In recent days a federal judge ruled that the city of Los Angeles must stop enforcing gang restrictions that have been labeled as unconstitutional by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Chief U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, said in a 22-page order that the ACLU could likely prove “that most of those subject to the remaining injunctions suffered a due process violation, since the city did not give them an opportunity to challenge the civil restraining orders in court.”
Mind you, the ACLU isn't arguing that targets of other types of restraining orders have been denied constitutional due process rights, only restraining orders aimed at minorities in gang-infested L.A.
The paper noted that Phillips’ remarkable order is likely the first time Los Angeles officials and law enforcement personnel have been barred from enforcing the orders, which were implemented during the late 1980s and 1990s when gangland activity in the city garnered national attention. The orders were aimed at restoring public safety, not at denying anyone their rights — though I find it difficult to believe a federal judge now believes that gang members have a right to cause mayhem and threaten the civil society.
The Times noted that the city’s enforcement of the injunctions has been under increasing pressure, mostly from the ACLU when in 2016 the organization and the misnamed Los Angeles Youth Justice Coalition filed suit against the city.
The Times noted further:
Following an audit by the Los Angeles city attorney's office and the LAPD, 7,300 people were released last year from the conditions of the injunctions, which are civil court orders that can restrict someone from associating with friends, or even family members, in neighborhoods considered to be havens for certain street gangs.
Violating the orders can result in arrest.
It seems to me that the LAPD wouldn’t designate regions of the city as gang havens willy-nilly; I also can’t imagine a scenario where the department would arbitrarily pick and choose which Los Angelenos are gang members and which ones are not. So that leaves this: While no department is perfect, you’d have to assume, wouldn’t you, that a department responsible for the Rodney King beating (and subsequent riots) operates as transparently as possible…right? (Related: LAWLESS Left-wing California mayor helped illegal aliens with sex, robbery convictions evade certain capture by ICE agents.)
Apparently not if you’re the ACLU, which has a better history of creating problems in society rather than fixing them. This appears to be on of those instances.
According to the Times, since 2000 LA officials have enforced restraining orders against 79 separate gang sets that affect about 8,900 people, the city attorney’s office said. After last year’s purge, about 1,450 people remained subject to the orders, according to a court filing by the office last month.
Now, Phillips’ order bars the city from any injunction enforcement of orders granted before Jan. 19, 2018 — though the city is allowed to seek new ones “provided that officials give targets a chance to challenge the orders in court before attempting to enforce them,” the paper reported.
Peter Bibring, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU, told the Times that the judge's ruling would not leave many, if any, Angelenos subject to the orders.
“The court clearly recognizes the way the city of Los Angeles has been enforcing gang injunctions over decades violates due process in a way that makes it likely they will place people on gang injunctions who may not be gang members," Bibring said. "This ruling marks the end of gang injunctions as they worked in the city of Los Angeles.”
The LA police union issued a statement claiming that the order eliminates an important crime-fighting tool, and I don’t doubt that. But at the same time, in a state that protects illegal alien criminals even after they’ve killed citizens, I don’t expect Angelenos to rise up in protest, either.
J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.
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