Legal Challenges Filed Against “Injunctions and Safety Zones” to Control Gang Activity

On Wednesday we told you about “gang injunctions”–a new tactic to target troublemakers and create “safety zones” in some neighborhoods.
It’s a system already being used by numerous large cities, who are meeting, and generally defeating legal challenges.

The Hamilton county “gang injunction” program is patterned on one used in Memphis and other cities.
In this story filled back in March by our sister station, WREG, the question focused on this young man, and asked whether the program infringed on his rights. It’s a fair question because the court-sanctioned actions that can put someone in jail must follow a narrow path.

ROBIN FLORES, CHATTANOOGA DEFENSE ATTORNEY “I sympathize with prosecutors, I sympathize with law enforcement trying to put a cap on it, but the greater threat in individual liberty is the overreach of government .”

NEAL PINKSTON, HAMILTON CO. DISTRICT ATTORNEY GENERAL “We want to make sure if we take this next step and we are successful, that we’re not, you know, infringing on anybody, violating anybody, making sure that those that are responsible for violence from a gang standpoint are the ones that are enjoined from illegal activity.”

In the Memphis case, an advocacy group and the Shelby county District attorney to it before a judge.
Some called the injunction “unconstitutionally over-broad and void for vagueness.”
.
AMY WEIRICH, SHELBY COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY “These challenges have been mounted in other states that have gang injunction legislation like we do. They’ve not been successful in those jurisdictions, so we’ll have our day in court on that issue.”

And, prosecutors won.

When the Chattanooga program is up and running, it will target areas like East Lake Courts and College Hill Courts where there have been dozens of shootings—many fatal. But there will be restraints.

NEAL PINKSTON, HAM. CO. DISTRICT ATTORNEY “The injunction would apply to a gang, and its members….the injunction would apply to them, but it would also apply to a certain specific geographic location.”

No start date for the local program has been announced.
The injunctions are aimed at stopping gang members from congregating, recruiting or even flashing gang signs in the “safety zones.”