A federal judge on Thursday temporarily barred Los Angeles police and prosecutors from enforcing a gang injunction against an Echo Park man, saying she believed he would likely prove his rights were violated when he was swept up in the order.
The 29-page order stems from a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups last year. The suit accuses police of violating Peter Arellano’s due process rights — and those of thousands of other people — by serving them with gang injunctions without allowing them to first contest the orders in court.
Arellano, who denies being in a gang, “is likely to establish that the city did not provide him with due process in enforcing the injunction against him,” Chief U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips wrote. “Continued enforcement of the injunction is likely to result in irreparable injury.”
The case is still winding its way through court. But Peter Bibring, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, said he believed the judge’s decision was a promising signal of how it could ultimately be resolved.
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