State Witness Relocation Program Shelters Citizens Who Testify Against Violent Gang Members

Gang-related crimes increased from 73 percent of all crimes reported by CAL WRAP in 1999-2000 to 81.1 percent in 2009-2010.

Image courtesy: zazzle.com

(SACRAMENTO) - On the eve of her trip to a crime-plagued border region of California, Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today released the 2009-2010 annual report for CAL WRAP, a program that provides millions of dollars for the relocation of witnesses in cases that send gang members to prison for committing violent crimes including murder, rape, and kidnapping.

The California Witness Relocation and Assistance Program, or CAL WRAP, demonstrates a close collaboration between the Attorney General's Bureau of Investigation and Intelligence, which runs the program, and local District Attorneys, who prosecute the cases and relocate witnesses. Thirty-three District Attorneys around the state participated last year.

In the last fiscal year ending in July, the program provided $4,636,300 in reimbursements to local District Attorneys for 870 witness relocation cases. That included 375 new cases, of which 304 (or 81 percent) were gang related. The new cases involved 418 witnesses and 689 family members.

The witnesses testified in trials including a homicide case in Kern County in which a gang member shot into a vehicle, a Los Angeles homicide in which the victim was stabbed multiple times and then run over by a car, and a San Francisco homicide in which the victim was a 17-year-old high school student who had been accepted at a major university.

Altogether, the witnesses testified against 670 defendants accused of violent crimes in 2009-2010, and 251 cases were closed with reportable convictions.

The report breaks down the crimes by category: homicide and attempted homicide 73.9 percent, assault 9.6 percent; robbery 4.5 percent; threats 4.5 percent, home invasion 2.1 percent, kidnapping 1.6 percent, carjacking 1.3 percent, narcotics 1.2 percent, rape 0.8 percent, and criminal conspiracy 0.5 percent.

Gang-related crimes increased from 73 percent of all crimes reported by CAL WRAP in 1999-2000 to 81.1 percent in 2009-2010.

Among the successful prosecutions listed in the new report:

• A homicide in Imperial County in which defendants in a gang-related shooting killed one person and wounded another. After other witnesses were assaulted and intimidated by members of the defendants' gang, police requested relocation for the surviving victim of the attack, who had agreed to testify.
• Acting in retaliation, a gang member in Los Angeles County shot two people within 10 minutes, wounding both. Police requested relocation for the witness, a door-to-door salesman.
• A rival gang member was shot to death in front of his 10-year son on the street in Monterey County. The son helped police identify the shooter and became the target of gang retaliation, so he and his family were relocated.
• A gang member in Riverside County kidnapped a man, held him at gunpoint, assaulted him and threatened the man that if his mother testified in an upcoming case, he would kill him, his mother and his girlfriend. Nonetheless the man cooperated with law enforcement, and was relocated.
• After the victim of a gang-related carjacking in Tulare County reported the crime to police, he was threatened, so he moved out of the area, only to be discovered and threatened anew. Authorities relocated him and his family again.

Attorney General Harris is traveling to the border region of Imperial County tomorrow, along with other state law enforcement officials, to highlight the growing crime problems perpetrated in California by transnational gangs.
Source: News release from the California Attorney General's Office