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OGDEN -- A controversial initiative by police in Ogden appears to be getting results.
A year ago this week, Ogden Police declared the city's largest gang, a public nuisance and began serving injunctions to members. Police say, despite fierce opposition from civil liberties groups, the injunction has done exactly what they wanted it to do: make Ogden a safer place to live, and they say the numbers back that up.
"To get some of these guys off the streets, you know, they've done a great job so far," said one neighbor.
This woman lives in central Ogden, where several different gangs rule the neighborhood. She said violent crime is nothing new here.
"Not too far down the street here, a guy got shot on somebody's front porch. Down here, a couple of blocks, a kid got shot in the alley," she said.
But venture out of the area, and she said, and things are getting better. She credits police and their efforts to crack down on members of the city's largest gang, the Ogden Trece.
"Around town, i haven't really seen a lot of harassing. I was seeing with a lot of them standing around."
If we can get double digit reduction, we are moving by leaps and bounds forward to deal with the problem.
–- Lt. Scott Coney
In the past year, officers have served most of the documented Trece members with injunctions, which restricts some of their activities and imposes a city-wide curfew. Graffiti has gone down nearly 40 percent. The city has also had a 10 percent reduction in gang- related crime, including assault and criminal mischief.
"If we can get double digit reduction, we are moving by leaps and bounds forward to deal with the problem," said Lt. Scott Coney of the Ogden Police Department.
But one woman said the injunction isn't fair as it targets only one gang when Ogden has many others. Her brother-in-law is a member of the Ogden Trece and was served with an injunction. He's now in prison on a parole violation.
"He has no tattoos that represent Ogden, it's just the people that he was hanging out with at the time that he got caught," she said. "They just find a way to get you with that injunction."
Police say, they have specific criteria to label someone a gang member, and they are looking into a multi-gang injunction. One Trece member told KSL it won't matter; gangs are a lifestyle and something like this won't keep them from doing what they need to survive.
A hearing in November will determine whether or not to make the injunction a permanent order.
Email: syi@ksl.com.
