Echo Park Gang Injunction

In 2013, a Los Angeles County court issued a permanent gang injunction in Echo Park despite crime being at it's lowest since the 1950's. Youth CineMedia interviews one of the defendants of the injunction, Mike Contreras, who describes how a historical Latino community is being displaced by upper class "hipsters", and how generations of families can no longer afford to live in Echo Park and are being "pushed out" because of gentrification and things like the Echo Park gang injunction.

However, despite the obstacles, various community members and organizations are fighting back! But is it too late, and will the rest of Los Angeles fall victim to the ongoing displacement of immigrant communities and people of color? Organizers and lawyers say that gang injunctions take away civil liberties, promote racial profiling and criminalize the youth. It has been proven that gang injunctions are used as a tool for removing a certain group of people from their communities and replacing them with others who are more affluent - they turn streets into prisons without walls.

Youth CineMedia 2014