by violence and neglect. in the neighborhood barbecue and allow their kids to play outside more often. A man parks his motorcycle without fearing it will vanish.
And gunfire is no longer a chronic reminder of life on the margin. "Right now, everything's changed," said Rapi Tuufuli, 44, a father of five who lives in a city-owned apartment in the heart of the neighborhood. "We're in Bayview-Hunters Point, passing the rundown subsidized housing, the small church and the office where aid workers give away groceries and clothes.
curb street crime. While opponents see the injunction that Herrera obtained in November against the "Oakdale Mob" as a bad idea wrapped in politics, the city attorney views it as a model. His office is making plans to obtain similar court orders in the Mission District and the Western Addition.
The four blocks along Oakdale Avenue are now a "safety zone," in the language of the injunction. The court order restricts suspected Oakdale Mob at night, saying those rights are outweighed by the right of residents to live witnesses or recruiting new members. Violators can be arrested and sent to jail for six months if convicted.
killings in the past three years. So far, 22 men have been named as members, and police have located and served most with the court order. The men grew up in the neighborhood, but almost all live outside the city now.
Police say most of those served are staying away, and that if others step into the power vacuum, their names will be added to the list of people who can be added to the injunction. The strategy is extreme, but more than a dozen residents said in interviews that it appears to be working -- at least for now. Not everyone has embraced it.
Some like the quiet but say a loss of civil rights is too steep a price. Others predict the effort will fade because it doesn't address deep-rooted problems such as drug addiction and unemployment. police reject.
Shanteak Harris, 25, also said police have been overzealous in enforcing the injunction. "Want to see how quick I'll be stopped if I walk down the street?" Harris asked recently after meeting with activists in a neighborhood church.
Machaela Hoctor, the deputy city attorney overseeing the case, said Harris is free to conduct "legitimate business." "The injunction is doing what we hoped it would do," Hoctor said. "It takes away the turf, which is the heart of a street gang.
It is the equivalent of taking away a business' storefront." Oakdale needs help. Everyone agrees on that.
Built in 1953, the safety zone is one of the city's most decrepit projects. Walls and rugs are stained, and grass grows in patches. One resident can peek out his door through a bullet hole.
There's a basketball court but no playground. Although San Francisco has a waiting list for public housing, Oakdale and the nearby Griffith development, which is in equally bad shape, have 30 vacancies among 213 units, said Gregg Fortner, who heads the city's Housing Authority. Vacant units are boarded up, an ugly alternative to leaving them open to squatters.
Also inside these four blocks are privately owned, federally subsidized apartments called All Hallows Gardens and Grace Tabernacle Community Church, battleship around in Lake Merced." Residents, he said, have been hurt by broken promises of better housing and job creation. "This neighborhood has been neglected for so long," he said.
"Hopelessness is entrenched." they could make a difference there. Most of the crime occurred on a single block, and a pattern of gang activity had already been documented.
Police say they have not had to step up patrols to enforce the court order. Because many gang members didn't live in the neighborhood, it followed Officer Len Broberg, who works to enforce the injunction. Opponents suspect another motive, pointing to a fence at the east end of Oakdale Avenue.
On the other side of the fence, contractor Lennar Corp. is redeveloping the old Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and plans to build 1,600 homes. Opponents say the city wants gentrification, not real help for the poor.
Herrera calls the argument false. Cleaning up a neighborhood and helping the people who live there, he said, are "not mutually exclusive." Superior Court Judge Peter Busch approved the injunction Nov.
29. Three months later, residents say they have seen changes. But as they stood at their doors, pushed strollers or walked dogs, many still declined to give their names out of fear they would be labeled snitches.
because he is less afraid of wayward bullets. A man in his 20s said he can ride his bike to the store without fear. A man in his 40s said he no longer has to store his motorcycle at his sister's house.
"The injunction is the best thing that happened to us," the older man hand out a couple dozen bags of groceries each day. In the past, young people would hang out in a courtyard near the door. "It used to get hectic around here," Moore said.
"Either they'd start something, or people from somewhere else would come here to get them." three months, though officers recovered one gun from a juvenile on Oakdale Avenue. The department has not yet compared crime statistics from before and after the injunction, Broberg said.
One man has been charged with violating the court order, a misdemeanor. DeShawn Range, 26, was with a second suspected gang member in the safety zone, Broberg said. Officers are looking for the second man.
There has been at least one misstep. A reporter visiting Oakdale ran injunction list but was served with legal papers anyway. conviction for possessing stolen goods.
"We have to be careful with this," Broberg said, "because we are under a lot of scrutiny." Much of the scrutiny comes from Damone Hale, a community activist and represents Shanteak Harris. He said that the area had calmed down before the judge issued the injunction, and that police are patrolling more in order to neighborhood.
In a recent interview in the church, Harris handed over a business card with a new title: "Community Change Agent." He said there is no "There is no initiation process, no common interest, nothing that makes cocaine and carrying a gun and remains a suspect in three killings. That he helped broker a gang truce, they said, only shows that he is a gang leader.
Hoctor, the deputy city attorney, said she hopes the injunction will help Harris and others make a fresh start. The issue is difficult for Pastor Jackson, who appreciates a quieter the fate of its young men. Harris, Jackson said, has led talks at the church about improving the neighborhood.
Jackson has told the young man he could have These four blocks have rules that go beyond a court order. Young men need jobs so they don't have to seek a living on the street, Jackson said. Some need "The acid test will be the summer," the pastor said.
"The kids are out of school. Those that graduate, if they don't get a job, where will they be?" prevents 22 men from engaging in certain activities in a "safety zone," -- Loitering in a public place between midnight and 5:30 a.
m. -- Intimidating witnesses to gang crimes. -- Marking graffiti or possessing graffiti tools.
-- Loitering with the intent to sell drugs. -- Forcing anyone to join the gang or preventing anyone from leaving it.
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