County attorney expands ban on gangs in northeast Houston

This photo of a self-proclaimed member of the 59 Bounty Hunters – a subset of the Bloods gang – illustrates the type gang tattoos used. This photo of a self-proclaimed member of the 59 Bounty Hunters – a subset of the Bloods gang – illustrates the type gang tattoos used. Photo: Harris County Attorney's Office Photo: Harris County Attorney's Office Image 1 of / 26 Caption Close County attorney expands ban on gangs in northeast Houston 1 / 26 Back to Gallery

A Houston judge on Monday permanently banned 47 suspected gang members from a perennially troubled area of northeast Harris County.

The gang injunction, signed by state District Judge Alexandra Smoots-Hogan, expands the area affected by the area's first gang injunction, which was signed in 2010 to clean up what was then the city's most dangerous apartment complex, Haverstock Hills.

The 2010 injunction banned 28 suspected gang members from entering the 700-unit complex, an elementary school and the surrounding stores and businesses, in the northwest corner of Aldine Bender and the Eastex Freeway.

Monday's order expands the area to include three other apartment complexes and two other schools. It also increases the number of alleged members who are prohibited in the area to 47.

"We're trying to take the good things that are happening at Haverstock and expand to other areas of what we now call the 'East Aldine Safety Zone,'" said First Assistant County Attorney Robert Soard.

To ban alleged gang members, lawyers with the Harris County Attorney's office have to identify each one and show a continuing pattern of illegal behavior. The named suspects are alleged members of two notorious gangs, the Bloods and the Crips.

Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan won a similar injunction last year against other members of the Crips and Bloods that banned them from the Brays Oaks Safety Zone in southwest Houston.

The injunction asserts that the defendants have been regularly engaging in gang activities, including weapons offenses, criminal trespass and drug possession. The injunction bans them from being physically present in the 'Safety Zone.'