Last week police presented the idea of gang injunctions, which Oakland Local wrote about on Feb. 5, to the Public Safety Committee of the Oakland City Council.

Indybay posted audio from the meeting on its Web site.

Police Capt. Anthony Toribio, Oakland Area 1 Commander, spoke at the meeting and said it wasn't a "magic bullet," but that injunctions could help solve Oakland's gang problem. He acknowledged that the injunctions can be very labor intensive and that it takes a lot of time to identify gang members. He added that any injunction would target specific individuals and be based on extensive research and criminal records.

A series of community members spoke out mostly in opposition to the injunction, saying it wouldn't address the root causes of gang membership. The city needs better employment opportunities, education and safe housing, they said, not another way to criminalize youth.

Committee members asked how the injunction fit into the police chief's larger crime-fighting strategy. They also wanted to know why Oakland needs a "standalone" program when there are already other funded areas of the city that might be able to accomplish similar tasks.

Committee members said they were open to the idea of gang injunctions but that it would take a lot more information to get money flowing into the project, particularly with Oakland's budget already stretched so thin. They asked for evidence about whether injunctions really had worked in other places, and what sorts of employment and education opportunities would be available in conjunction with the enforcement effort.

Councilman Larry Reid, committee chairman, became frustrated after comments from community members and said anyone opposed to injunctions essentially doesn't want to make Oakland safer.

"This is a city that should be extremely outraged," he said, by the number of people who are killed in gang-related incidents and the violence associated with gangs. "This city should be incensed. And I hear folks say 'Do nothing.'"

If people don't want to make the city safer, he said, "We don't need to do anything. We don't even need to have a police department. We can let people just run wild, strap on guns and run around and kill each other. If that's what folks want this city to be like, so be it. Hey, all I can do is raise the issue. It's just very frustrating to me."