Issues with gang violence in Somerville are approaching a legal head with the institution of a gang ordinance this May. Critics, however, question whether the introduction of the ordinance will actually solve the problem.
The ordinance was passed by the Somerville Board of Alderman in May 2004. It stipulates that the police can order the dispersal of criminal gang members found loitering in groups of two or more in zones designated by the police chief as threatening.
Reaction to the ordinance within the community was mixed, with some citizens feeling that it was an important step towards improving safety in the city, and others worrying about its implications for civil rights.
"I support [the ordinance] in a limited context," said Ann Stevenson, a junior at Tufts who lives with her two-year-old son in Somerville.
"The last thing I want is to bring my son to the park and have him step on a needle, or be the victim of a drive-by shooting or any other crime," she said. "I don't think that the police should have to wait for a law to be broken to address a possibly dangerous situation in a park or school playground, because then it is too late."
Many people, however, reacted negatively to the ordinance, and expressed fear that it could be used as a means of racial profiling. The MS-13 gang, for example, is Latino, and another gang, the Asian Boyz, which was implicated in an attack on a police officer earlier this year, is primarily comprised of men from Southeast Asia.
"The language is very vague, leaving a lot of discretion up to the police," said Daniel Grant, co-president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) at Tufts. "[It] leads to a lot of racial profiling."
The law has significant implications a civil rights context as well as in a practical one, Grant said.
"This is an unnecessary knee jerk law," he said. "It strains the relationship between the police and the community."
Grant said that when a similar ordinance was proposed in Boston recently, the police opposed it, claiming that it would hinder their relations with the public.
He also called the law "reactionary," saying that it was a sudden response made out of fear. "People thought something needed to be done," he said.
In October 2002, two deaf girls, one in a wheelchair, were raped in Foss Park in Somerville by four suspected members of the MS-13 gang. The crime shocked and enraged the community, and many residents called for immediate action.
Grant and the Tufts ACLU are not alone in their opposition of the ordinance, however. Nelson Salazar, an El Salvadoran immigrant and the director of the Welcome Project, has taken a firm stance against the ordinance as well.
The Welcome Project is an organization in Somerville that welcomes and supports immigrants. Founded in 1987, the Welcome Project teaches English and citizenship classes, holds after school programs with children, helps newcomers find housing and advocates for community integration.
As a community member and director of a program whose purpose is to foster racial understanding, equality and tolerance, Salazar said that the ordinance presents a huge problem for racial profiling and discrimination. According to Salazar, it is little more than a "joke."
"They [the girls raped in Foss Park] were white," Salazar said. "So it became this big issue. So [I feel] that the ordinance has more to do with race issues."
"If we look back to the history, at least of Somerville," he said, "there have always been gang members, but they were all white. Now this happens, and suddenly they come up with this gang ordinance."
Salazar said that even before the ordinance was passed, police would ask groups of Latinos to disperse. Therefore, he said, the ordinance is purely symbolic.
"The gang ordinance is just another tool for the police to be able to do whatever they want," he said. It simply legitimizes behavior that, Salazar alleges, was already occurring, and is a means for elected officials to appear as though they were responding to the rape in Foss Park.
Stevenson, however, disagrees. "I totally support our mayor in what he is trying to do," she said. "I have not seen any other administration do a better job as of yet."
Stevenson acknowledges problems with the current situation, including the under-funding of the Somerville Police Department. This ordinance, however, while possibly temporary, may help inspire change.
Salazar said that if the elected officials really cared about curbing gang violence and keeping kids safe, they would not be "chasing" or "harassing" them. Rather, they would become more involved with groups such as Welcome Project, which try to attack causes of gang-involvement at more profound levels.
Grant and the ACLU have teemed up with Project REPEAL and Project HEAL to form a coordinated effort to repeal the gang ordinance and address causes of gang-violence in an effort to raise community awareness of the issue.
"We're trying to get the word out on the Tufts campus," Grant said. The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate passed a resolution in opposition to the ordinance, and Project REPEAL has passed around petitions.
The groups intend to hold a forum in Somerville for the community to discuss the ordinance and the broader issue of gang violence.
"We're trying to work with schools in Somerville ... to get funding for after school programs, to get alternatives to [joining] gangs," he said. "[The ordinance] doesn't address the root of the problem, and in fact, it doesn't even solve anything."
Stevenson said that she acknowledges the issues with the ordinance, but that programs such as those suggested by Project HEAL take time, and that something must be done to curb violence in the interim.
"Of course Tufts students will say that social programs are the way to go rather than this ordinance, but those things take time and funding to implement," she said. "So in the mean time am I supposed to keep my kid indoors?"
Salazar said that the gang situation in Somerville may not be as bad as is feared, and that he believes high-profile crimes such as the rape in Foss Park frighten the public and exaggerate the sentiment of terror.
Yet Stevenson, who is moving out of her neighborhood because of the gang situation, rampant crime, drug dealing, and vandalism, said the issues are real, and must be addressed in a timely, firm way with the public's safety as a priority.
"I am moving, but what about all those families who cannot afford the high rents of West Somerville and have nowhere to take their children except Foss Park?" she said. "What should they do? Call up the ACLU at Tufts and have them come over and entertain their children?"
