The Informant

Norteño gang graffiti. Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/metalcowboy/2761077635/#/

Three more defendants named in Oakland’s proposed gang injunction against the Fruitvale Norteños have agreed to be represented by a team of pro bono defense attorneys. Raul Acosta, Robert Alarid and Onorato Deltoro all filed answers to City Attorney John Russo’s lawsuit last week, claiming they are not active gang members and do not belong on the injunction.

Their statements contain information about their whereabouts and daily activities — meant to demonstrate their non-criminality. Their filings also speculate about the politics of the proposed Fruitvale injunction — alleging that Oakland Police officers are playing up the threat posed by the Norteño gang in the Fruitvale.

Onorato Deltoro, a forty-two-year-old Fruitvale native and recovering methamphetamine addict, lives in at men’s homeless shelter in Santa Rosa. According to his statement, Deltoro found religion while attending church with his mother, and is a sort of sidewalk preacher in Santa Rosa. He claims that whatever Norteño association he had is long in the past:

“I am not an active gang member; I don’t even associate with them,” his filing reads. “Although I once thought of myself as a gang member, I have given myself over to Christ and gangs are not even in my mind.”

Deltoro also challenged OPD accounts of contact between him and officers — including prosecution witness and gang expert Douglass Keely, who Deltoro says incorrectly identified him as a member of Nuestra Familia, a prison gang linked to the Norteño.

Defendant Raul Acosta’s filings echo this accusation. Acosta, who is a year away from completing A parole term for assault with a deadly weapon, claims he did not commit the shooting but took a plea deal with the district attorney for the felony charge.

“I do not want to go to jail again,” his court statement says. “When I was in jail, I realized that I have people outside who love me and want me free. I am committed to staying clear of the law for the benefit of my family.”

The defense filed two additional declarations: one from Javier Quintero’s girlfriend, Diana Gutierrez, who witnessed his 2008 arrest by OPD officers outside a shed police say was a Norteno arsenal. Gutierrez said that Javier had stopped off at the house momentarily before driving her to a doctor’s appointment. Her account also raises accusations that Keely violently restrained Quintero during the raid, an allegation first made in court by Quintero’s sister, Esmeralda. Keely has denied this allegations, but it has provided fuel for the defense’s portrayal of OPD as overly aggressive.

Martina Gomez is the cousin of Abel Manzo’s cousin and the mother of of Francisco Gomez, a Measure Y gang intervention worker who was named on the original Norteños injunction. Her statement is aimed at depicting the neighborhood around East 15th Street and 22nd Avenue — a main “hotspot” in the “safety zone” — as a tranquil area of closely knit families and neighbors. By Gomez’s account, the Nortenos are not a threat to the safety of the neighborhood. In her statement, Gomez’s self-identification as a Norteno also offers a different understanding of the term:

“I consider myself a Quince Norteños. This does not mean I’m a gang member. It is simply a way to tell people where I am from. I still consider the Quince, or E. 15th, the neighborhood I live in and am part of.”

Attorneys for the city filed a motion Friday requesting that Alameda County Judge Robert Freedman not allow the declarations of Gutierrez and Gomez into evidence. Gutierrez’s evidence is described as hearsay and inadmissible because she was a juvenile at the time of the shed incident.

As for Gomez’s claim that the meaning of “Norteño” in her neighborhood is relatively innocuous, the city has a different view:

“as a relative of at least three of the active gang members on this list, perhaps it is true that declarant Martina Gomez does consider herself an honorary Quince Norteño, and would also explain why she is unafraid of walking through her neighborhood…The clear prejudice inherent in family members and significant others attempting to submit evidence on behalf of their boyfirend/brother/cousin/nephew is abundantly apparent here.”