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ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office) of Homeland Security announced that they arrested 18 men during a weeklong drug operation. They targeted gang members in the Minneapolis – St. Paul area.
Of the 18 men arrested, 15 of them are known gang members or associates of the Vatos Locos street gang. The other men are members or associates of the Sureno-13 gang. Some of the suspects were in the U.S. illegally and awaiting deportation. One of the men is in Hennepin County jail for attempted murder charge.
It seems that gangs like Vatos Locos are becoming more involved in illegal drugs and selling these drugs in Minnesota. The weeklong operation ended on July 2, with ICE working with police in Richfield, Bloomington and Minneapolis. This type of operation was part of a national initiative to target gangs.
According to the Post Chronicle, the leader of a national biker gang and 26 of his underlings have been indicted in Virginia on felony charges including extortion. These lowlives received a twelve-count federal grand jury indictment to the American Outlaw Association president, Jack Rosga also known as Milwaukee Jack of Milwaukee. Other members include the Pagans and Motorcycle Club.
They are charged with attempted murder, kidnapping, assault, robbery, witness intimidation, narcotics distribution, illegal gambling and weapons violations. The U.S. Attorney, Neil H. MacBride said the arrests are part of an aggressive attempt by the Department of Justice to dismantle the gangs who live in a world of violence.
The Outlaws were picked up in several states including Wisconsin, Maine, Montana, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina and Virginia. The leader of the Outlaws, Rosga, was trying to take territory from Hell’s Angels; their rival bikers.He was planning multiple attacks along with the Pagans to show force to the rival biker gangs.
According to an article in the Star Tribune, law enforcement is concern about gang violence escalating this summer in Minneapolis. So far, there have been 20 gang killings this year. This is significantly higher than last year at this time.
The latest victim of gang violence was a leader in the Taliban gang that has been around since 2005. This gang is one of the most active and violent gangs in Minneapolis but not the largest. The latest killing was caused by a longtime rivalry with the 19 Block Dipset gang and the Stick up boys. There is no single reason for this type of violence. However, law enforcement believes that when gang members leave jail they restart their old feuds. Of course, drugs have an impact on gang violence as well.
As a result, the city plans to put more resources on the street to help in deterring the violence. No one has been arrested in the latest killing.
They were known as the “Flocc” street gang. Flocc is a derivation of the word “flock” with the “k” replaced by a “c” for Crip. Police said that four gangs with the Crips and individual Blood members in the New York area joined forces for a common cause. They were mad about police officers foot patrols in their area getting in the way of their illegal drug activities. One member planned to shoot the police foot patrol from a rooftop.
Recently law enforcement authorities announced dozens of arrests as a result of a two-year investigation into the gang. The Flocc gang is tied to at least two murders, eleven shootings, a home-invasion robbery and the distribution of cocaine and heroin. The investigation included thousands of hours of wiretap surveillance by the Police Department’s gang squad and the Queens district attorney’s narcotics investigations bureau.
As a result, the police have arrested 104 people with eight still being sought. Investigators also seized 60 guns, including AK-47s, Uzi submachine guns and dozens of semiautomatic handguns and revolvers. One of the guns was a 9-millimeter assault rifle. This rifle was to be used to shoot officers on patrol. The police arrested the suspect after hearing him discuss his plans on a wiretapped phone.
In addition, a former correction officer was arrested. He was storing weapons for high-ranking gang members. A 9-millimeter pistol was found that had been stolen from another correction officer along with a 12-gauge shotgun and a loaded AK-47.
The police arrested the leaders of all the four gangs tied to Flocc including the person who was the leader of the entire operation. He has been charged with criminal possession of a weapon and possession of stolen property.
In a recent story, a graduate student was murdered in Centennial, Colorado last fall by a juvenile gang member. A group of Denver Crips targeted the victim because they wanted to rob a “white” person and the victim looked like he might have money.
In reality, this young man, Andrew Graham, was a 23-year-old graduate student coming home late at night. He was looking for a place to live in Boulder, Colorado where he was handpicked by his professors to take part in a new master’s program for mathematical engineering at the University of Colorado. On November 6, 2009, he was gunned down in the early morning and his body was discovered in the front yard in a quiet neighborhood.
Five Crips members stalked him and a juvenile member of the gang shot him. This type of behavior was consistent with the gang members’ involvement in racially motivated violent attacks on white people in Lower Downtown Denver along the 16th Street Mall last summer. The gang was responsible for robbing, assaulting and attacking as many as 26 people during this time.
So far, the police have arrested 31 people including Crips gang members. The alleged murderer has been arrested and is in jail.
Attorney General Eric Holder had told prosecutors in a federal conspiracy and murder trial not to seek the death penalty for three El Salvadoran men who are in the U.S. illegally. The three men are accused of robbing and shooting Claros Luna on July 29, 2009 in Alexandria, VA. Luna was transporting a prostitute from Maryland to Virginia when he was murdered
The three suspects Eris Arguera, Alcides Umana and Adolfo Amaya Portillo, are admitted gang members of the MS-13 gang. They were indicted on November 24th on federal racketeering and murder charges.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia said that Eric Holder, as U.S. attorney general, makes death penalty decisions in federal cases and not the local U.S. Attorney’s office. Court documents indicate that the death penalty at one time was being considered for these Salvadorans.
A FBI press release issued the day after the three men were indicted by a grand jury stated that the case was under investigation by the FBI, Alexandria Police Department, Fairfax County and Arlington County Police Departments and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
An ICE spokesperson said the immigration agency filed paperwork to begin deportation proceedings in case the men are not convicted or if they are released on parole. If that happens, the Salvadorans would be remanded to ICE custody.
The trial is set to begin on May 10.
Gang members may be targeting the local police department in rural Riverside County, California. Several bizarre incidents have happened since New Years Eve that seems to make this point.
Take for instance the incident of a natural gas pipe was shoved through a hole drilled into the roof of the gang enforcement unit’s headquarters. The building filled with the flammable vapor but an officer smelled the vapor and everyone was evacuated before anything happened.
Then there was a ballistic contraption that was attached to a sliding security fence around the building. When an officer opened the black steel gate, it triggered the mechanism that sent a bullet within eight inches of his face. Thankfully, the officer was not hurt. Another attempt was made to booby trap a police officer’s unmarked car while he went into a convenience store.
Police believe it may be the work of an outlaw motorcycle gang, the Vagos. It all started when a member of this gang died and the police gang force monitored his funeral services. This seemed to anger the members of the gang. There are about 200 Vagos members in Riverside County. This gang specializes in methamphetamine sales, identity theft and violence. Recently about 30 members of the Vagos gang were arrested as part of a crackdown across the state and in Arizona, Nevada and Utah.
Darrent Williams was only 24 years old and an up and coming cornerback for the Denver Bronco’s football team. On New Year’s Eve 2007, Willie Clark, a known gang member, mercilessly gunned him down outside of a local nightclub.
This trial was filled with threats and intimidations to witnesses. Willie Clark’s defense was that he wasn’t at the shooting and that his fellow gang member, Daniel Harris did the shooting. However, Daniel Harris did testify and was given plea deals on his Federal drug charges. Over 40 witnesses were called to testify in this trial. Witnesses who did testify said that Willie Clark bragged about the shooting and how Darrent Williams was disrespecting him before the shooting occurred.
Last week, a jury found Willie Clark guilty in the drive-by shooting murder of Darrent Williams. Clark unloaded his .40-caliber handgun into the limousine full of innocent people that killed Darrent Williams. The jury found him guilty of 21 counts and 2 counts of first-degree murder, 1 for the murder of Williams and 16 counts of attempted murder for each surviving passengers in the car. Willie Clark faces life in prison.
Darrent Williams was against gangs. He was planning to talk to kids in his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas about not joining gangs. He wanted to let the kids know that they could make a better life for themselves without being a gang member.
Darrent Williams’ mother was thankful of the verdict but admitted that they would never know what really happened that night. She hopes that this will help start to clean up the streets of gang members.
Mexico celebrated the New Year with 69 murders in one day. The murders were the result of the ongoing drug trafficking battles.
More than 6,500 drug related killings were committed in 2009. Even though President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels in late 2006 with deployment of 45,000 soldiers to fight organized crime, it seems that the drug cartels are ready for the fight.
Now these drug cartels have ramped up the bloodshed in just two weeks into 2010. A victim’s face was peeled from his skull and sewn onto a soccer ball. Another killing included a former police officer whose body was divided into two separate ice chests.
The tally of murders since 2001 was 20,000 but half of these murders were committed in the past two years. Authorities hope that this violence will quiet down soon. It seems that the Sinaloa cartel headed by billionaire gang boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman may now become dominant, thus reducing the deadly power struggles. If this is true, law enforcement hopes that the next six months may be calmer.
A major Mexican drug trafficking organization has been targeted in the past forty-four months. Law enforcement has named this Project Coronado. This is a multi-agency law enforcement investigation that has arrested nearly 1,200 individuals on narcotics related charges. This investigation targeted La Familia cartel members and their associates and as a result seized more than 11.7 tons of narcotics.
Just the past two days, 303 individuals in 19 states were arrested through coordination between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. More than 3,000 agents and officers participated in this effort. They seized $3.4 million in U.S. currency, 729 pounds of methamphetamine, 62 kilograms of cocaine, 967 pounds of marijuana, 144 weapons and 109 vehicles.
The La Familia cartel is a violent drug trafficking cartel based in the state of Michoacán, in southwestern Mexico. La Familia controls drug manufacturing and distribution in and around Michoacán, including the importation of vast quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine from Mexico into the United States. Ironically, La Familia is opposed to the sale of methamphetamine to Mexicans, however does support its export to the United States for consumption by Americans. La Familia is a heavily armed cartel that has utilized violence to support its narcotics trafficking business including murders, kidnappings and assaults.
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