Two people were injured in a gang-related carjacking Saturday
night, said police, who located their minivan four hours later.
Gilroy – Two people were injured in a gang-related carjacking Saturday night, said police, who located their minivan four hours later.
Police were alerted to a fight just after 10pm Saturday at the intersection of Murray Drive and Chestnut Street, west of San Ysidro Park. When they arrived, they found a 47-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy, both of whom were stabbed during the carjacking by “a small group” of suspects, said Gilroy Police Sgt. Jim Gillio. Both victims were rushed by ambulance to a local trauma center. Sgt. Gillio declined to describe their injuries in detail, saying only that the cuts weren’t life-threatening and that both victims had been released from the hospital with “minor injuries.”
The older man’s minivan, a blue 1992 Toyota Previa, was found abandoned at the intersection of Forest Street and Murray Avenue, less than half a mile away from the crime scene, at 2:13am Sunday.
“Transportation is one possible motive,” said Sgt. Gillio. “Intimidation is another. Stealing cars gives them the notoriety” that gangs crave, he said.
Police said the suspects made gang-related statements during the carjacking, which is now under investigation by the department’s Anti-Crime Team. Sgt. Gillio could reveal little else about the crime, he said, and declined to answer questions about how many suspects were involved, whether a weapon was recovered, whether the victims were from Gilroy, and whether any forensic evidence had been found. The suspects’ gang affiliations are still under investigation, he said.
The stolen minivan wasn’t damaged during the carjacking, said Sgt. Gillio, and has been impounded as evidence.
Neighbors contacted by the Dispatch Monday said they knew nothing of the Saturday night carjacking, though few were surprised.
“That’s all that happens in this section,” said one neighbor, who declined to give her name, fearful of gangs. “Gangs are all over here.”
The incident follows a recent spurt of gang violence in Gilroy. Last week, two teens were arrested in connection with a gang-related shooting that peppered a northwest Gilroy home with bullets; a third suspect remains at large. Earlier in the summer, a similar drive-by shooting occurred on Hadley Court. The problem isn’t easily quantified: Gang crimes aren’t measured specifically in quarterly crime reports gathered for City Council by crime analyst Phyllis Ward.
But locals say the gang problem, while nowhere near its 1990s heights, has loomed larger this year. From behind the cash register at Franco’s Imports on Old Gilroy Street, cashier Nick Franco says he’s noticed an uptick in gang skimishes outside his family’s shop. Gang-related graffiti also exploded this spring, according to members of the Neighborhood Resource Unit, though no specific data on the issue was available.
City Council member Dion Bracco, a former member of the Gilroy Gang Task Force, called gangs “a growing problem,” and cautioned against laying the problem at the feet of police. Typically, “it’s a few individuals that cause these problems,” he said. Community leaders need to vocally, actively oppose gang crime, he said, and witnesses need to step up to report it.
“You can’t blame it on the police department all the time,” he said. “Gang crime is growing” – though not out of control, he added – “and we’re always going to be playing catch-up … The leadership of our community has to stress to citizens that they’re a stakeholder [in gang crime], and they need to come to the table too.”
Nor is the problem limited to Gilroy: In San Jose, opposing gangs have amplified their calls to attack their enemies, prodded by prison gangs, said a law enforcement source who asked to remain anonymous.
Thankfully, the flare-up in violence hasn’t shown up at South Valley Middle School, said principal John Perales, a member of the Gilroy Gang Task Force. Over the past week, school staff have been scrutinizing belt buckles and eyeing color-coded cliques, hoping to nip gangs in the bud.
“But as members of the task force, we have to look at: Why is it spiking? And what can we do?” said Perales. “The schools, the churches, the police – we tend to work in isolation. Our forces never tend to join. There’s some work left to be done, for sure.”
Anyone with information on the incident may call Investigator Michael Bolton at 846-0517, or leave an anonymous tip at 846-0330.
