The Trece gang, also known as Centro City Locos, is the city’s largest gang and has been operating for more than 30 years.
Weber County labeled the gang a “public nuisance” and moved to file the injunction against it in August 2010. The 331-page document contained more than 100 pages of photographs of gang symbols, tattoos, graffiti, clothing and hand signs, and accused the gang of criminal acts ranging from graffiti to selling drugs and murder.
At that time, the county argued that it was “difficult if not impossible to give the gang ‘notice’ … and serve [it] under traditional methods,” as authorities had trouble pinning down the gang’s “known management structure, officers, directors.”
The district court then granted the county a written order authorizing service by publication, and notices were posted shortly afterward in the Ogden Standard Examiner and on www.utahlegals.com.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah appealed the order after it became permanent in 2012, arguing the service of the injunction was “fundamentally flawed.”