Judge limits gang activity at St. Paul's Rondo Days

A Ramsey County district judge granted a request by the city of St. Paul to limit the activities of two street gangs during the Rondo Days community celebration this weekend.

District Judge Michael Monahan signed orders that would keep nine alleged members of the Selby Siders and nine alleged members of the East Side Boys from associating with one another in a specific area during the daylong festival.

The injunction, essentially a restraining order, will be in effect from 9 a.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Sunday.

The alleged gang members named in the suit will not be allowed to associate in the safety zone with other gang members. They also may not intimidate people, use gang signs, wear gang clothing or recruit others.

Monahan signed the order against the East Side Boys during a brief afternoon hearing. At least three of the men were in court but none spoke.

It's the second time an injunction has been approved at a community event in Minnesota. The first was granted for the St. Paul Cinco de Mayo celebration against the Sureño 13 gang.

Cmdr. Tina McNamara, head of the gang and gun unit, said that injunction proved successful.

Injunctions of varying strictness have been in place in other cities around the United States for years.

Critics say the injunctions violate constitutional rights. The Minnesota ACLU has expressed concern that civil law is being used for criminal law purposes. Event organizers had been reluctant to go along with the injunction idea, but they said the city strongly suggested pursuing it.

Nick Khaliq, who's in charge of security at Rondo Days, declined to comment Wednesday on the injunctions. "We've had a good partnership with the police," he said. "We don't anticipate any problems."

The injunctions issued Wednesday do not prohibit the 18 named persons from attending the festival, but they prohibit the alleged members of each gang from associating with one another.

Officers from the gang unit will be well-versed in the orders and will watch gang members named in the lawsuit closely, McNamara said. The injunctions apply only to those named in the suits. A violation of the order is a misdemeanor, she and City Attorney John Choi said.

And in recent years, the East Side Boys have "used Rondo as a prime opportunity to both showcase and further its continuous and regular engagement of criminal gang activities," the documents said.

The Selby Siders gang has about 180 members and is a subgroup of the national Crips gang, according to the document. The East Side Boys has about 100 members and began as a subset of the Gangster Disciples, the documents said.

To convince the judge that the East Side Boys and Selby Siders are criminal gangs, the city submitted dozens of affidavits by police. The city needed to show three instances of felony crimes committed by the gang within a 12-month period, according to the state law.