Cowboys Jerseys Illegal... if you're a Hispanic male
AP Friday, July 30, 2004
OXNARD, Calif. -- The Dallas Cowboys are holding summer training camp in what may be the only city in the nation where wearing the team's logo could draw a $1,000 fine or six months in jail.
The team begins training Saturday in Oxnard, where its trademark blue star was adopted two decades ago by a local street gang.
Authorities obtained an injunction last month preventing the city's largest and most violent street gang, the Colonia Chiques, from wearing the team's clothing within a 6.6-square-mile "safety zone" in the heart of Ventura County's largest city.
The dozen gang members who have been served with the court order also are barred from congregating in public and flashing gang signs. Violators can be arrested or face misdemeanor charges.
Since the injunction was granted, the Chiques have laid low and street violence has subsided, said Oxnard Police Chief Art Lopez.
Neither the football team nor the herd of Cowboy-crazy fans expected to ride into town over the next three weeks have anything to worry about, Lopez said.
Oxnard resident Paul Gallegos, who considers himself the city's biggest Cowboys fan, was so concerned about the logo's connection with the Chiques that he drove to the police station to make sure he was in the clear.
Gallegos, 42, drives a Mercedes Benz convertible outfitted with a custom Cowboys license plate frame.
Authorities assured him that gang members don't often drive cars like his CLK 320.
"The guys we are concerned about aren't true Dallas Cowboys fans," Lopez said. "The gang members are ... easy to pick out because they've been in trouble so many times before."
For the second time in four years, the Cowboys will practice on football fields in Oxnard that the Raiders abandoned nearly a decade ago after moving back to Oakland. Tourism officials expect up to 125,000 people to attend the Cowboys' practices.
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