gave time for it to be above the .08 level. He didn’t prove that this fit that model at all.

The most interesting part of that trial was the testimony describing the alcohol levels tests that were run with volunteers, a lot of them cops. They were given a drink, or two or three, and their reactions were tested behind the wheel as well as outside the car. The presenter made it interesting and the subject was innately entertaining, and I learned a lot. I know I’m a “cheap date” so I never drink if I’m driving. I am usually the DD when we go out.

And, not to get all constitutional on you, but we are assured of a jury of our peers as well as a fair trial.

that you’re okay with rich dumb people?

Or that you hate poor people and dumb people as separate but sometimes overlapping groups?

Either way, that’s a pretty crappy outlook.

Your case sounds like a monster.

The part that i thought would be most fascinating was the CSI testimony and all of the experts on firearms and DNA, but it was given when everyone’s blood sugar was at the lowest point. I noticed some of the gallery giggling and looking at us and realized that the lady in front of me was nodding off. We all had that problem and tried all sorts of remedies, some of which almost worked. It was terrible realizing that we were falling asleep during testimony.

near the community college. He is Mexican-American and he has family on both sides of the gang problems. He calls his gangster cousins a bunch of knuckleheads. He had a cousin who was killed by gang members, in front of his family and kids. They killed him because they had a beef with the cousin’s brother. I didn’t ask for details but the story sounds familiar, very like a murder that made a big splash in the last couple of years.

All of this came up during the jury interviews (voir dire?) and they didn’t challenge him. I was kind of surprised.

Gang-bang has that other meaning here, too.

In my version of the 7 rings of Hell, child molesters are close to the center. I would have a tough time as a juror on that type of trial.

The thought makes me want to take a shower…

I hope that there was enough good evidence that you didn’t have a problem making your decision.

  You might see that I have been aware of gang activity since I was a little kid.

I have consciously tried to put distance between gang activity, and myself and my family. Can you honestly say that you would choose to live in a gang-controlled neighborhood if given the chance to live elsewhere? I’m upper-middle class, white, and 59 now, but I spent my first 14 years in Baldwin Park, from 1950 to 1964. That was a really rough place at the time.
I know I deal with gang members sometimes, but I don’t usually deal with deciding if a young man committed a murder, nor do I deal with this level of criminal behavior on a daily basis. Do you?

Most of the jury was unaware of how gangs impact their community, and unaware of the dynamics created within a neighborhood by gangs. My pontification about not looking at the problem unless forced to came from that.

The judge will decide that. 1st degree murderers with gang and gun enhancements are not likely to be included in the 25% reduction.

What I find to be incredibly obnoxious are all the lame-assed excuse making that people give to dodge their time in the box, followed by all the lame-assed resentment exuded by most of my fellow juror who felt that they got ‘stuck’ on a jury assignment.

And then I read a story like this. And I realize that it does not matter how clean and noble I live my life, there is always a huge risk that some knucklehead like Ms. Jean Gonzalez is going to find some sorry reason to take away from me and my family our ability to feed/cloth/shelter and educate one another. And then it is going to be ME who is going to need 12 interested, intelligent, reasonable fellow citizens to protect me.

I’m not sure my email address is in my profile.

in the 1960s in Oakland. He was about my age, and his son was just starting to have his gang tattoos removed. I have no idea what the names of the gangs were.

When we lived in Riverside, a member of the Tiny Dukes shot and killed a guy who was fishing on the new pier at Fairmont Park. It was one of the few places legal to fish after dark, and the pier had just opened that week. The shooter was 14.

The Citron Street gang in Anaheim is one that uses the Angels as their logo.

included a rule against wearing taps on your shoes. These were very small toe and heel taps, almost a decorative item they were so small, and you could get them put on at shoe repair shops. It was a gang thing and the kids that age who had them just wanted to appear tough; they were mostly white boys. You could hear them coming, from quite a distance in the hallways.

This was elementary school, in the mid-50s.

had a huge demographic divide that took in a really rough neighborhood. I remember a 2nd grader crying because he didn’t want to join a gang when he got older but all of his older brothers, cousins and uncles were members and he felt he had no choice. 2nd grade, only about 7 years old.

I know about Santa Ana and how hard some of the kids work in the schools. I take art classes at the CC and I see how serious they are about these and the more “meat-and-potatoes” classes.

I’ve never had any problem in Watts or Compton or South Gate, but I also don’t linger during the day or go there after dark. I went on a photo expedition last summer with my niece to find two houses my grandfather had built in South Gate and a third in Hollywood in the early 20s. It was a bit of an adventure because the streets had all been renumbered at some point and we only had some old photos and my dad’s shaky memory of the nearest cross-streets. We found all three, and the two families who lived in the houses in South Gate welcomed us in and looked at our photos and told us about themselves.

the class if you dont mind me asking? Sounds interesting.