Three recent brazen ambushes of law enforcement officers have San Bernardino County’s top two lawmen believing police and sheriff’s deputies are in the cross-hairs of gang members.
Sitting in a Redlands coffee shop last week, District Attorney Michael A. Ramos and Sheriff John McMahon discussed that violence, which has left San Bernardino area peace officers on edge over the last two weeks.
“When organized gangs fire against a peace officer in a marked patrol car that says sheriff or San Bernardino police, to me it’s a sign of a war,” Ramos said.
Ramos was talking about the recent ambush attacks on police and sheriff’s deputies in marked patrol cars.
On July 26 at 9:10 p.m. officers stopped a driver near Fame Liquor in San Bernardino. Two of the four occupants of the vehicle got out and began firing at police, wounding one officer in the leg.
Officers returned fire, wounding two of the four occupants, one of them a 14-year-old, authorities said.
The shooting was one of three in the last couple of weeks in which a law enforcement officer was fired upon in San Bernardino.
“We will prosecute these criminals and any other criminal who thinks it’s OK to attack an officer to the fullest extent of the law,” Ramos said.
Ramos was concerned that police will shoulder the consequences of a bolder kind of criminal, one who is aware of law enforcement’s resource issues, such as limited jail capacity, and pressures brought on by the state’s prison realignment program.
Prison realignment, implemented on Oct. 1, 2011, aims to reduce the state’s prison population after a federal three-judge panel found that overcrowded conditions in California’s prisons kept inmates from receiving adequate health care. Under Assembly Bill 109, lower-level offenders, those convicted of non-serious, non-violent, non-sexual offenses, are monitored and housed by county institutions.
“We’ve got felons that used to go to state prison and we don’t have room in the jails and they know it,” Ramos said.
That translates to violence toward police, he said.
“We’re seeing a much more brazen criminal on the streets, and we’re lucky they’ve only wounded officers rather than the worse scenario,” he said. “We’re going to see an increase of assaults against peace officers.”
Some leaders in law enforcement, though, don’t believe war has been declared on police.
“There is no evidence I’ve seen that war has been waged against police,” San Bernardino Police Chief Rob Handy said in a separate interview. “Sometimes these things just happen in clusters, and this is the time for that.”
Handy said the ambush shooting that wounded one of his officers may have been a crime of opportunity.
“There is evidence that may show the four men may have just left the scene of a drive-by shooting where a man was wounded,” he said. “And minutes later, patrol officers pulled them over for a registration infraction.”
Still, officers are in a heightened state of alert on and off duty, and are prepared for any given situation at all times, he said.
“This just reminds us of the dangers of our jobs.” Handy said.
McMahon said the numbers of inmate-on-deputy and inmate-on-inmate attacks in San Bernardino County jails have increased more than 120 percent, and that California’s prison realignment plan is directly responsible for the increase.
“We’re not housing low-level criminals anymore,” he said. “We have to have room for those who historically would have been sent to state prison — the hard-core gang members, the violent criminal minds and those who would normally live in the state prison environment, which is much different than that of a county jail.”
Inmates in the jails are now a smarter, more violent type of inmate thanks to AB 109 and prison realignment, McMahon added.
“Gang shot-callers are here instead of prison,” McMahon said. “They’re running their gangs inside and outside the walls from their cell.”
“Who’s going to control our county, gang members or law-abiding citizens?” Ramos asked.
Some San Bernardino residents feel they have no way out of the dangerous areas they live in because of financial restraints.
“Where do I go?” asked resident Mary Martin. “I’m 65 and don’t make enough to leave the hood and move to a nicer area free from the violence. If they’re willing to kill cops, what or who’s going to stop them from hurting me or anyone else?”
There’s no easy answer to Martin’s situation, but law enforcement has been stepping up sweeps in some areas in the county.
In San Bernardino, police and deputy gang teams swarmed the streets Friday night in an effort to reduce gang activity.
More than 60 people were taken into custody during the 10-hour operation. Several weapons and an undetermined amount of drugs were seized, police said.
McMahon said the use of special programs the Sheriff’s Department sponsors within communities and inside the jails are positive tools used to rehabilitate inmates, giving them a purpose to survive life after incarceration without re-offending.
“The county inmate fire camp program gives a rewarding and meaningful purpose to inmates’ self-esteem,” he said. “They learn a skill that can get them a successful career fighting fires and saving lives.”
The Police Athletic League is a tool law enforcement uses to reach out to children to help keep them away from gangs or put them on the path to the straight-and-narrow.
“We just hosted a big, free boxing tournament that brought in kids from everywhere and they paired up with a deputy who mentors them,” McMahon said. “Some of these kids were headed down the wrong path and now they’re back in line, doing better in school and staying out of trouble.”
Even with the many programs sponsored by county and city governments, there isn’t just one answer to the problem of violence perpetrated against those who have sworn to uphold the law and protect residents, authorities say.
“We need to band together and stand up for what’s right,” Martin said. “Enough is enough. Grow up, get a job and stop terrorizing those of us that are working hard and living life righteously.”
