The Eureka City Council will pursue measures to block gang activity in the City of Eureka.
Citing an increase in gang graffiti, the city voted 3-0 to examine guidelines by other cities that hinder gang proliferation.
Councilmember-elect Linda Atkins suggested the Council follow the lead of larger cities and seek civil injunctions against gang members. She said successful measures by the City of Los Angeles are pushing gangs into small areas like Eureka, so the city must take action. Atkins said she washed gang graffiti off city property the day after Thanksgiving.
Councilman Mike Jones called Eureka’s gang activity “major league stuff.”
City Attorney Sheryl Schaffner said her research turned up the same material provided by Atkins. She said existing codes allow the city to obtain injunctions to discourage gang associations, and that she’s already in touch with an LA Gang unit.
This isn’t the first surge in gang graffiti or violence. Members of the Mongol gang shot a rival gang member in front of the Shanty in Eureka last month. In June, Eureka Police conducted a sweep following a spike in assaults. However, Capt. Murl Harpham said he didn’t want to give gangs much publicity for fear of encouraging them.
But ignoring the problem hasn’t worked. Perhaps proactive measures by the City Council will quash budding gang activity in Eureka.
December 3, 2008 at 8:40 am
The city should develop a set of stencils to append painted messages to all gang graffiti within hours of it being reporter. The stencils would say such things as, “have small penises.”
December 3, 2008 at 8:48 am
that would work for most gangs, unless they call themselves “the dickless wonders”
December 3, 2008 at 9:07 am
hey watch it, Ed–the Dickless Wonders are a McKinleyville gang
December 3, 2008 at 9:46 am
A little local history for ya’ll.
The Dickless Wonders started as the Wonders in the early 1960’s in the Dows Prairie/Cranell region of northern Humboldt County.
Stemming from the days of selling illegal surf fish/smelt to the Porteugeuse immigrants, their activities brought competition from another gang coined, The Fog Krawlers from Manila. During those days, there were quite the surf and turf wars.
The gang leader of the Wonders, Dick Little, was quite the scurrilous character. He wanted the entire smelt-smuggling empire for himself and his gang. But, the Fog Krawlers, with their legendary “Fog U” graffitti, was now taking over much of the area south of the Mad River Bridge as their own while entering into The Bluffs region of South McKinleyville and working their way up to Clam Beach.
Dick Little would have none of this. One hot and bothered August night, they met the Fog Krawlers near the Cranell weigh station and a rumble commenced. The Wonders lost members, Li’l Rod, Stumpy and Tiny Peters along with their leader Dick Little during the tussle.
The gang’s members had swelled and risen in numbers in the 1970’s, but without their leader, The Dickless Wonders could no longer sustain their prominence and shrank into obscurity.
A few of the members began a prostitution ring in the area and even infiltrated the McKinleyville Chamber of Commerce. Their slogan “Where Whores Have The Right Of Way” is still occaisionally uttered today.
December 3, 2008 at 10:01 am
Personally I think the council is walking on a tightrope here.This reminds me of prop 6 way too much,and could be way too abused.I think that this is one issue where I will be agreeing quite a bit with our local ACLU branch.
December 3, 2008 at 10:03 am
Brilliantly funny Ekovox. Thanks for the chuckle.
December 3, 2008 at 10:10 am
Tooooo funny! Had to wipe tears from my eyes. Thanks Ekovox.
December 3, 2008 at 10:31 am
eko: That was great! Thanks for the laugh!
December 3, 2008 at 11:17 am
If any group can stop gang activity, it is the Eureka City Council.
Just look at all the brilliant, tough minds.
Wait, what????
December 3, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I’m not sure Harpham is ignoring the problem, H, I think he’s doing the work but just doesn’t want to give them too much ink or TV time.
December 3, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Ekovox – Just throwing in my vote for the funniest post of the year.
December 3, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Harpham isn’t ignoring the problem. The article in the TS was about a sweep that was conducted. He wasn’t naming the gang names as not to give them publicity. Any LE person knows this to be an effective way to deal with things. The naming of the Mongols and the Hells Angels gang involvement in the recent shooting was a MAJOR mistake for Chief Garr!
December 3, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Heraldo, Murl Harpham is giving us the benefit of his experience. Fifteen years ago the Communities Against Gangs organization came to the same conclusion. After organizing meetings that sometimes drew in Hundreds of local citizens concerned about local criminal gangs, CAG realized its front-page coverage might actually have been puffing up the gang members’ egos, egging them on to do more damage to local residents.
Once the problems had been made very clear to the police authorities and other youth-oriented government agencies, (thanks to CAG), the problems caused by the gangs decreased, even though there was, by that time, less, not more, publicity and generation of news about it.
So, I believe Murl Harpham is giving Eureka accurate information about how to contend with the gang problems of 2008.
I also believe gang graffiti needs to be quickly removed or covered in such a way that it looks as if it was never there. I believe every local person and organization should do what can reasonably be done to protect our local communities.
December 3, 2008 at 1:35 pm
These gang injunctions have all resulted in costly defeats in court for cities like SF and West Sacramento. I hope the City of Eureka enjoys paying the legal eagles at the ACLU when they get their asses hauled into court.
December 3, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Shoot first, ask questions later when it comes to gang members.
December 3, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I grew up in the barrios of El Monte and La Puente (SoCal) back in the late 50s – early 60s.
There’s a lot of reasons why gangs form. The one thing I did learn was that the parents didn’t seem to care what their kids did – so the kids formed gangs for social reasons. Some for criminal reasons. Some for protection in the neighborhood they lived in.
The thing to keep in mind…it starts at home. A parent who is still involved with gang activity, or a parent that’s never there to see what’s going on with their kids.
As more people from down south move up here, they bring their gangster lifestyle. The only way to stop this is get the parents involved when these kids scribble on walls, or get into other trouble. The cure starts at home.
December 3, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I, agree with, th3 othr anonymouses
December 3, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Ekovox’s dad would be proud of him. He never thought that Eko would follow in his footsteps, and be a serious historian, but now there is this post, worthy to be a doctoral thesis, if he had just added footnotes and references.
For just a while I thought that he was kidding, and going after my title as The North Coast Bullshistorian”, but then I checked the graffiti in the shell station bathroom and sure enough, everything that Eko says is right there in writing, on the bathroom wall!
Good one Eko, you are hilarious! I’m still laughing!
December 3, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I’m glad Eko saves the best stuff for the Humboldt Herald.
December 3, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Pretty funny to see a so-called liberal like Heraldo pushing racist poverty-profiling laws like this.
I guess the gang members are to blame for deforestation now. Anything to give these eco-fascists the change to be inhumane against people outside their politically correct cirle.
I can’t wait for the ACLU to sue their asses off, they’ve been batting a high percentage lately when it comes to pissing off the fake left.
December 3, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I agree, funny stuff indeed! Eko, you should be proud of yourself.
December 3, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Fascinating. The comment I posted was being censored, and all that was on this page at the end was Heraldo’s comment at 4:22 pm followed by Eurekaman.
Then I posted my deleted comment on Rose’s blog. Then, a few hours later, my comment mysteriously appears ABOVE the most recent entry.
In other words, Heraldo is covering his tracks instead of taking responsibility for his censorship-happy ways.
December 3, 2008 at 8:09 pm
No, genius, when a comment goes to moderation, it keeps the time you posted, not the time I saw it and approved it.
December 3, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Give us more ekovox, well done!
December 3, 2008 at 8:23 pm
The Education of Anonymous continues…
BTW, I have had a few more comments sent to moderation, even when sent by long time contributers.
A hiccup I guess.
-boy
December 3, 2008 at 8:52 pm
In East LA, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s: “Gang-Task-Force,” created more Bangers than all the poverty, violence and economic slavery combined. Sometimes a teenager doesn’t realize he is in a war, until he is punished for the crimes of people he doesn’t know.
These programs feed on people’s fear, they are never applied fairly.
My family was terrorized by a motorcycle gang in 1971, after a cousin testified against one of the members for rape. So, I am not an apologist for organized crime. But, who or what constitutes a “Gangster” is not accurately defined by insulated white people.
December 3, 2008 at 10:47 pm
It might be interesting to see some facts about the gang ordinances in other cities, the ACLU legal claims, and before-and-after violent crime rates before we all jump to opposite corners. What they did was direct the city attorney to look into it.
I am glad to know that whores actually have the right of way, not horses–that could lead to some serious misunderstandings!
December 4, 2008 at 7:23 am
Game over. Ekovox wins the internets.
December 4, 2008 at 4:48 pm
You put a little light on the gang problem, like show the public what the different gang tags look like, what they look like when wearing their colors, where they hang out, what the shoes mean on the power lines around town, etc. and you go some distance into educating the public and they will in turn be many more eyes and ears to let EPD know when something is happening. You also paint out tags and graffiti as soon as it shows up because they are marking their territory, just like your dog peeing around its territory. It’s a signal to stay away. These are just a few of the things that will help.
Who knows what the shoes mean?
December 4, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Gang injunctions don’t work, and the ACLU does sue and win those suits against cities that try them. How typical of Heraldo to push these sort of racist police state tactics just to stick a thumb in the eye of local civil liberties (again), kiss ass to Larry Glass (yet again) and keep those undesirable minorities scared of the police.
No wonder you backed Mark Lovelace.
December 4, 2008 at 8:00 pm
So ANON 5:29 if “injunctions” and “racist police tactics” don’t work, what is you solution? I’ll bet you don’t have one and who”s ass do you kiss? Wouldn’t you love it to be the VP candidate, or maybe even Bush and Cheney of the vanquished? Lets hear you list.
December 5, 2008 at 12:52 am
Why is it considered “racist” to expect everybody to obey the law equally?
December 20, 2008 at 11:54 pm
why do you assume that gang members are non-Caucasian? The ones involved in the Shanty shooting were all white guys, weren’t they?
December 21, 2008 at 1:06 am
Maybe he’s new to Humboldt County.
You wrote “non-Caucasian.” In other words, you have divided the population into two groups: Caucasians and non-Caucasians. Very interesting.
Caucasians are a minority group in California. If he’s from some other part of California or otherwise unfamiliar with Humboldt’s demographics, he would be making a wise mathematical estimate according to your own terms of dividing the population into only two groups.
December 21, 2008 at 9:23 am
I wrote “non-Caucasian” because of the discussion about whether going after gangs is racist. Last I checked, non-Caucasians are the people generally victimized by racism in this country (except Jews).