Tom Hayden

The war on gangs, now globalized, runs roughshod over the ordinary checks on the criminal justice system. Federal judge Manuel Real last week accepted a Los Angeles police officer, Frank Flores, as an expert witness on gangs in the trial of Alex Sanchez and twenty-three others on conspiracy charges, a decision that eventually may expose the underground labyrinth of the global war on gangs.

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LOS ANGELES. Jan. 13. U.S. Judge Manuel Real granted Alex Sanchez bail after a closed ninety-minute session with law enforcement and civic officials today. The former gang member and founder of Homies Unidos is expected to be freed in ten days after posting $2 million property and sureties.

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In an unexpected turn, federal Judge Manuel Real today ordered prosecutor and defense attorneys in the Alex Sanchez case to bring in top LA city and police officials to advise the court about the gang peacemaker’s public activity over the past decade in a special hearing on January 13. Real repeatedly questioned the prosecution’s evidence for the first time in the proceeding’s six-month history. Lawyers and advocates scrambled to make sense of the judge’s order, which must be met in six days. Professor Beatriz Cortez, coordinator of the nation’s first Central American Studies program at Cal State Northridge, was among the skeptics. “How will this hearing be conducted, will it be secret, will the community be left out?”, she asked. Others claimed the judge was going through the motions in response to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recent admonishing. The Sanchez family and official defense team expressed guarded optimism about the development.

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Now that Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton has announced that he is leaving his job in October, the popular law enforcer has become practically untouchable. But for the future of policing in Los Angeles, an independent inquiry is needed into whether his departure involved a conflict of interest that has compromised the latest chapter of police reform.

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