Man and woman in critical condition after being stabbed in 'gang injunction zone' next to Disneyland

The areas immediately surrounding the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, CA, are all high-crime, gang-infested neighborhoods
Less than a week after a Turkish tourist on his honeymoon was shot to death by an armed robber in the I-Drive tourist corridor near Disney World in Orlando, Florida, a man and a woman were stabbed in another incident near Disneyland across the country in Anaheim, California.

The Disneyland Resort is located in the worst part of town, in terms
of crime, in Anaheim, CA, sandwiched between two court ordered
'gang injunction zones' on the west and east sides of the resort, often
amusingly called the 'Happiest Street Gangs on Earth'
The killer in the I-Drive murder has yet to be captured and is still at large, while Anaheim police announced today they arrested a suspect in the Disneyland stabbings on Friday evening.

On Thursday evening around 7:59 p.m., the Anaheim Police Department (APD) responded to what was initially reported to be a shooting in the 1100 block of West Ball Road, in front of the Springhill Suites Hotel on the northwest border of the adjoining Disneyland's Mickey and Friends parking structure and Ball Cast Member Lot (BCML.)

But when they arrived on scene, police instead discovered a 32-year-old man from Garden Grove lying on the sidewalk with a serious stab wound.

Two minutes later, officers got a call to respond to another stabbing just a few hundred feet west on the 1200 block of South Walnut Street, in front of the Holiday Inn.

There, they found a second stabbing victim, a 30-year-old woman from Anaheim, leading police to believe the two stabbings were related as "one continuous event' from the same assailant that started in front of the Springhill Suites and ended in front of the Holiday Inn in the heart of Anaheim's Resort District.



Both victims were taken to the UCI Medical Center in Orange, California in critical condition.


The police then searched for a suspect described from witnesses as a Hispanic male, approximately 20 to 30-years-old, weighing 220 to 240 pounds, who was wearing jeans and a hoodie.

The two stabbings occurred on the same block as Disneyland's Mickey & Friends
parking structure on the northwest corner where the Springhill Suites and Holiday
Inn are located on the intersection of Ball Road and South Walnut Street
Around 6:00 p.m. on Friday, Anaheim Police Department Gang Detail and Crime Task Force investigators arrested a reputed gang member, Flavio Marquez, 35, of Anaheim, as he was walking though a park not far from the crime scene.

Marquez was booked on two counts of attempted murder and is being held on $1 million bail.

Sgt. Daron Wyatt of the Anaheim police said, "The motive for the stabbings is believed to be narcotics related," but he didn't release any further details on the investigation.

The link of the two stabbing attacks to local gang activity is very worrisome to Disney officials since the attack occurred in one of the two "gang injunction zones" that directly adjoins Disney property, west and east of the resort. (See map of "gang injunction zones" above.)


The City of Anaheim has four total court-mandated gang injunction safety zones, all near the Disneyland Resort. Anaheim police, however, were very mindful and cautious in saying, that while the stabbings took place next to Disneyland, "There is absolutely no link to the resort, and the resort was not impacted in any way."


It goes without saying, again, that this kind of bad news couldn't have come at a worse time for Disney.

The stabbings that took place, near the corner of Ball Road and Walnut St. bordering
the northwest property line of the Disneyland Resort, is the turf of three known local 
Disneyland gangs:Westside Anaheim, Southside Brown Demons, and Anaheim Jeffrey St.
At a time when both U.S. Disney theme parks are seeing a significant decline in park attendance, bad news like this just makes it a lot tougher for the House of Mouse to bounce back from two consecutive, unusually slow quarters of park attendance during the spring and summer tourism seasons.

In August of last year, a homeless man, Tim Tiehan, known as the "Birdman" because he greets Disneyland guests in front of Disneyland's entrance with his pet Macaw, was stabbed late at night in front of many shocked Disneyland guests at Disneyland's entrance on Harbor Boulevard as park-goers were leaving the park for the day.


Although the disturbing, violent incidents discussed so far didn't technically happen on Disney property, the bad press from these kinds of violent crimes, so near Disney property, isn't going to be any comfort for Disney or city officials as they will have to assure tourists that the City of Anaheim is a safe place to visit when in fact it's not.


What did happen on Disney property the month before the "Birdman" stabbings, however, should send chills down any family's spines, which was a near catastrophe for the "Happiest Place on Earth."

The two new stabbings come a little over a year after a homeless man was stabbed
in front of shocked guests at Disneyland's main entrance on Harbor Boulevard
In July of 2015, a delusional South San Francisco man casually snuck a semi-automatic pistol into Disneyland with two fully-loaded ammunition clips intending on shooting his gun.

The accused gunman, Percival Agoncillo, told Anaheim police and Disneyland security that he was hearing voices in his head from his dead relatives while looking at the flashing lights from the Tower of Terror.

When a plane overhead disturbed the ghosts of his dead relatives, Agoncillo pulled out his gun, with the intent on shooting down the plane and possibly others.

Luckily, a plain-clothes Disneyland security officer saw Agoncillo brandishing his weapon in Disneyland's Esplanade and quickly called Anaheim police to arrest the suspect. But questions arose in that incident on whether Anaheim police and Disneyland officials conspired to cover-up the incident to prevent the press from finding out.


Does Disneyland suffer from a credibility crisis in assuring the public that its U.S. theme parks and resorts are really all that safe and secure for families and children who come to visit?

The surveillance camera placed on the north entryway of the Paradise Pier Hotel
parking structure is the only camera inside the structure because ceilings are too
low for cameras inside. An APD patrol car is usually on the roof of the structure.
Disney is already reeling from a series of negative incidents that have been in the press over a very rough summer: the ISIS-inspired shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, a toddler being dragged off to his death by an alligator in Disney World, the Zika virus outbreak in Florida, and the shooting death of a Turkish tourist on his honeymoon less than a week ago in Orlando's I-Drive tourist corridor to name a few examples.

So the last thing Disney wants or needs at this point is for tourists to be reminded that they should think twice about visiting a Disney theme park because of fears for their own safety and security due to the high crime rate from the impoverished, gang-infested neighborhoods surrounding the "Happiest Place on Earth."

Both Disneyland and Disney World are located in some pretty seedy and notoriously high-crime neighborhoods known for violent gang activities and drug trafficking.

Last May, the FBI raided a safe house, located in the 1200 block of West Katella Ave., which is one block away from Disneyland, and seized $2.3 million in drug money tied to the notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and the Sinaloa drug cartel of Mexico. Again, this shocking raid so near Disneyland seemed to be intimately tied to local gang activity and organized crime involving narcotics.


In Disneyland's case, the neighborhoods surrounding the "Happiest Place on Earth" are really bad gang-infested areas. In fact, the neighborhoods directly west, where the stabbings happened, and directly east of the resort are both court-mandated "gang injunction zones," served by the Anaheim police and the Orange County District Attorney's Office.

The stabbings were due to some motive related to narcotics, and took place on the disputed 
turf of two rival gangs, the Southside Brown Demons and Westside Anaheim, on the mean 
streets of Anaheim. The Calling sign for the Southside Brown Demons (SSBD) seen above.
Gang injunctions are civil orders issued by the state courts to restrict the actions of those believed to be gang members by the police within designated "safety zones," where law enforcement authorities have documented a rise in gang activity and crime.

Those individuals named in the injunctions by police, who may merely be believed but not necessarily proven to be gang members, are barred from associating in public with other named gang members, being in public consuming alcohol, wearing gang clothing or paraphernalia, and are subject to strict curfews within the safety zone.

Those helicopters you see flying over Disneyland are from the Anaheim Police Department. They are there to patrol and monitor the two gang injunction zones immediately west and east of the Disneyland resort.

Anaheim police (APD) has also been in the news this past year for using a very controversial and highly illegal surveillance tactic in spying on private cell phones conversations from those helicopters.


APD has equipped their aircraft and some of their ground-based vehicles with military-grade, mobile Stingray and Dirtbox surveillance devices that simulate cell phone towers. These surveillance devices trick cell phones and mobile devices in their vicinity to connect up with them, whereby the police can then wiretap private phone conversations and extract confidential information from anyone's cell phone or mobile device.

APD's air support units that monitor 'gang injunction zones' west and east of
Disneyland property all carry controversial surveillance devices known as
Stingrays that pick up private cell phones signals and data from any cell phone
Violators deemed to be gang members by the police in a given "gang injunction zone" can be arrested or cited for doing simple, mundane activities that are guaranteed and taken for granted by anyone else; however, there are some unanticipated consequences to these very restrictive and draconian police measures.

For one, it forces the real baddies among the street gangs in the designated gang injunction zones to meet and their conduct their criminal gang activities in areas immediately outside of the safety zones to avoid arrest.

One of those places these gangs can meet, where many gangs also make their bread and butter, is on Disneyland Resort property where they do more than just sell drugs.

A lot of crimes take place on Disneyland property due to local street gangs that target Disneyland guests as victims of their various criminal activities.


For one, if you've ever wondered why pickpockets are nearly non-existent in a Disney theme park, it's because Disney has made it much easier for thieves to get access to tourists' valuables without having to put up as much of a risk of an arrest.

The reason why there are no pickpockets at Disneyland is because stealing guests'
valuables from unattended strollers is much easier pickings. It's like stealing candy
from a baby.
Families that leave their belongings and valuables in their baby strollers and park them at designated stroller parking areas inside the theme parks while they go off to enjoy a show or go on one of the park's attractions often find their strollers missing afterward.

That's because thieves know that a large number of unattended strollers in any given area is easy-pickings to take from. Often they quietly wheel away the stroller to a private areas in the park, such as a nearby restroom, and rummage through the stolen stroller for money and other valuables.

In other cases, local gang members patrol Disneyland's hotel hallways to burglarize open hotel rooms on property to steal guests' valuables or even break into hotel vending machines to steal money.

They can do that with near impunity because hotel room hallways at Disneyland hotels do not have any security cameras to monitor any suspicious activities.


Disney refuses to put surveillance cameras in their hotel hallways because they simply do not want to needlessly draw attention to guests that burglaries are such a significant problem on its properties.

The City of Anaheim is gaining a very bad reputation for crime,
civil unrest, and violence of late
The most sophisticated organized criminal activity we have heard of on property, thus far, regards a large nationwide crime ring that has been stealing third-row seats from GM SUVs for years now.

GM does not offer replacements for missing third-row seats on its SUVs, so a very expensive and lucrative black market has blossomed from local body shops, chop shops, and garages that sell used third-row seats obtained from questionable suppliers.

Local gangs and thieves have targeted large parking lots inside Disneyland, and in particular the parking structure of Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel since there are no surveillance cameras inside the structure.

How they get into the GM SUVs is ingenous. They use what is called a radio-frequency control duplicator (or RF cloner) app, such as OwnStar which can be downloaded by anyone on any smart phone, to sample a victim's remote key fob signal or cell phone signal with an OnStar mobile link.


Then they can duplicate that sampled signal on their app to gain entry into the SUV. Since third-row seats on GM SUVs are split into two and fold-up very compactly, a thief can then carry off the seats like a suitcase to an awaiting vehicle.


All it takes is less than 10 seconds to take the seats from the point of opening the SUV up with an RF cloner to driving away with the stolen third-row seats. This problem is so bad that APD regularly posts a manned police vehicle on the roof of the Paradise Pier Hotel parking structure, and a security camera was set up on the north entryway of the parking structure to try to catch the thieves.


More than one gang is suspected of carrying out the burglaries, who then transport the stolen seats to many different chop shops in the Southland area.


Obviously, there is more than meets the eye with crimes that are happening in and around the Disney theme parks. It's ultimately your responsibility to take precautions in ensuring your own safety and security when going to the "Happiest Place on Earth." At least, that's how Disney officials see it.


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