Metro police on Tuesday filed a civil lawsuit to wrest control of an area in South Nashville from the clutches of the Kurdish Pride gang by banning members from congregating in a 1.47-mile “safety zone.”
The department is targeting 24 of what they call the “worst of the worst” members of the gang, hoping a judge will ban them from publicly gathering in a zone that encompasses part of an area known as Little Kurdistan and includes Paragon Mills and Providence Park. The injunction lawsuit is the fruit of a three-year effort to combat gangs for detectives to build their case and attorneys to try and bullet-proof it from legal challenges. The injunction is the first of its kind ever filed in Tennessee, but a tactic used successfully for years in other states like California.
“Our police department will not sit idly by when a street gang threatens the peace of our community,” said Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson at a news conference held in Paragon Mills, the site detectives say hosted Kurdish Pride gang meetings. “We want to give this park back to the citizens.”
Police say Kurdish Pride members were involved in at least one murder, multiple beatings and shootings, drug dealing, illegal weapons and vandalism. Incidents include the 2006 attempted murder of a Metro Parks Police officer and multiple graffiti messages threatening a Metro Police Gang Unit detective.
Metro must first persuade Criminal Court Judge Steve Dozier that those named in the suit are actually gang members and that they should be banned from the area. A hearing is scheduled for June 29 where each suspected gang member will have a chance to challenge the lawsuit.
If successful, the gang members would be barred completely from the two parks. They would also generally be banned from gathering with other gang members in public in a 1.43-square-mile zone bordered roughly by Nolensville Pike on the west, Harding Place to the south, train tracks on the north and Interstate 24 on the east.
Such injunctions have drawn criticism – and legal challenges in other states -- from defense and civil rights attorneys, who worry when governments try to take away First Amendment right to assemble. Davidson County Public Defender Dawn Deaner said there are other fundamental questions that are troubling.
“When I hear people talk about being ‘suspected gang members’, the first question that always comes to my mind is, suspected by whom and based on what evidence?” she said. “To me this just strikes of, we’re going to round up all the people we don’t like and try to ban them from a public place.”
Similar legal tests
Metro announced in May 2010 they would pursue the use of gang injunctions, a year after it persuaded the Tennessee Legislature to enact a law allowing the maneuver. But it took two years before Metro was comfortable filing suit.
“This is a new area for us, we want to make sure we do this in a manner that will stand the test of court,” Anderson said.
Gang injunctions have survived years of such legal tests in California, said San Bernadino (Calif.) County District Attorney Michael Ramos. His office has used lawsuits to displace gangs from parks and apartment complexes with success .
“They have to put together months and months of work… to basically prove to a judge that these are legitimate gang members,” Ramos said. “You have to show that they are gang members, that they are cooperating, conspiring with one another, that they’re doing things to enhance the gang membership.”
He said it’s rare for suspected gang members to show up to court to fight injunctions and rarer that they succeed. But he said the tool has become invaluable in battling gang crime.
“Gang members do not like to be stopped by police, do not like to be interrupted by their activities,” Ramos said. “Absolutely it brings scrutiny, they know that they’re going to be watched.”
That is music to Amos Byers’ ears. He’s lived near Paragon Mills Park for 30 years – sometimes regretting moving into the neighborhood at all.
“I would never have bought this house had I known it would be like this,” he said. “It’s been a problem. Fights, shootings, gang wars. I’ve had my house paint-balled a few times, egged a few times, vehicle windows shot out.”
He welcomed Metro’s latest attempt to tamp down on gangs there, but wondered how committed police would be to enforcing the injunction.
“That would help immensely,” he said, quickly adding, “They just have to have someone here.”