Santa Rosa showcases efforts to reduce gang activity

For many of the participants at a festival in Santa Rosa’s South Park on Saturday, the event demonstrated the big strides the community has made against the gangs that once held the upper hand in the neighborhood.

Some of the several hundred people who came out to the festival intended to help reclaim their streets and playgrounds said gang problems have declined and they feel safer than before.

Ed Lopez, an 18-year-old South Park resident, said the event at Martin Luther King Jr. Park was a way to “bring the community together and show we are strong, show we are united.”

“A couple years ago, you wouldn’t see anyone,” he said of the numbers of people who now feel more comfortable coming to the park. “There’s still some gang activity, but not like before.”

He said people take night strolls now. “The community feels a lot safer around this park,” he said.

As if to underscore the tenuous nature of the struggle against gangs, the South Park Community Center was tagged with gang graffiti late Friday night or early Saturday morning. It was quickly painted over by volunteers.

Saturday’s festival was part of a weeklong series of events showcasing community efforts to reduce gang activity in Santa Rosa and build healthy communities.

In addition to dance performances, live music, martial arts demonstrations, basketball competitions and a children’s movie after dark, there were more than a dozen booths that included representatives from nonprofits and other agencies that work with at-risk youth.

Some of the recent flare-ups in gang activity have been in other parts of the city, centering around perennial trouble spots off West Ninth Street and Moorland Avenue.

But South Park has been relatively calm.

“It’s one of the quietest times we’ve seen in South Park in quite a long time,” said Sgt. John Cregan, head of the Santa Rosa Police Department’s gang unit.

He said the indictment of nine leaders of the Varrio South Park gang last year left a vacuum in leadership.

“They’re all facing decades in prison,” he said of the gang members who were arrested as part of a sweep by a law enforcement task force that included the FBI.

“Six years ago a murder on Grand Avenue rippled across the neighborhood and community. People weren’t coming out. People were scared,” said Vince Harper, an assistant director with Community Action Partners.

“This is a chance to stop, reflect on our work and remind people we still have a lot of work to do. We can’t rely on law enforcement,” said Santa Rosa City Councilman Ernesto Olivares, a retired police officer.

Community activists and police say the key to keeping kids out of gangs is to work with them from a young age.

“You can’t arrest your way out of the gang problem. You have to provide basic services, embrace youth, make them feel part of the broader culture,” said Robert Edmonds, vice chairman of a community and local law enforcement task force created in response to the shooting of 13-year-old Andy Lopez last year in the Moorland Avenue area.

The teen was shot by a sheriff’s deputy who mistook the airsoft BB gun the teen was carrying for an AK-47, according to authorities.

Caroline Banuelos, co-chairwoman of the task force, said police officers need to get out of their cars and go on bike and foot patrols to interact with the community “so there’s not so much us-versus-them.”

But Santa Rosa Police Chief Hank Schreeder said bike patrol, for instance, is better suited to other parts of the city such as the downtown.

“How many calls for service can you answer while on a bike?” he asked.

Schreeder agreed, however, that Saturday’s event and police visits to classrooms epitomized the effort for officers to be seen as part of the community, to “let them see beyond the uniform ... try to see us as people.”

Former juvenile court judge Jeannie Buckley said Saturday’s event was aimed at coming up with strategies to “change the mistrust between the community and law enforcement.”

County Supervisor Shirlee Zane addressed the crowd in both English and Spanish, saying, “We’re here to create a community and enjoy the park.”

“I’ve seen lots of transformation, lots of positive changes,” she said, adding that South Park is one of the neighborhoods that in a recent survey had some of the greatest disparities in education and income compared to other parts of the county.

“We need to focus on putting lots of resources here, especially with youth,” she said.