Written by WYANDANCH, N.Y. — Fed up with unrelenting violence by two factions of the Bloods gang, Suffolk County officials have embraced a novel legal strategy that, if approved by a judge, would bar specific gang members from a two-square-mile “safety zone.”
In seeking what is known as a gang injunction, Suffolk County leaders are following a model they say has been successfully employed and constitutionally defended in California, and applying it to the hamlet of Wyandanch in Babylon, N.Y.
“Gangs have the propensity to take over schoolyards, street corners, playgrounds,” the Suffolk County executive, Steve Levy, said at a news conference to announce the court filing, adding that the “gang registry” was another tool for the police to use against gang members.
“They do not own those streets,” he said. “The people of the community own the streets.”
A similar effort was tried in New York City in 2000, when the police sought to block prostitutes and gang members from congregating in Queens Plaza. A State Supreme Court justice overturned the ban, saying the gang members’ activities were not dangerous enough to warrant restricting their civil liberties.
Amol Sinha, director of the Suffolk County chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said he was confident the courts would deny Suffolk County’s request, as well. He cited a recent decision in California, where a federal judge found such efforts in Orange County violated due process rights by not allowing those named in the injunction to challenge the notion that they were dangerous gang members.
“You can’t ban people from public areas,” he said.
Still, Suffolk County officials said they believed the injunction, which was requested in State Supreme Court in Riverhead, would be upheld. “We’re confident we’re in the right position here,” said a Suffolk County spokesman, Dan Aug.
The effort in Wyandanch began last year, when residents, the police and county officials began drawing up a plan that mirrored injunctions that had been used in Albuquerque and California, Mr. Aug said.
If granted, the injunction request filed on Tuesday would block 37 members of the Wyandanch Bloods and the Braveheart Bloods from gathering with other known gang members within a two-square-mile area. The county must notify those men by Sept. 1 and the judge will assess the case in the following weeks, Mr. Aug said, adding that if the men wished to be removed from the list, they would have to notify the court and prove they were no longer affiliated with a gang.
Mr. Levy said the injunction would be aimed only at those who had well-documented gang affiliations and criminal histories; those in violation of the injunction would be in contempt of court.
“We’re not talking here about seeking an injunction against an individual who happens to be walking down the street randomly or might be wearing a certain color,” Mr. Levy said. “This is specifically targeted toward 37 individuals who have already been convicted of some major crimes and are self-confessed members of the Bloods or the Braveheart Bloods.”
Jim Avery, a retired social worker and longtime community advocate who has acted as a liaison among the Suffolk County police, gang members and residents in Wyandanch, said the crimes usually ranged from selling drugs to menacing and street robberies.
As Mr. Avery began a tour of the proposed safety zone Tuesday afternoon, it did not take him long to spot men who might be affected by the injunction.
“See them?” he said, pointing to a group of men milling around a convenience store on Straight Path, the main road that cuts through Wyandanch. “They’re selling crack.”
He pointed again, this time to a man in a red baseball cap at a tire shop across the street.
“He’s a Blood,” Mr. Avery said.
Despite the increasingly public presence of local gangs and drug dealing in Wyandanch, not everyone in the area was comfortable with the injunction.
At a playground at Wyandanch Park, which is within the safety zone, Robert Parks, 51, who was with his nephew, Johnny Wooten, 6, said the area was a “notorious” hangout for gangs.
Nevertheless, Mr. Parks said, “To arrest somebody without committing a crime — I don’t agree with that.” He added, “I don’t believe in profiling, and that sounds like profiling.”
