Gang-loitering bill is revived

The Utah Sentencing Commission on Wednesday gave its endorsement to a revamped anti-gang loitering bill sponsored by Sen. Jon Greiner, R-Ogden, who is also the city's police chief, that is intended to give police one more tool to combat gang activity.

Greiner sponsored a similar bill last year that passed the Senate but died in the House amid questions about the legality of dispersing groups that have a constitutional right to assemble.

Greiner said the bill now includes protections for the constitutional rights of individuals but still lets police break up and move groups of people under certain circumstances.

He told the commission the impetus for the proposed law was a 2007 fatal shooting in Ogden in a vacant lot next to a convenience store. Police had long been wary of large groups, as many as 30 or 40 people, hanging around on the lot and were concerned about gang activity taking place there. But the out-of-state corporate landowners were unresponsive to police entreaties for permission to take action on that land.

Greiner's latest bill calls for a municipal entity such as a city council or county commission to declare a certain geographic area a gang-free zone for a period of time. It must be established that behavior on the property involves efforts to take control of the area, intimidate other people from entering the area or to conceal illegal activities.

If the law is passed, police who spot a known gang member among a group hanging around a gang-free zone could disperse the entire group for a period of eight hours. Failure to leave once told to by police would be a class B misdemeanor that carries a potential penalty of six months in jail.

Greiner said after the meeting that he doubted this would be used very often if the bill passes the Legislature and becomes law but that it would provide police with one more option in their efforts to curb gang activity.

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E-mail: lindat@desnews.com

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