Sentence Is the First on Gang Injunction

A 20-year-old Oxnard man has become the first member of the Colonia Chiques gang to be sentenced under a controversial court order, Ventura County authorities said Friday.

Raymond Guillen Morales was sentenced to 20 days in jail after pleading no contest Thursday to violating the order by trespassing and possessing a knife and an open container of alcohol within Oxnard’s 6.6-square-mile “safety zone.”

The injunction bars Chiques members from a range of activities, including associating with each other and wearing gang attire, in neighborhoods that police say are terrorized by gang violence.

Police have served 40 Chiques members with papers notifying them of the injunction, said Karen Wold, a Ventura County deputy district attorney. Since the injunction was issued June 1, seven have been arrested on various charges.

Morales was a passenger in a stolen vehicle that was involved in a collision during a police chase July 17, authorities said. He was found hiding in a nearby house after running from the scene, Wold said.

As part of his three-year probation, he will be barred from associating with gang members even outside the safety zone, which covers most of the populated area of the city.

At the urging of the district attorney’s office and Oxnard police, Superior Court Judge Frederick H. Bysshe granted the preliminary injunction. He will hold a hearing Aug. 10 on whether it has been applied fairly and effectively.