Hamilton County officials soon may use a legal process to ban gang members from gathering, loitering and taking part in prohibited activities within particular neighborhoods.
Hamilton County District Attorney General Neal Pinkston said Wednesday he is considering using orders from judges to try to clamp down on gang activity. Such orders, or injunctions, would forbid named gang members from participating in prohibited activities within certain geographic areas in the city.
The district attorney's office and local law enforcement have not yet decided which activities would be prohibited or which neighborhoods might be included in any future injunctions, Pinkston said. Officials also do not have a timeline for when the first injunction could be filed.
Other Tennessee cities, including Memphis and Nashville, have used gang injunctions, which were made possible under a 2009 state law and strengthened in 2014. The law allows judges to declare criminal gangs as public nuisances and issue orders that prevent gang members from gathering in public places or from entering specific public parks or properties.
Gang members caught violating the orders would face a maximum of 30 days in jail, a $50 fine, or both.
Proponents say the process can drastically reduce crime in the "safety zone" areas named in the injunctions, while opponents say the orders - which vary widely in what they prohibit - can infringe on basic constitutional rights.
"The only reason to have an injunction is to try to prohibit otherwise lawful activity," said Thomas Castelli, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee. "You're asking [the court] to criminalize something that is legal for most people to do. I'd encourage the district attorney to keep it as narrow as possible and keep it to the non-criminal activity that is a precursor to criminal activity or that interferes with investigations or police officers' ability to control an environment."
Pinkston said he intends to focus the injunctions on actions that are related to gang activity and suggested that prohibited activities could include forceful recruiting, trespassing, witness intimidation and spraying graffiti.
"We don't want to violate anyone's constitutional rights or due process," he said. "So we're looking at those prohibited activities that are most directly related to gang activity. A normal citizen walking down the street is not going to be arrested because they're walking through a citizen safety zone."
In Memphis, which issued its first gang injunction in 2013, one order prohibited two or more gang members from walking, standing, sitting, driving, gathering or appearing in public view in the targeted neighborhood. Another clause prohibited gang members from being in the presence of an open container of alcohol.
"So you could walk to a bus stop and if someone left a half-empty beer can you could be in technical violation of that injunction," Castelli said. "They can run into the ridiculous if the courts aren't careful to use language that can't be interpreted so broadly as to affect a current gang member's ability to live an ordinary life."
Pinkston hesitated to say whether the injunctions would apply to groups of gang members who are walking down a street, and he emphasized that his office is carefully considering which activities to prohibit.
"It's not an end-all be-all to eliminate gang violence," Pinkston said. "We're looking at another tool we can use to make our city a little safer."
Chattanooga Housing Authority Police Chief Felix Vess said, in some cases, gang members sitting on a street corner could be part of gang activity and might need to be prohibited.
"They're not sitting on the street corner to say 'hi' to each other," he said. "They're representing to show force for the neighborhood. And they are intimidating the neighborhood."
Only validated gang members could be targeted by this process, Pinkston said. Gang members are validated by law enforcement, who use a variety of factors ranging from known associates to tattoos to officially determine whether someone is a gang member. There are about 1,300 validated gang members in Chattanooga.
If an injunction is issued, every gang member who is named in the injunction would be individually notified and given an opportunity to protest the decision in court.
It's up to the state to prove that the person should be part of the injunction, Castelli said.
There must also be a way for gang members to be removed from an injunction if they can prove they're no longer part of a gang, according to state law. Gang members must renounce involvement with the gang, and must not have committed any crimes, been in the company of a gang member or obtained new gang tattoos during the last two years.
Contact staff writer Shelly Bradbury at 423-757-6525 or sbradbury@timesfreepress.com with tips or story ideas. Follow @ShellyBradbury.