'We're going to give them the indication we're harassing them'

Jorge Cornell, the North Carolina leader of the Latin Kings had appeared at a weekly Wednesday round-table discussion at the Beloved Community Center and expressed a desire to work towards peace among gangs and to build unity between Latino and African- American youth. That was about a year ago, in late June.

The next day, Cornell called the Rev. Nelson Johnson and asked for spiritual counseling. They met at midnight and prayed together. The cause of Cornell’s distress was that Officer AJ Blake with the gang unit had been going around to acquaintances’ homes and to job sites saying that he was looking for the gang leader to serve a warrant. Cornell was especially concerned about a member of the gang unit visiting his workplace and jeopardizing his employment.

After conferring for about 45 minutes, Johnson took Cornell to the magistrate’s office so the gang leader could turn himself in and avoid the prospect of being taken into custody in the presence of his two young daughters. When they got to the magistrate’s office Johnson and Cornell were surprised to learn there was no record of a warrant. In fact, there was a warrant for Cornell’s arrest — for accessory to driving without a license, and Cornell would later hear about it from a reporter who learned of it from Capt. John Wolfe, the commander of the gang unit. The warrant was in Blake’s possession.

Allegations of racism, harassment and abuse dog GPD gang unit Latin King Samuel Velasquez (with bullhorn) alleges he was falsely charged by a member of the Greensboro Police Department gang unit. (photo by Jordan Green)

“I cannot tell you why that warrant was not in the computer database when he attempted to have it served, but I can tell you that it was issued on June 16, days before the press conference,” Wolfe wrote in a July 23 memo to Chief Tim Bellamy. The police captain suggested that, if anyone, it was Cornell who was acting in bad faith. “Mr. Cornell knows how to contact the gang unit members who were member named Anthony Vasquez ran away from the scene and was injured when he fell in a creek and knocked his head. Sylvia Lugo, a female member who has since left the Latin Kings, reportedly took Vasquez to Moses Cone hospital. Soon after, the police investigated a shooting that appeared to be motivated by revenge for what happened to Vasquez.

Blake said that Matt Allred, a detective on the gang task force, suggested charging Vasquez with attempted murder with the understanding that the charge would be dismissed, but also knowing that Vasquez could be threatened with deportation because of his residency status. The police allegedly believed that would give them leverage to compel Vasquez to give up the location of the real shooter and Sylvia Lugo. Blake said he went to Eric Sigmon, with whom Blake served on Squad B, and told him: “that we can’t do this.” The police did not follow through on the suggestion to charge Vasquez.

Allred could not be reached for comment about the allegation. Blake has said that Lugo’s parents were not willing to cooperate with investigators, and his sergeant, Ronald Sizemore, ordered what could be considered a retaliatory arrest. Blake said officers staked out the house and waited for Lugo’s mother to leave for her job at Chick-fil-A at the Four Seasons Mall. Knowing that the woman did not possess an operator’s license, Blake said, one of the officers pulled her over, forcing her to pay towing fees and miss work. “Without knowing all the facts surrounding that incident,” Assistant Chief Holder said, “there is no way to determine whether officers acted properly or improperly. We don’t have all the facts.”

Documented allegations in the various formal complaints filed by the Latin Kings include four incidents of warrantless searches, three incidents that might be considered arrest without probable cause or false charges, two stops without apparent reasonable suspicion and one incident of excessive force.

So many allegations have been made against the gang unit that the complaint review committee asked the police department’s professional standards division to investigate both whether a Latin King member’s rights were violated by an arrest and whether “there is a pattern and practice of behavior by GPD officers” related to the group.

Greensboro police officers in several unmarked vehicles were ostensibly investigating a robbery in the Spring Valley neighborhood in late April when they parked along Kirkman Street where the Latin Kings live. Wesley Williams, a 16-year-old member whose mother left him under Cornell’s supervision when she recently moved to New Jersey, walked to the edge of the property, according to the complaint, and an unidentified officer grabbed him, threw him against an unmarked car and searched him. Officers confiscated a box cutter and then held him on the porch while a fellow Latin King searched William’s pants inside for identification.

Williams contends that he had been using the box cutter in a painting project inside the house. The boy faces charges for two violations: carrying a concealed weapon and resisting an officer.

An order signed by a Guilford County magistrate states that Williams “has been arrested without a warrant and the defendant s detention is justified because there is probable cause to believe that he... did resist, delay and obstruct Sgt. TS Kroh and Officer MA Graham... by refusing to obey verbal commands during a robbery investigation by refusing to remove his hands from his pockets and attempting to walk away.” A second magistrate’s order alleging that Williams unlawfully and willfully carried a concealed deadly weapon — the box cutter — while off the defendant’s premises” is contradicted by the Latin Kings’ complaint, which contends that Williams was on his own property when the search began.

Williams’ trial is scheduled for June 30. In a video made by members of the Latin Kings, Cornell can be heard complaining, “They don’t have no warrant.” Plain-clothed and uniformed officers appear relaxed and amused at the Latin Kings’ distress.

The complaint alleges that the incident is evidence of continued targeting of the Latin Kings by the gang unit in response to their well-publicized protests against alleged police abuses.

Assistant Chief Holder said it’s the Latin Kings’ behavior that draws the gang unit’s attention, not their identity or their public statements.

“So much of the work of the gang unit is tied to behavior,” Holder said. “Our department’s policy is to not profile or be biased against any group or individual based on race, gender or ethnicity. It’s important to understand that officers act based on behavior.”

AJ Blake, the suspended officer formerly assigned to the gang unit, contradicted the assistant chief in a recent interview.

“Part of the reason my sergeant wants to focus on Latinos is he assumes he has the ability to deport them all,” Blake said. Holder responded, “We don’t have a goal of deporting people from Greensboro. Our goal is to enforce the criminal laws that are in place to keep Greensboro safe.” Blake alleges that his sergeant, Ronald Sizemore, would frequently discuss the option of calling in US Immigration & Customs Enforcement to deal with the Latin Kings.

Blake thought the notion was ludicrous and revealed a lack of sophistication on Sizemore’s part. “Jorge’s from Puerto Rico,” he said. “Where are you going to deport him to? New York?” Blake said he brought it to Sizemore’s attention that they needed to investigate

two sets of Bloods that were shooting at each other to prevent loss of life, and his sergeant indicated he would rather focus on MS-13, a Salvadoran-based gang whose presence hasn’t been felt in Greensboro since December 2007. “I complained to Eric Sigmon,” Blake said. “I asked, ‘Why is it that the only group Sizemore wants to investigate is Latinos?’ His response was that Sizemore’s perception of a gang member is a Latino.”

Holder declined to comment on any alleged views that Sizemore may hold of Latinos, but defended the department’s track record for racial sensitivity and inclusion.

“I believe our officers behave professionally because they’re trained to do so,” she said. “We reinforce that training every year. And we have some awesome men and women who work here. There’s a foundation that’s laid in recruit school, and the moment a recruit’s rear hits the chair we instill it. There is no room for bias based on race, gender or any other protected class.

Greensboro police officers detained Latin King Wesley Williams on his porch in April, charging him with carrying a concealed weapon and resisting an officer. Williams alleges he was on his own property when police initiated the search. (courtesy image)

No because it’s illegal but because it’s wrong.” Blake said word came down from Capt. John Wolfe, who has command responsibility for the gang unit that the two squads were not to investigate white organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations and Hell’s Angels, despite the fact that they are classified as gangs by the FBI just as black and Latino gangs such as the Piru Bloods, the Crips, the Latin Kings, Surenos and MS-13 are. Holder said that’s because another division has responsibility for monitoring white organizations.

Why then, Blake asks, was he the only person of color assigned to his gang squad? “It leads to the perception that the police department is racist,” Blake said. “I said, ‘Why are there not more people of color on the gang unit?’ The response that they gave me is that Greensboro is a majority white city. But the problem is that the majority of the people we’re investigating are not white. Let me put it this way: If there’s a 16-year-old who’s on the verge of joining the Aryan Nations, there’s nothing I can say to talk him out of it. With Central American males that are dealing with things like deportation, there’s not much a white officer can say that will resonate.”

Holder took pains to emphasize that the department wants more Latinos on the force.

“We are recruiting, and we would love to add Latinos and Latinas to our workforce, particularly as law enforcement officers,” she said. “We are recruiting and hiring now.” If indeed the Latin Kings are committing crimes, Blake indicated, the gang unit’s heavy-handed tactics are exactly the wrong approach. If the group is not engaged in criminal activity, the unit’s behavior looks like harassment.

“If the goal is to gather evidence so we can send them away to prison, it doesn’t make sense to have them looking over their shoulders all the time because we’re arresting them for things like throwing a cigarette on the ground,” he said. “If you look at Chapter 20, the statute book for traffic violations, you could almost charge them with anything. I said, ‘We’re going to give them the indication we’re harassing them.’ Nobody’s perfect, everybody messes up if you watch them long enough, and nobody’s that unlucky that they get arrested practically every day.”