The Informant

Ali Winston

Defense Attorneys Yolanda Huang and Michael Siegel leave the Rene C. Davidson Courthouse on Friday, May 6th.

At some point in the next month, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman will decide whether or not to approve Oakland’s second gang injunction, brought by City Attorney John Russo against 40 alleged Norteños in the Fruitvale neighborhood.

Although the Oakland City Council will decide on May 17th whether or not to continue with the controversial anti-gang strategy, Judge Freedman indicated he will allow the case regardless of the council’s decision. A replacement for outgoing City Attorney John Russo, who will leave office on June 10, has yet to be named.

Attorneys for the city and defense presented their closing arguments to Judge Freedman yesterday afternoon in front of a full courtroom in Department 1 of the Rene C. Davidson Courthouse on Lake Merritt. Most of those present were youth opposed to the injunction who had taken part in a march from Fruitvale to the courthouse yesterday.

Attorneys for the city once again argued that the 40 defendants posed a danger to the Fruitvale neighborhood, which “lived in fear” of the Norteños, according to Deputy City Attorney Rocio Fierro. In an attempt to demonstrate the threat posed by these 40 individuals, Fierro rattled off 300 offenses attributed to the defendants, including at least 120 incidents of violent crime.

Fierro also railed against the “charged political atmosphere” that led to her boss’s resignation, stating that the defense has pushed “myths and half truths told by sympathizers” about the connection between injunctions, racial profiling, police misconduct and gentrification. Oakland’s injunctions, Fierro said, are different because they are restricted to the defendants named in the case and do not give police the authority for unnecessary stops and arrests. Like other California injunctions, the Fruitvale case has 70 additional slots for people who can be added to the injunction by the City Attorney. The Norteno gang is also named as an unincorporated entity.

Fierro also brought up the arrests of 20 of the 40 defendants since the injunction was filed last October. “This case has not gone as expeditiously as we wanted,” she told Judge Freedman, adding that without the injunction, further people ran the risk of going to jail or being harmed by gang members.

Meyers Nave Attorney Tricia Hynes, who along with Britt Strottman has done a substantial amount of work on the injunction as outside counsel, focused on the conduct of defendants Abel Manzo and Javier Quintero, who would be the only 2 represented defendants affected by Freedman’s ruling, along with three others who have defaulted. Regarding Manzo’s claims that he is trying to “fade away” or disassociate himself from the Nortenos, Hynes replied that “it takes years to fade away,” quoting Oakland Police Officer Eric Milina’s testimony that Manzo is a “hustler” and takes part in gang activity “for the money.” As for Quintero, Hynes argued that he controlled access to a shed on his street where the Nortenos allegedly kept an “arsenal” of rifles and ammunition.

“We’re representing the community on this case,” Hynes said. “We’re the voice of the residents, the businesses and the community leaders who are too afraid to speak up.”

The defense split their closing argument between three attorneys in the fashion they approached examinations of witnesses during the four months of court proceedings. Michael Siegel spoke briefly about Russo’s lack of authorization by the city to pursue the gang injunctions, calling the City Attorney’s actions “unlicensed and unlawful.” He directly challenged Hynes’ assertion that the City Attorney’s office represented the will of the community by asking for a show of hands in the courtroom for all opposed to the injunction: a majority of those present raised their hands, prompting a harsh rebuke from Judge Freedman.

Veteran Defense Attorney Dennis Cunningham chose a different tack, opting to engage Judge Freedman in debate about the source of the city’s evidence and the length of time that has passed between the defendants’ offenses and their inclusion in the case. Quintero, Cunningham recounted, had gone 18 months without a parole violation until he was arrested in court at the end of March.

In response, Judge Freedman told the courtroom that if Quintero’s arrest had been intended to further the city’s case, it did not achieve the desired effect. Furthermore, the judge also voiced his displeasure about not receiving any explanation from the Parole Division of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation about why Quintero was arrested in court.

Cunningham also argued that the criminal justice system already has ample tools (such as parole and probation) to deal with problematic individuals, as demonstrated by the arrest of David Hernandez last week for violating gang-related terms of his probation. The injunction program, Cunningham stated, was pushed forward by law enforcement grants and political priorities rather than a genuine threat to public safety by the defendants.

Injunctions, Cunningham said, “are not a tool. It’s a pretext for police running the community. That’s why there’s this opposition.”

Yolanda Huang, the final defense attorney to address Judge Freedman, again questioned the value and source of the city’s evidence. OPD, Huang said, have demonstrated their capacity to keep close tabs on alleged gang members through “technical violations,” such as Javier Quintero’s recent parole violation for possessing a red shirt. The problem with such technical violations, Huang said, is that they do not take into account broader circumstances: Quintero’s employer, Sykes Contracting, wears red shirts when they work on site.

Furthermore, Huang stated the court has seen “no evidence whatsoever of a near-constant public nuisance” as alleged in the city’s court papers, and the evidence against the defendants has overwhelmingly come from law enforcement. Not one community member testified in support of the city’s case during court proceedings.

The Oakland Police Department was represented in court by Deputy Chief Jeff Israel and Captain Steve Tull. Neither OPD nor City Attorney Spokesman Alex Katz had any comment on the day’s proceedings or the future of Oakland’s gang injunctions, which will be decided in the next few weeks.