Courtesy of Oakland North

The hearing on the proposed Fruitvale gang injunction continues for the fourth week

As the hearing over the proposed Fruitvale gang injunction grinds on, tension is rising between the two sides over how long the process is taking. On the prosecution’s side, the Oakland city attorney’s office wants the court to approve the proposed injunction as quickly as possible, while the defense, which represents 27 of the 40 alleged gang members named in the injunction, wants to prevent its enforcement.

Initially, a ruling was expected after a one- or two-day hearing in mid-February. But after four days of witness testimony that have stretched out over four weeks, including more than four hours spent questioning Oakland police officer Douglass Keely Wednesday, staffers from the city attorney’s office are complaining that the defense may be intentionally dragging its feet.

“I think it has been their strategy for maybe the entire case, to run the clock and delay as much as possible,” said Alex Katz, spokesman for City Attorney John Russo. Katz charges that the defense team turns their witness lists in late, constantly changes those lists and continues to file new motions — all of which, he said, have drawn out the hearing process. “We filed this case in October. The fact that they still don’t have a final list of witnesses is really telling,” he said.

But defense attorney Jeff Wozniak, one of the five volunteer lawyers representing the defendants, said his team isn’t intentionally delaying a decision, but rather wants to ensure that the judge understands every implication of the proposed injunction and that each of its witnesses is given adequate time to speak. “Our goal is to prevent an injunction from going into place,” Wozniak said. “Justice is slow, there is a process this goes through. These hearings are long and the stakes are high. We are interested in a just and fair resolution.”

In addition to the five witnesses the defense has already been allotted, the defense has asked the judge if they can have seven additional alleged gang members take the stand to tell their stories.

Once the hearing is complete, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman will decide whether to impose the injunction, which is intended to curb crime perpetrated by the Norteño gang in the Fruitvale neighborhood.  If enforced, the proposed gang injunction would create a “safety zone” of two square miles in which the 40 alleged gang members named in the injunction would have to abide by a 10 p.m. curfew and could not associate with one another or wear clothing with gang colors, among other restrictions.

Defense attorneys representing the alleged gang members have argued that the injunction would violate the defendants' civil liberties and lead to racial profiling and police harassment of Fruitvale residents. Over the course of the hearing, defense attorneys have attempted to show that some of the people named in the injunction are not gang members and should not be included on the list. They have also tried to demonstrate continued police harassment of the alleged gang members and their families.

During the hearing on March 2, much of the testimony was focused on Oakland police officer Douglass Keely, who is a police detective specializing in Hispanic gang crime and was involved in the arrests of many of the 40 alleged gang members named in the injunction. He worked with about 20 other police officers to delineate the borders of the proposed safety zone, target crime hot spots and put together the list of alleged gang members.