County dials back ‘Southlawn Safety Zone’

Officials to work with community to find other ways to fight crime

Harris County is easing up in its effort to crack down on gang activity in the Southlawn area, agreeing to settlement talks with community leaders who had challenged a proposed ban on dozens of suspected gang members.

The negotiations could lead to special programs aimed at helping targeted gang members work their way out of a lawsuit filed by the county that is aimed at keeping them out of a swath of south Houston.

A jury trial set to begin this week has been postponed, and a special work group is being formed to devise a plan that could provide job skills, training and community investments to resolve the problems there.

Three lawyers representing defendants will participate in the group, and they pushed for community representatives to be included along with elected city and county officials to provide financial resources.

“The government came to our community fistfirst,” said defense attorney Monique Sparks. “They didn’t come to the black community trying to provide programs, and now they’re making it right.”

‘Think creatively’

A lawsuit filed in September by Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan and District Attorney Devon Anderson sought to ban 92 suspected gang members from a proposed “Southlawn Safety Zone” in south Houston; the 2-mile area is bounded by Loop 610, Texas 288, Old Spanish Trail and Cullen.

Critics said the lawsuit unfairly targeted young black men and used weak criteria to label some of the defendants as gang members while keeping them out of the community where they were raised and where their mothers, children and other relatives live.

The suit — which sought the largest potential gang injunction in Harris County history — combined the state’s organized crime and public nuisance laws to request a protective order to provide relief to the crimeridden community.

A revised petition filed in late March cut the number of defendants in half, to 46, and trimmed the potential banishment territory to two smaller zones to “more closely focus on areas where most of the crimes were committed,” according to a summary of the changes released by the offices of Ryan and Anderson.

The 46 defendants dropped from the case were removed because they had no recent gang affiliation, no criminal activity in the zone for two years, could not be located to be served with the lawsuit, had personal circumstances such as mental health issues, or were expected to be incarcerated or paroled for a lengthy period, county officials said.

The revised petition would cap the banishment term at four years and create a procedure by which defendants could seek to be removed through a court motion or county administrative process.

As the Monday trial date approached, however, county officials stepped up their talks with community advocates. John Odam — general counsel for the Harris County Attorney’s Office — organized an informal mediation Friday at the NAACP Houston headquarters that included lawyers for the remaining defendants, the county and district attorney’s offices, and leaders of the civil rights organization’s local branch.

“It came about over the life of the lawsuit as we studied it more and thought about it,” Odam said. “The traditional way of proceeding with a case like this is with the injunction, and we’re trying to think, creatively, of options other than an injunction that could be agreed to.”

Challenges to zone

The work group’s first brainstorming meeting is scheduled for this week.

James Douglas, president of the NAACP Houston branch, said his organization’s role as a local affiliate of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization is to ensure the work group makes progress for all involved.

“A lot of people are just focused on the injunction, but at the end of whatever process, there are some people who live in that area who have some real, legitimate needs and the guys who are accused have real, legitimate needs,” he said. “Our overall goal is to try to find a resolution to the overall problem. The crime isn’t going to stop unless there is some hope for the young men to have a decent life.

“We are trying to make sure everyone in that area ends up with some kind of future,” he said.

Sparks said she hopes the program includes job training and community service for defendants and cultural sensitivity training for police who patrol the area. In addition to Sparks, defense attorneys Drew Willey and Brennen Dunn will also serve on the work group.

Group participant Belinda Hill, Anderson’s first assistant, said she hopes they develop “programs, interventions and prevention measures” in response to community concerns.

“Before the case proceeds to trial ... those individuals could be non-suited (eliminated) from the lawsuit,” she said, adding that the solution reached should keep community members safe while providing “redemption” for defendants “to choose a different path.”

Southlawn would be the third “safety zone” created since 2010 in Harris County. Groups of defense attorneys have challenged the proposed civil action as unconstitutional.

Gang injunctions in other areas of the country have been struck down. For example, nearly 6,000 people who were subject to gangrelated curfews settled their federal class -action lawsuit in March against the city of Los Angeles.

Officials there have agreed to spend up to $30 million on jobs programs and efforts to relieve those defendants of the legal consequences of being targeted. A California federal judge in 2015 determined that the city had violated the constitutional rights of the defendants.

Local social justice advocates have similar constitutional questions, and one former Southlawn defendant, DeAndre Fizer, raised potential violations of the U.S. Constitution in a Houston federal court filing last year.

In Harris County, Civil District Judge Alexandra Smoots-Hogan will consider motions Wednesday that could curb the case further. County officials have asked that the trial be postponed until June 13.