Tuesday, April 29, 2008

String of Westside gang crime keeps police busy

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

A 25-year-old Santa Barbara man was hospitalized yesterday after five men leaped from a vehicle near the 900 block of San Pascual St. and beat the victim in broad daylight just a block from the Guadalajara Market, a Santa Barbara Police official said.
The brazen attack occurred at 4 p.m. and by the time police arrived on the scene the victim had fled. Lt. Ralph Molina said the victim showed up at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital an hour later with serious injuries and had to undergo a CAT scan. He said the victim was not stabbed and the attack was likely gang related.


The attack occurred just a block from where two cars filled with female gang members collided Monday night after a verbal argument erupted.
Molina said police were dispatched to the intersection of De la Guerra and San Pascual just after 9 p.m. Monday to a vehicle accident.
When officials arrived they found a stolen Honda sedan that collided with a tree, but no one was around, Molina said.
He said it was a puzzling scenario, but after a number of hours, police discovered the occupants of the wrecked car got into an argument with a number of people driving a van. The argument escalated when the two vehicles crashed into each other. Molina said the Honda, which was occupied by three women, appeared to have been fleeing when it collided with the tree.
Witnesses told police the occupants of the car fled on foot, but the people in the van got out with bats, bricks and other weapons and began vandalizing the wrecked car.
Molina said the Honda was reported stolen the day before out of Lompoc and an ID found inside the vehicle led them to arrest a 17-year-old girl, who allegedly stole the car from her parents.
Molina said the girl gave police a Lompoc address, but is going to high school in Santa Barbara. He said she did not cooperate with the investigation.
He said the incident could be connected to a string of gang graffiti that has recently sprung up in the Westside neighborhood.
Though local gang fights that make the news rarely involve females, Molina said female involvement is not uncommon.
“There seems to be a little bit of a flare-up with some activity with the females lately,” he said. “We’ve responded to a few fights which have involved females.”

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

If only there was some kind of local dress code, all these problems would go away...

Anonymous said...

Glad the latino community has something to be proud of these days. Thanks for coming to America with your productive kids...both male and female.

Anonymous said...

Seriously. Get a handle on your kids before they lead to the complete and utter degredation of this city, state, country...
Or maybe they will all just stab each other dead and resolve the situation thusly.

Anonymous said...

I've run into a couple of young latino chicas who made some racial remarks to me as I left a pet store on upper State St., but I ignored them. I found it odd that they were calling after me "hey white girl", when I'm old enough to put their smart asses over my knee and beat some sense into them. Which is probably what's lacking in their lives: common parental discipline. But they're probably from families struggling to make it in this pricey paradise and the parents are too busy. How sad. To both of the "anonymous" posters: WHAT?!? City-wide dress code??? What are you smoking? And "anonymous" #2, get a grip! It's not just latino kids and not just imigrants. Locals, anglos, asians, you name it, without supervision and discipline kids will run wild.

Anonymous said...

Wow after reading this article and the comments i didn't realize this was a latino problem, I thought this was a gang problem. Back in the 80's there was a HUGE crack down on gangs/crime and the police presence is what did it. We need to look at history and repeat it. Problem solved. This won't go away over night and when you have ignorant racist stirring the pot it will only makes things worse.

Anonymous said...

Wow, you people are really ignorant.

M.C. Confrontation said...

I have not yet posted here, but it seems to me that not only is it a gang problem, but it is a Latino problem too. These aren't white kids or black kids or asians that tagging up our city and stabbing each other. It's Hispanic kids. Why all the damn PC crap? Why can't people just call it as they see it? These Hispanic kids kill each other and mark up the neighborhoods and everybody's afraid to put a real name to it? What a joke. Get a grip, grow a pair, and call a pig a pig. Latino gangs need to go... NOW.

Anonymous said...

Racism isn't going to solve this problem. Don't assume the Latino community is to blame for this - this is a Santa Barbara problem. There are so many opportunities to help - check out www.volunteerSBC.org - a great website where you can find volunteer opportunities.

Anonymous said...

it is a gang crime. but when 95% of the gang members in this town are of Latino heritage, I think that shows a pattern.
this comes down to an immigration problem. stop the cycle at the border, and eventually it will die off. plus, they need to neuter all these gang bangers, so they can stop the cycle here locally. too many young dumb gang bangers having multiple kids that we have to pay for.

Anonymous said...

That was in the Lower Westside area of Santa Barbara. The newbie reporter needs to study a map of the neighborhoods.

The parents of the criminal gangster kids seem to be too busy driving down the price of the labor market so they are too busy to be parents, so everyone else should pay more taxes so the police can be the parents instead.

Anonymous said...

Strong police visibility/presence has been proven to
work with gangs & crime in cities I have lived in
Houston & Austin.

Strong monetary funding is needed to support this effort.

Wake up & hurry up Mayor & City Council.

Parents are to blame, what else is new, won't solve the
problem.

Anonymous said...

Anybody wonder if this is an Asian gang?........maybe a
Neo-Nazi gang.......Nah!.....probably a black gang.

Anonymous said...

My parents both worked full time when I was in high school, but my brothers and I would have never thought about joining a gang! We were too busy with school work and other activities with our friends such as sports and music. Our parents were never too busy to teach us values and have a sit-down dinner with us every night. This is a cultural thing. Saying that the parents are too busy working is not an excuse.

Anonymous said...

We used to live on the West Side and 90% of the members of these gangs are hispanic. Sure, there are some white vatos too, but most of the problems are with the mexican gangs. They're mostly wanna-be gangs and thankfully they aren't using guns...yet.