I urge all of you to read the front-page story by Dean Paton
”
The gang plague,
”
which documents the rise and spread of gangs across the South
Valley and how those movements often are affected by law
enforcement.
I urge all of you to read the front-page story by Dean Paton “The gang plague,” which documents the rise and spread of gangs across the South Valley and how those movements often are affected by law enforcement.
The information, I believe, is among the most important we’ve presented. It shows how Gilroy’s all-out police effort to disrupt gangs has lowered the crime rates in problem neighborhoods. More ominously, it shows how the lack of tough law enforcement and prosecution efforts in Hollister have driven some gang members into
The outward signs that gangs are taking hold in San Benito County are many: two unsolved gang-related murders, reports of drive-by shootings, a spike in assaults, a plague of graffiti. The Hollister Police Department does not have the resources to mount an attack. Statistics are not kept. Patrol positions at the department go unfilled because the HPD doesn’t pay as well as neighboring departments.
Combine those with a District Attorney’s office that has never added a gang enhancement charge to crimes committed by gang members, and San Benito County becomes a place were gangs can and have gained an easy toehold.
Gang members move to communities for the same reasons as commuter families – the price of housing, ease of access and scenic surroundings. Hollister is the last South Valley frontier.
The timing of the growth in gangs in Hollister coincides, probably not coincidentally, with both the city’s attention – and its money – focused elsewhere. A decade of unbridled growth has left Hollister struggling with infrastructure problems. A $1.2 million state fine the city faces for its 15 million gallon sewage spill is just a little more than what Gilroy spends annually on its efforts to investigate and put pressure on the city’s gangs. Hollister is now faced with spending $25 million more on a new sewage treatment system. It’s money that would buy a lot of police officers.
For two months this newspaper has reported on the surge in graffiti around town over the past year, and letter-writers have taken notice too. Graffiti has spread as gang members stake territory. It’s vandalism, it’s costly to business and it signals something nefarious.
Today’s report is where those graffiti stories led us. On a hunch, we took photographs of Hollister graffiti and showed it to an expert at the Gilroy Police Department who tracks tags and taggers. She confirmed that some of Hollister’s graffiti is the same that officers there have documented earlier in Gilroy. Gilroy police officers, too, say their enforcement efforts are driving some gang members out of town, some to Hollister, where Gilroy cops have tracked suspects in gang-related violence.
It shows that Gilroy’s gang-suppression efforts are working. Gilroy became pro-active about its gang problem long after criminal enterprises had taken hold, however. The community is still paying the consequences by playing catch-up.
Hollister can learn both from Gilroy’s mistake and from its current enforcement efforts. For too long officials in San Benito County have either failed to see the signs or looked the other way as evidence has mounted that a problem is brewing.
These days Mexican nationals are being robbed on payday in Hollister, police are investigating whether some Mexican businesses are the targets of extortion – both among the city’s most vulnerable citizens. Graffiti is sprayed on businesses as far-flung as the wrecking yard on Hollister’s west side and upscale businesses on the east.
It’s up to the communities of Hollister and San Benito County to decide whether they’re going to tolerate it. Ten years ago Gilroy citizens demanded action from their city council and police department.
Hollister citizens – all of them – deserve and should demand the same protections. Before it’s too late.
