An officer with the Denver Police Department will not face criminal charges after he shot and killed a gang member who was wanted for armed robbery and who held multiple people at gunpoint during a vehicle pursuit in January.
According to an agency press release, the man—identified as 25-year-old Jonathan Alexander Gonzalez-Rosales—is in the U.S. illegally and an active member of the 18th Street Gang, a transnational criminal organization.
“This is a tragic case of friendly fire,” Police Commissioner James O’Neill said during a press conference Monday afternoon. “It’s an absolute tragedy … caused by a convicted criminal.
Four people were killed in the Angeles National Forest by members of the Fulton clique wielding machetes, baseball bats and knives, the indictment alleges. Along with a slaying in the Malibu hills and another in Whitsett Fields Park in North Hollywood — the clique’s “stronghold,” prosecutors said — the six killings were committed by gang members hoping to gain entry into or advance within the clique’s ranks, according to the indictment.
Officers with the Los Angeles Police Department were joined by FBI agents in raids on Wednesday that resulted in the arrest of 38 people.
The ACLU and other groups seeking access to the database say that they want to know the demographic background of people in the system—such as race, age, local ZIP code, and nationality.
Gangs are a serious problem negatively impacting American culture. And the rise of gang activity as evidenced by the rash of shootings we've seen in major metropolitan areas like Chicago and elsewhere is increasingly threatening the very safety and security of both law enforcement officers and the communities we serve, nationwide.
"I think it is disheartening that we are at Tuesday after the weekend we had without anyone being charged," Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx told the Tribune in a phone interview. "The feeling that people can do this with impunity makes the work that much more difficult."
The "strategic deployments" will add 430 officers to five South Side and West Side police districts: Calumet, Gresham, Ogden, Harrison and Austin.
The order is believed to mark the first time a judge has blocked Los Angeles officials from enforcing the injunctions, which were born from a time in the late 1980s and '90s when gang activity in the city gained national attention. Their use has been credited by law enforcement with helping reduce gang-related crime.