<p>I've been hearing about a lot of tension in the area. Chapman wants to expand to build a new music center. Minorities living in the area have been targeted with a gang injunction. Because they couldn't get anything on the original minorities targeted, apparently, the individuals listed currently got on the gang injunction because they may have spoken to one of the originally or secondarily targeted minorities at an intersection or bus stop. It's a real guilt by association thing. The police see someone talking to someone and they officially put their name on the list. Theoretically any minority student at Chapman could wind up named in the injunction. Apparently, anyone who gets added by speaking to the wrong person at the wrong time, loses all their Constitutional rights and has to allow searches at all times and can go to prison for a traffic violation. If a kid speaks with the wrong kid on the kid's high school campus, he can go to prison for years. Orange County has the highest rate in the country of juveniles going to prison for life and it is largely because of all these injunctions that prevent members of minority groups from associationing with each other that they get away with locking up unprecedented numbers of minors in Orange. </p>
<p>A civil rights leader from the City of Orange spoke about the civil rights violations at a meeting I attended last week. She and her family have been targeted because they are Latino. There was a mom there whose African-American son, a minor, was sent to Chino (the prison where Manson is being held) because he had the wrong friends. He didn't commit any crime. He just had friends who were part of a gang injunction in another Orange County city,</p>
<p>I am more than a little concerned about racism in Orange County. Of course, this would be a good civil justice project for sociology students at Chapman to take on.</p>
<p>Are you saying that this man was sent to prison with no jury trial? Someone told someone that he had the wrong friends, so someone sent him to prison? I hope that one of the attendees at the civil rights meeting asked these questions, because I can’t imagine how a person would be accepted by the prison for incarceration without a conviction from a court of law.</p>
<p>According to the California Penal Code:
I think “during the commission of a gang crime” are the operative words here. And if an innocent person was accidentally present during the commission of a gang crime, he would still be entitled to a trial by jury. There are undoubtedly jury members who would vote to convict someone just based on their ethnicity, but a majority of them? I find that hard to believe.</p>
<p>Those speaking at the meeting may very well have had loved ones who have been targeted for being a gang member or even for being a minority. But when they give examples that clearly leave out some very pertinent facts, no one is going to take them seriously.</p>
<p>Juveniles are treated differently than adults in the justice system. They don’t have the rights of adults but can get every sentence but the death penalty. One of the last people executed in California was executed for a crime committed while the individual was still a minor. After he died, the Supreme Court said “no.”</p>
<p>Talking or standing next to someone is considered a gang crime in this county. All they have to do is to prove that you were present. Then, a minor infraction is all that is necessary to send a person to prison. Judges, not juries determine the sentencing. There is a major outcry about this gang injunction in Orange. You ought to check it out. I was shocked to learn that this could happen in America. It is considered a violation of the U.S. Constitution and the California Constitution but it is still happening. The injunction claims to override the penal code.</p>
<p>The precedent for the gang injunction is Joe McCarthey’s Committee on Un-American Activities. If you failed to name communists, you lost your job. It’s in the history books I read. I assume you read similar books.</p>
<p>This isn’t the same country it was in 1999. In 2001, thousands were rounded up and disappeared without trial. At one MLK parade, Amnesty International had the names and numbers of thousands of the missing.</p>
<p>Robert Greenwald’s documentary, “Unconstitutional” goes into the massive roundups in the United States following 9/11. A lot of people are uninformed about things of this nature. In Germany, most people were completely unaware of the roundups. Last night, John Dean spoke at the Fullerton Library about an authoritarian personality type that follows authoritarian leaders, doesn’t look into facts directly and usually has minimal education. America is full of uninformed people. It is rare that anyone pays attention to current events.</p>
<p>Amnesty International has moved on to more recent events. </p>
<p>Funfun seems to be very well informed and ahead of the curve.</p>
<p>I am not disagreeing that there were roundups after 9/11. However, those people didn’t disappear. They were detained and released…with a few exceptions. Those exceptions should not have happened. I do not disagree with that at all. Are you saying that there is nothing on Amnesty International’s website about this because they have moved on, or did I misunderstand you? The information on the disappearances in the middle East and Africa during the last decades of the 20th century is still on their site.</p>
<p>I have not seen the documentary but will watch for it. I also agree that a lot of people are uninformed. There is plenty of blame to spread around for this, but one culprit is the media. Ratings are king, and people might have flipped the channel if they were broadcasting a story about people being detained because of “ties to terrorism” or whatever. I don’t think we can lay it at the feet of any one network, either. They all do it. If they didn’t, we would not all be so well-informed about Michael Jackson’s death. </p>
<p>
This is my point exactly! Whether you are attending a civil rights meeting, a health care townhall, or a rally for your favorite cause, you cannot just accept what the person behind the podium says because he or she supports the same cause you do. You have to check the facts before you spread that information on to others. We all have the responsibility to do that.</p>
<p>Funfun and Chap, I admire you both very much. You are probably only 18 years old, yet you are reading and attending meetings on serious subjects. You are clearly involved and informed citizens. You will likely be influential people one day. For that reason, I especially want to encourage you when you attend a meeting held by an advocacy group that you support to hold the speaker’s feet to the flames by asking really difficult questions. Be the devil’s advocate. Try to poke holes in his story. When you can’t, you’ll know you have something that other people need to hear about. Hardly anyone will argue with documented truth, but exaggerations cause the advocacy group to lose credibility.</p>
<p>You have to be doing a lot more than standing next to a gang member to get rounded up. It is an interesting scenario, but a bit far-fetched.</p>
<p>If you think you are mistakenly put on this “list”, you can be asked to be removed from it. More than anything else, this helps give the law enforcement officers some ability to keep them away from their community - they aren’t all locked up and sent away. They just can’t be there, in those neighborhoods, if they are found to be in violation of the code.</p>
<p>The neighborhoods in Orange County have seen a rise in gang activity. You can see this as unconstitutional all you want, but if it is working to keep gang members (who aren’t the best and brightest in a community, let’s face it) out, than it is a good thing. It is so good that people in the surrounding neighborhoods can finally breathe a sigh of relief.</p>
<p>I don’t know where you live, funfun or chap, but most people I know don’t want to live in neighborhoods infested with gang violence. In fact, I can’t think of anyone who likes that kind of environment - especially the people who live it, everyday. </p>
<p>To say that this is a human rights violation is odd. Also, nobody is going to get the death penalty or life in prison for being rounded up in a gang injunction. Show me one documented case from a major news source where a person is being sent away for life for standing next to a gangmember in Orange. Just one. </p>
<p>It’s not happening, but it makes for convenient fiction. </p>
<p>Most of those that do get incarcerated are repeat offenders - they started as juvies and worked their way through that system…and eventually end up as adult repeat offenders.</p>