At Berendo Middle School in the Pico Union neighborhood of Los Angeles, you would think that students have enough to worry about with 10 street gangs making claims to neighborhoods served by the school as well as the more normal rigors of adolescence and student life. The reality of these injunctions is a lot different than the way the cops will tell it. But this is not the worst of it. The Los Angeles Police department has started picking up anyone with brown skin who they see in groups of two or more and taking them down to the police station for questioning. They stop anyone with brown skin in groups of two or more in a car, frisk them and search their car.
Some neighborhoods now have concrete barricades across streets to keep traffic out.
The situation in Pico Union is one of the uglier examples of the current campaign to criminalize youth. Class because most of those being messed with live in Working Class communities where the cops think they have a free hand to mess with people because they don't expect the local politicians to complain. They are justified in fearing gangsters, but don't realize that this is not the real motive behind the gang injunctions nor the actual outcome. Our thanks to Cecilia for the information about what is going on in Pico Union. Neighborhood Watch is just organized to get people to spy for the cops and does not get the cops to address real safety issues.