Downtown Plaza in Sac- What on earth is happening?? (Sacramento: attorneys, theater)

[wburg]

So let me get this straight: A crime report of "gang activity" occurs when someone calls the police and reports that they see someone who is a member of a gang?

[zen_klown]

According to the City of Sacramento Police department see pg 9.

The Sacramento City Police Department's gang unit "download their activity onto the department's intranet in order to facilitate and share gain intelligence between gang investigators and patrol officers. "

http://www.cityofsacramento.org/spda...UAL_REPORT.pdf

I assume this is the database that the Sacbee is also using.

I imagine that a report of gang activity is similiar to report of a rape or a murder, someone calls in to complain that something happened. Maybe sometimes during there patrols, officers come across something on their own as well, but I imagine that mostly its driven by citizen complaints. When you aren't in a police state, the police generally do respond to citizen complaints and I think its wrong to imply something is sinister in that.

You can find a further discription of the gang unit here.

Welcome to SacPD Online (http://www.sacpd.org/careers/specialized.htm - broken link)

Are you disputing the existence of gangs in Sacramento? I am not really sure where this line of questioning is going. Do you dispute that Sacramento isn't one of the more dangerous cities in the State? What is your basis for arguing that the city, and police are wrong in attributing this violence to gangs?

Merely because you aren't aware of a problem, doesn't mean that you aren't living surrounded by it.

If you look at the Megans law database, downtown has a lot of sex offenders living there as well, much more than Folsom or Land Park.

Search California Registered Sex Offenders- California Dept. of Justice - Office of the Attorney General

If you go look at the pocket area and you look for gang activity within 1500 ft of 200 Florin Road drive, you find no reports of gang activity. That area has lot of asians, but those asians aren't showing up as members of asian gangs because the Chinese kids in that neighborhood aren't joining gangs. But if you look at 24th and Florin Road, wherea lot of the Hmong have there shops, you do find higher levels of asian gang activity.

Its not racism nor fashion that is driving these two different outcomes, its the behaviors of occupants of these two different neighborhoods.

[wburg]

zen_klown: I am asking you this question:

What behavior constitutes "gang activity"?

[zen_klown]

The activities of members of gangs.

[cityx]

[quote=wburg;5173646]
Eventually, there will be a Target store on the L Street side near 5th Street...


I wonder how this will affect the Target store on Broadway since it is only about 2 1/2 miles away? I heard a rumour that Target wanted to renovate and expand this location as well.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by zen_klown

The activities of members of gangs.

Well, isn't that circular!

Okay then...what sort of activities are considered "the activities of the members of gangs"?

[zen_klown]

The labeling is necessarily ambigious to cover all of the activities of gang members. The issue is tracking these folks and while you many not care for it, gang members have been sighted at the downtown mall fairly regularly in the last year and half. Its in the records of the Sacramento Police Department.

Ideologues regularly refuse to acknowledge emperical evidence when it conflicts with there established world viewpoint. Most creationists also dispute the evidence for evolution. If you don't want to acknowledge that Sacramento has a gang problem and want to insist that police are incapable of identifying gang members, well more power to you. I hope your faith in ideology over facts works for you. There are plenty of people who feel that scientists are incapable of identifying evidence that supports evolution too.

But some of us actually believe in evidence based decision making. The best evidence out there right now suggests that Sacramento has a gang problem and that gang members are in fact spending time at the downtown mall.

Show me better evidence that Sacramento doesn't have a gang problem and that gang members aren't hanging out at the downtown mall. Also show me, why the people who have collected your evidence are better more reliable sources of information than the Sacramento Police Department. If you can do that, I can be persuaded. I believe in emperical evidence and I can be persuaded by better evidence.

But so far you have failed to provide any reliable evidence to back up your beliefs.

[wburg]

Sacramento has a gang problem.

Gang members do hang out at Downtown Plaza.

I'm not disputing either of those points.

I'm asking you this: What sort of behavior constitutes "gang activity"? Buying tortilla chips? Being six feet three inches tall? Voting Libertarian? Yodeling? What?

[zen_klown]

This database was put together by Sacramento Police Department's Gang Unit. These trained professionals believe in the validity of this data and in this process. They believe this is one of the best ways of putting the intelligence of the Gang Unit in the hands of the patrol officers of the department. Gang activity it is a necessarily ambigious term. The goal is put in any information that they think is relevant in tracking gang members into the database - when that is your goal, the term is necessarily ambigious.

[wburg]

I'm not sure why you're dancing around this so much, zen_klown. If these databases consist of reported crimes that people have called in, then these people must have called in and reported *something.* If I call 911 and say "There's gang activity on my streetcorner!" the operator is going to ask me to explain what they are doing. So, the question remains, what behaviors result in a notation of "gang activity"?

If "gang activity" can mean anything, then it can mean everything, which means any activity by anyone can be considered "gang activity"--if the term is not defined, it is meaningless and therefore useless. Personally, I don't think you have any idea what constitutes "gang activity" and are throwing around a bunch of rhetoric in order to hide your ignorance.

Honestly, it's okay to not know what "gang activity" means. I don't, which is why I'm trying to ask you what it means. If you don't know, I can always ask someone else.