Also Known as..
VARRIO TIJUANITA
A'JST
C x J
CALLE JEFFREY LOCOTES
= LOS RASCALS =
N ~ Cerritos Avenue
W ~ 9TH Street
E ~ Walnut Street
S ~ Calle de las Estrellas
The neighborhood is all apartment buildings in a quiet neighborhood. It is just east of Loara High School in Anaheim, and sits on the back side of Disneyland.
Published: Oct. 9, 2010
Anaheim residents have a party to celebrate an injunction against the Jeffrey Street gang.
ANAHEIM – The gang is called Jeffrey Street, but there no longer is a street by that name.
The neighborhood the gang claims, once known as Jeffrey-Lynne, is now called Hermosa Village.
On Saturday, neighborhood residents were treated to hot dogs and hamburgers to celebrate a recent court injunction against the gang. The party at Energy Field was hosted by the Anaheim Police Department and the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
Once one of Anaheim's most blighted, high-crime neighborhoods, Jeffrey-Lynne was transformed into Hermosa Village starting about 10 years ago as the city bought and renovated many of its two-story apartment buildings.
"It's way better than before," said Ariana Gutierrez, 15, a Loara High student who has lived in the neighborhood since she was 2. "It doesn't look so ugly."
Crime began to drop when the city did the renovations, Police Sgt. Juan Reveles said. Many of the gang members have moved out, he said. However, they still gravitate toward the neighborhood because it's where they feel safe, he said. Elsewhere, they're either in "no-man's land" or in an enemy gang's territory, he said.
After the renovations, Jeffrey Street was renamed Calle del Sol. When it was removed, the Jeffrey Street sign had a couple of bullet holes in it, Reveles said.
The injunction, served on 60 of the gang's most active members in July, gives the police an additional tool to use against the gang. It forbids two or more gang members to congregate inside a 1.59-square-mile "safety zone" bounded by Katella Avenue to the south, Nutwood Street to the west, Ball Road to the north and Disneyland Drive to the east.
Also forbidden are wearing gang clothing and throwing hand signs. Gang members subject to the injunction can be arrested and prosecuted for these activities, which would otherwise be legal. In the first two months of the injunction, there were nine such violations, but none in the third month, Reveles said.
It's the second gang injunction in Anaheim and the eighth in Orange County. Others are in Santa Ana, Orange, Garden Grove, San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano.
The ban on congregating keeps members from "posting up," or hanging out in public to attract members of rival gangs who might be looking for a fight, Reveles said. "Posting up" creates danger for gang members and non-members alike.
"What the lay person doesn't understand is that these people are willing to die for the neighborhood," he said.
Rogelio Franco, 35, used to live in Jeffrey-Lynne in the mid-1990s. He moved back a year ago to what is now Hermosa Village.
"There were a lot of gangs back in those years," he said. "Now it's different. It's like a new place."
Violent crime in the neighborhood is down 33 percent since the injunction was served, said Susan Eckermann, a deputy district attorney who prepared the injunction.
VARRIO TIJUANITA
A'JST
C x J
CALLE JEFFREY LOCOTES
= LOS RASCALS =
N ~ Cerritos Avenue
W ~ 9TH Street
E ~ Walnut Street
S ~ Calle de las Estrellas
The neighborhood is all apartment buildings in a quiet neighborhood. It is just east of Loara High School in Anaheim, and sits on the back side of Disneyland.
Published: Oct. 9, 2010
Anaheim residents have a party to celebrate an injunction against the Jeffrey Street gang.
ANAHEIM – The gang is called Jeffrey Street, but there no longer is a street by that name.
The neighborhood the gang claims, once known as Jeffrey-Lynne, is now called Hermosa Village.
On Saturday, neighborhood residents were treated to hot dogs and hamburgers to celebrate a recent court injunction against the gang. The party at Energy Field was hosted by the Anaheim Police Department and the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
Once one of Anaheim's most blighted, high-crime neighborhoods, Jeffrey-Lynne was transformed into Hermosa Village starting about 10 years ago as the city bought and renovated many of its two-story apartment buildings.
"It's way better than before," said Ariana Gutierrez, 15, a Loara High student who has lived in the neighborhood since she was 2. "It doesn't look so ugly."
Crime began to drop when the city did the renovations, Police Sgt. Juan Reveles said. Many of the gang members have moved out, he said. However, they still gravitate toward the neighborhood because it's where they feel safe, he said. Elsewhere, they're either in "no-man's land" or in an enemy gang's territory, he said.
After the renovations, Jeffrey Street was renamed Calle del Sol. When it was removed, the Jeffrey Street sign had a couple of bullet holes in it, Reveles said.
The injunction, served on 60 of the gang's most active members in July, gives the police an additional tool to use against the gang. It forbids two or more gang members to congregate inside a 1.59-square-mile "safety zone" bounded by Katella Avenue to the south, Nutwood Street to the west, Ball Road to the north and Disneyland Drive to the east.
Also forbidden are wearing gang clothing and throwing hand signs. Gang members subject to the injunction can be arrested and prosecuted for these activities, which would otherwise be legal. In the first two months of the injunction, there were nine such violations, but none in the third month, Reveles said.
It's the second gang injunction in Anaheim and the eighth in Orange County. Others are in Santa Ana, Orange, Garden Grove, San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano.
The ban on congregating keeps members from "posting up," or hanging out in public to attract members of rival gangs who might be looking for a fight, Reveles said. "Posting up" creates danger for gang members and non-members alike.
"What the lay person doesn't understand is that these people are willing to die for the neighborhood," he said.
Rogelio Franco, 35, used to live in Jeffrey-Lynne in the mid-1990s. He moved back a year ago to what is now Hermosa Village.
"There were a lot of gangs back in those years," he said. "Now it's different. It's like a new place."
Violent crime in the neighborhood is down 33 percent since the injunction was served, said Susan Eckermann, a deputy district attorney who prepared the injunction.