Request: Tougher anti-gang measures

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Yakima Valley residents spoke passionately Thursday before a legislative commit-tee in Olympia about how gang activity is terrorizing their lives and called on lawmakers to give police more tools for the fight.

"I don't think it's fair that I have to be afraid for my little brother and sister," Anna Aburto, a senior at Davis High School, told the House Judiciary Committee. "I'm afraid to go out in my neighborhood."

Aburto described how she and her siblings have crawled around on the floor in their home late at night to seek cover from gunshots intended for a neighboring resident.

She was one of 17 people from Yakima, including three City Council members and police Chief Sam Granato, as well as Sunnyside police Chief Ed Radder, who made the trip to support House Bills 2413 and 2414.

The proposals would extend asset seizure, forfeiture and nuisance laws to criminal gang activity in an attempt to hurt gang members financially and drive them out of known gang houses.

The legislation, sponsored by Reps. Norm Johnson, R-Yakima, and Charles Ross, R-Naches, has bipartisan support -- Rep. Al O'Brien, D-Seattle and a retired pol-ice sergeant, spoke in favor.

But it is opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, which says it could harm innocent property owners.

House Bill 2413 would allow law enforcement to seize property used to facilitate criminal street gang activity, prior to any conviction. The property could be sold with most of the proceeds going to law enforcement, but a portion into the state treasury.

The owner of the property or assets seized would have the right to a hearing before the law enforcement agency that carried out the seizure based on probable cause. If the owner was innocent, the property would be returned with attorney fees.

Yakima City Councilman Rick Ensey, who owns rental properties in some gang-infested neighborhoods on Yakima's east side, testified in support of the bill, saying there are adequate remedies in existing law against unfair seizures of private property.

"I am in no way afraid I would lose my property because of this," Ensey said, anticipating the ACLU's opposition.

Maureen Adkison, another council member, said people from a wide array of groups in Yakima want police to have more tools to tackle the problem.

"Our community has pretty much had it," Adkison said.

At least eight of the more than two dozen homicides in Yakima County last year were linked to gangs, with two occurring dangerously close to schools.

Among those who testi-fied at Thursday's hearing was Tammy Masters, whose 18-year-old son, Mo Adams, was fatally shot in 2008 on South Seventh Street by people he did not know. Masters told the committee she replays the crime scene over and over in her head.

"My life and my family's lives will never be the same,"
Masters said. "They didn't know each other but the shooter chose to shoot my
son anyway. These people are terrorizing our neighborhoods."

Bill Lover, a City Council member, testified that Yakima's young Latino popula-tion is especially threatened by gang recruitment.

"I'm looking at two generations of young Hispanic men and women who don't have a chance," he said.

But Rep. Jim Flannigan, D-Tacoma, said the propos-als don't address the social problems -- poverty, lack of opportunity, drugs -- that give rise to gang activity.

"We are not facing the real business that's happening in Yakima," Flannigan said.

Granato, however, said that while there are greater social problems, law enforcement needs a civil remedy against gang activity.

"Sometimes we don't have probable cause to lock these folks up. But getting them out of that neighborhood would be helpful," he said.

House Bill 2414, the nuisance proposal, would allow anyone within a one-block radius to file a legal action to stop gang activity as a nuisance. For example, if a neighbor complains to law enforcement about a pattern of gang activity nearby, it could be investigated with an action filed against the property owner in Superior Court. The owner could be ordered to "abate," or clean up the nuisance.

Shankar Narayan of the ACLU said the nuisance proposal could lead to abandoned properties, which could make the gang problem worse. He also said that while well-intentioned, neither proposal focuses on the person actually committing the crime.

"These are real and fright-ening problems communities are facing around gangs, but I would urge the committee to consider whether the law will be effective," Narayan said. "There are unintended consequences around these laws that have little due process for individuals affected."

The committee took the bill under advisement.