Freedom Socialist • Vol. 29, No. 3 • June-July 2008

Feds feed racism and anti-immigrant hysteria
Gang crackdowns: police-state dress rehearsals

by Monica Hill

Homeland Security boss Michael Chertoff and ICE director of investigations Marcy Forman celebrating 582 “street gang” arrests at an Aug. 1, 2005 news conference. Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP

When 50 members of the Latin Kings gang were arrested in Central Florida on racketeering charges, it was hailed in Tampa Bay’s newspaper, as a “turning point in the crackdown on increasingly organized and violent gang activity.” The August 2006 raid was conducted by 100 officers from at least six city, county and federal law enforcement agencies.

Two years later, after nearly half had accepted plea deals or turned informant to get out of jail, Circuit Judge Daniel Sleet dismissed charges against almost all the 28 remaining, still-jailed defendants. Judge Sleet cited an outrageous police frame-up. An FBI-paid informant had revived the dormant “gang” by threatening to beat anyone who refused to rejoin.

This is a blatant example of how the U.S. government is using the specter of gang violence to fan crime hysteria, pit workingclass communities against each other on racial and ethnic lines, and justify escalating police state measures. With anger increasing as economic survival becomes tougher, the men in suits are looking for distractions and scapegoats.

Government strategies on terror, immigrants and gangs are closely connected. Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff explained to a March 2006 press conference that gang members are “the worst of the worst in terms of criminal activity. In much the same way that we have connected the dots in the war against terror, we are now connecting the dots in the war against gang violence.”  He bragged, “ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] has the ability not only to identify targets, but to remove them from the community.”

National law enforcement agencies happily engage in the “war on gangs” because it facilitates joint federal, state and local spying and repression. Politicians like gang crackdowns for pre-election “tough-on-crime” ad bites. Public officials like them because they bring federal money into their state and local coffers. Cops go for gang raids because arresting teenagers is relatively easy and brings promotions. Meanwhile, trillion-dollar corporate crime is not being pursued.

Today’s gang suppression paves the way for a police state — by targeting Black and Latino kids and immigrant workers, scaring everybody with false crime statistics, and accustoming people to disappearing civil liberties. The actions also clear out neighborhoods to smooth the way for wealthy new residents.

Shielding the gentry. In Southern California last February, 300 Los Angeles cops, federal agents and state investigators swarmed into a Venice neighborhood at dawn and arrested 19 Black youth, supposedly members of the Shoreline Crips. The city also forced landlords to evict 13 other people “connected with drugs and violence.” Boastful officials held a press conference shortly afterward saying that drug-dealing Crips had “been the government” at the Oakwood Recreation Center and park, and had intimidated other people from using the facilities.

Residents said otherwise. The Los Angeles Times interviewed a retired, longtime inhabitant of Venice who scoffed at official claims and said, “The only things that run that park is the dogs.” The mother of one of the teens taken into custody told reporters it was the well-off people in gentrified Venice who were drug customers. “It is anybody who has these fences,” she charged, pointing to barriers around modern mansions.

In fact, gang activity has lessened considerably since the mid-1990s when gang leaders and community activists hammered out truces. But no matter. The Shoreline youth have been charged with federal crimes carrying lengthy sentences and their names have been added to a national database. Even if never convicted, they will face lifelong consequences for simply having been arrested for “gang” connected activity.

If convicted, another score of Black youth will be subjected to permanent police scrutiny and denied the right to vote or get tuition assistance, and a host of other penalties.

The immigration connection. Some local police departments were once reluctant to mix up crime investigations with immigration enforcement, because this made it difficult to get help from migrant communities. Operation Community Shield, an ICE national anti-gang initiative launched in 2005, has helped reverse that policy. Local police and various feds now busily use anti-immigrant laws to go after gang members and anti-gang laws to deport immigrants. This has cheered law enforcement enthusiasts and racists immensely.

Not so the 2,500 residents of Greenport, New York on Long Island. They were disgusted at the early morning raids by armed ICE agents and cops who, without warrants, rousted out of bed 11 “gang connected” Latino men in September 2007. The arrestees were not gang members and none had a criminal record. Greenport’s mayor, David Nyce, condemned the entire operation. He told the New York Times, “The whole gang issue is something to keep the white majority scared about the Latino population, and to come in and bust as many people as they want.”

Some of the men were bailed out by employers. Others are still in jail, and some have disappeared! None of them were guilty of anything but being a different color and speaking a different language.

Time to gang up on the crackdowns. Terrifying dawn raids, criminal charges that defy legal processing, branded for arrest or deportation by the color of your skin or the language you speak — it sounds like Nazi Germany. And like fighting the fascists, it will take a united front to defeat these attacks.

It’s time for parents and unionists, hip hop activists and gang leaders, civil liberties fighters and radicals to organize unified defense of our kids, the next generation.

They deserve a future, not a police state.  

Monica Hill lived and organized for two decades in Los Angeles. A longtime member of the Coalition Against Police Abuse, she staunchly defends gang truces. Email her at fsnews@mindspring.com.