The Railroading of Alex Sanchez

Last week, Alex Sanchez, the Executive Director of Homies Unidos, the largest gang intervention program in Los Angeles County and a model for gang outreach worldwide, was denied bail. He has been charged with a federal racketeering count for his alleged role in the assassination of a man in El Salvador in 2006. Bail was denied despite the fact that the community raised over $2.5 million in sureties and property deeds as a guarantee that Sanchez does not pose a flight risk. If he did leave the country, that property would be confiscated. Yet Judge Manuel L. Real denied bail by claiming that the overwhelming community support proves that Sanchez has the resources to flee the country. Being denied bail will increase the difficulty of Sanchez’s legal counsel to prepare his case, and continue to subject Sanchez to the dangers and degradations of the Los Angeles County jail system.

The accusations of the Los Angles Police Department are best seen in light of a history of charges and counter charges between the LAPD and Sanchez. In September of 1999, Sanchez testified before a California State Senate committee investigating police abuse of former gang members. Within months, officers arrested Sanchez for immigration violations, contradicting Los Angeles City Council Special Order 40, enacted in 1979, which bars police from enforcing federal immigration laws. In June of 2000, Sanchez’s lawyers filed a federal suit against the LAPD. Federal prosecutors chose not to prosecute him for illegal entry into the United States, but turned the case over to an immigration court. On July 10, 2002, an INS judge granted Sanchez political asylum, the first such verdict in history.

In the current case, doubts have been raised about the truthfulness of federal evidence by none other than Father Greg Boyle, a widely respected Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries. Boyle has filed a declaration with the court, pointing out a troubling omission from the transcript in the government’s case. One of the gangsters appears to say, in effect, “Butt out, Alex, you are no longer one of us.” Thus far the court has not responded to Boyle’s findings.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, community outreach efforts, as documented by prominent gang researchers such as Gerald Suttles and Irving Spergel, were instrumental in maintaining the peace among rival groups of young people growing up in impoverished communities. Unfortunately, such efforts have been severely curtailed since the 1980s in light of efforts to “get tough on crime.” As I document in my book, Who You Claim, many gang members are desperately poor and lack access to caring adults who might provide opportunities for legitimate success. Alex Sanchez’s peace-building approach to gangs harkens back to a time when young people were seen as troubled rather than trouble, and provides a model whose success threatens the perceived efficacy of a militaristic approach. The LAPD anti-gang units, known as CRASH (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums), operate with secret budgets, no civilian oversight and broad public support. Yet within the field of gang research, developed over 80 years of close analysis, experts question the viability of implementing policies that subject individuals to criminal justice processing due to their alleged gang status for two reasons. First, no concensus exists on the definition of a “gang member,” and second, the presence of gang members has not been demonstrated to cause crime.

The court in the Sanchez case has received more than 120 letters of support from gang experts, clergy, academics, and others including former assistant U.S. Attorney and federal prosecutor, Robert Garcia, and past co-director of the Los Angeles FBI office, Tom Parker, testifying to Sanchez’s character and the effectiveness of his strategy. The public at large needs to be better informed about what works and what doesn’t work in regards to gang members, and begin to question why broad community support might be construed as a risk factor.