Menace to Society: Why Many Young Black Men are Accused of Being in Gangs

Like the city's other documented black gangs, Oakdale Mob has no initiation process, no hierarchy, no cohesive plans, no prison ties. Community members, as well as Adachi, assert that these groups should not be legally classified as gangs.

"They're not gangs at all," says Rudy Corpuz, a former gang member with the long-defunct Down Town Boys gang who now runs the local youth center United Playaz. "Gangs are when you get jumped in, you're organized, you're structured." Instead, Corpuz argues, for these kids the "gang" is just the neighborhood. Most black gangs in the city are exclusively associated with a block — Eddy Rock, Kirkwood, 25th Street — or a housing project — Towerside, Down Below Gangstas, Knock Out Posse.

Courtesy of SF Police Department

Jacori Bender was 17 years old when police first affiliated him with Oakdale Mob. He was in state prison by the time he turned 20.

“If you’re charged with a gang-related offense,” says Public Defender Jeff Adachi, “you’re gonna get more time, you’re gonna be treated differently, and most importantly you’re gonna be subject to this second-class justice.”

Related Content

• Nicholas Hudson Arrested in Muni Bus Torching Incident
  November 7, 2012
• Antione Murray Identified as Man Killed in Sunnydale; Homicide No. 64 (Update)
  December 10, 2012
• Jacori Bender's Gang Validation Sheet
  August 9, 2012
• Elderly Man Beaten After Fender Bender (Update)
  April 30, 2013
• Cops Catch 12-Year-Old Kid Who Escaped From Juvenile Hall
  April 18, 2013

More About

• Jacori Bender
• Leonard Broberg
• Oakdale
• Trials
• New York Crime

"It's about reppin' where you're from," says a 21-year-old on one of the Visitacion Valley injunction lists. "We ain't got much to be proud of. Our schools suck, some people's mom's on drugs. All we got is our block, our building or whatever. It ain't the nicest in the world, but might as well be proud of it."

There is certainly much violence in the neighborhoods the police have classified as "gang territory." There are kids with guns in their waistbands and anger in their hearts. Some turn to stick-ups and slangin'. Some get caught up in personal beefs that escalate, with friends getting friends' backs, from fistfights to shootouts to retaliations. "But it ain't got shit to do with colors or sets," says the Visitacion Valley gang member.

The media help perpetuate the connection of this violence to gang activity. SFPD Chief Greg Suhr recently explained that a string of homicides in Visitacion Valley this summer was not caused by rival gangs: "They were all friends not long ago — now they have turned on each other," Suhr told the press. Even Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius mused, "It isn't really even gang violence." Police did tell reporters that the people involved were either documented gang members or on the injunction list, which was enough to set the headlines. "Gang Dispute Fueling Violence in the City," proclaimed the San Francisco Examiner. "It's gang warfare, and the enemies were once allies," read the Chronicle's front page.

Because the groups are geographically based and because there is no structure or initiation process, membership is vague, subjective, and in flux. Broberg testified that the difference between a gang member and a kid in the neighborhood is that a gang member consistently participates in the group's criminal activities — itself a subjective definition, given that he considered Bender, who had never been charged with drug dealing, robbery, or assault, a gang member.

The City Attorney's office maintains that the city's methods for identifying gang members are based precisely on the language of the STEP Act. "If activists and lawyers object to the classifications, they should go to the legislature," says City Attorney spokesman Matt Dorsey.

In a sense, whether Oakdale Mob is a "gang" comes down to semantics: Is the group's "primary activity" committing crimes? But the distinction is important, considering semantics determine the testimony allowed into a criminal trial and the length of a prison sentence, establishing an official label that follows a defendant out of jail and back into the community.

"Once you say they're a gang member, it's over for them," says Floyd Andrews, a defense attorney who used to work in the DA's office. "They're never gonna get a shot at a real life. You've created a gangsta."

Broberg thinks the reverse is true. The debate over gang enhancements, he says, misses the point.

"I find it ironic that people fight for a 14-year-old kid's right to be hanging around the street corners," he says. "They always want to find excuses for the bad behavior. And then if he gets shot and killed, everybody starts wringing their arms."

He doesn't think Bender is necessarily a bad kid. But, he is quick to add, any teenager who idles around guns is headed for a tragic ending. A felony conviction, a gang validation, and a prison stay, he reasons, might be the last chance to knock a kid into a more positive lifestyle, by forcing him off the streets and away from his old friends.

"I'm never happy when anyone goes to prison," he says. "Because everybody loses. But at what point do you have to stop making excuses for him and say, 'Jacori, what are you doing?'"

The informal, block-based nature of groups like Oakdale Mob makes it difficult for someone like Bender to prove he is definitively not a gang member. Even though the city has a removal process for gang injunctions, nobody has ever been taken off the list. The courts have ruled Oakdale Mob a gang, and when it comes to enhancement charges, the standard seems to be: gang member until proven otherwise.

City law enforcement's decision that Jacori Bender was a gang member colored the way police and prosecutors viewed his actions and associations. This mindset was most apparent during three stretches of gang expert testimony, when Broberg used evidence that appeared to suggest Bender is not a gang member to reach the opposite conclusion.