Article Media
San Francisco – In response to the City’s first request for a sweeping civil injunction against an alleged gang in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point, the ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) filed an amicus brief today asking the Court to not issue an injunction at the scheduled October 30, 2006 hearing on the City’s proposed preliminary injunction.
The ACLU is asking the Court to continue the hearing and direct the City to provide constitutionally adequate notice to all the individuals whom it intends to serve with the injunction so that they may have the opportunity to appear in Court and contest the allegations against them.
“The City has only served and given notice to a few of a much larger group of individuals who are identified and targeted by this injunction,” said Michael Risher, staff attorney with the ACLU-NC. “To issue this injunction on October 30th would deprive persons of due process rights and give the police a roving community warrant to impose these probation-like restrictions, and potential criminal penalties, on anyone they consider a gang member or associate.”
The injunction will impose a 10:00 pm curfew and other restrictions on anyone who is served by the police with the order, regardless of whether they have their day in court.
“The City appears to have intended to keep this case essentially secret from the public, the community affected and from almost all of the individuals targeted by this injunction until after the Court had acted on October 30th,” said Alan Schlosser, Legal Director of the ACLU-NC. “We are hoping that the Court will order the City to broaden its notice so that the Court does not only have before it the City’s version of the facts and the necessity for this type of injunction in this community.”
The City attorney sued the Oakdale Mob on September 27 and served legal notice to three of 22 men he named in this complaint. The lawsuit alleges that the alleged gang has up to 80 members.
Legal documents:
