Wednesday, August 06, 2008

ON THE RADIO
In case you missed it, yours truly was on the local air this afternoon on KPCC. The host was Patt Morrison and I was on with USA Tom O'Brien, head of the Central District of California. The ubiquitous Connie Rice joined in by phone for a short comment. The topic was the increasingly better lubricated cooperation between the DOJ and local coppers.

It should be fairly obvious to even a casual observer that the US Attorney's Office is at full throttle with regard to bringing Federal cases against local gangsters, shooters, dealers and shot callers. O'Brien, a former LAC ADA and former member of the Hard Core Gang Unit, is clearly at the front of the charge. He's a fully functioning example of what happens when you're armed with the street smarts of a local prosecutor and then granted access to the huge resources of the Federal government. For the individuals in his reticle, this is a double whammy.

Morrison touched on the history of bad cooperation between local cops and the Feds. That history, in my view at least, died with the first of the three RICO cases brought forward in 1995. Those three cases, filed in fairly rapid succession, clearly engineered the template for the subsequent task forces we've seen in the years since.

I expressed some fears in my book that government entities have a disturbing habit of periodically re-inventing the wheel. In the past, there seemed to be no baton passing from one regime to the next. There was no corporate memory and every time they opened the gate on a new task force, it was like they never did it before. That dynamic is apparently no longer in effect. Since those first RICO cases, we've got a new FBI head, new USA, new LAPD and LASD chiefs and most of the foot soldiers and street cops have retired or moved on to other assignments. Despite this new cast of characters, the old cast must have left a sufficiently robust legacy of cooperation because the recent TFs are operating with remarkable speed and efficiency.

One interesting development is that the current Federal net is more capacious. In the past, the various task forces targeted the high level shot callers, picking only the choicest fruit for prosecution. Under the new regime, as evidenced by the 70 or so individuals named in the Drew Street indictment, the USA is drilling deeper. Apparently, the DOJ is no longer satisfied picking off the shot callers. They're going after everybody in a particular organization -- shot callers, associates, tax collectors, third part information passers and low level dealers. Basically, anybody who knowingly participates in any capacity in the chain has become a legitimate target for RICO prosecution. They're not just going in to cut the head off the snake. The current MO seems to be to grab the whole animal.

What this means is that even if you're marginally involved in the decision-making process or even if you're not at all involved and just slanging, driving, looking out or passing intel, in the eyes of the RICO statutes, you're liable for major time. So instead of a few years in Corcoran or Q, you're likely to land in Colorado, Florida or Illinois for decades.

I remember writing some time back that the eye of Sauron was gazing hard in all directions. I'll make another film analogy. Think Soylent Green. Remember the front loaders scooping up people on the street? Think front loader.

57 comments:

don quixote said...

Good to have your voice back in the Ethernet again Wally. Good informative post that just reinforces what is apparent in some of the neighborhoods around LA. That is to say that certain varrios have been targeted and as you point out a shitload of even small role players are being busted and doing time for gang activities.

There are a couple of problems with this scenario though, and these are old problems that have been revisited numerous times.

I'm sure almost everyone has heard the caveat emptor, "We can't arrest our way out of the problem". This is a very apparent truism as is shown by the bursting at the seams prison system and at the same time, a Hydra like growth in gangs across the region.

And another admonishment "You send young fools to prison and they come back master criminals" should be listened to carefully, it’s proven to be the truth over and over again.
And even though you speak of conveyor belts scooping gangsters up and off to prison it's only a temporary peace in the neighborhoods that takes place.

Pretty soon, maybe years but eventually, those gangsters will get out of prison where they've honed their skills to an extraordinary level in many cases, and then there is even more havoc in the streets.
And then there is the massive overcrowding in the joints so at certain intervals the prison system hemorrhages out gangsters and then the shit really hits the fan on the street level.

Also, as is apparent in Highland Park and environs, while the Avenues have been hit hard by the Jura lately, the Highland Park gangsters are taking control of the old Avenue strongholds, flexing their muscles, gaining power, and now they seem to be all over the place. It's like the kid trying to hold back the North Sea with a finger in the dike.

And finally with millions of little potential gangsters in and around LA, and an economy in decline, schools failing, jobs being lost, racial disharmony and a culture in disarray, popular media glamorizing the gang life, the increasing evidence of a "Haves vs. Have-not’s" society then maybe your analogous use of the great old flick "Soylent Green" isn't too far fetched at all.

If our society isn't willing to acknowledge and attack (with money and energy), the root causes of gangsterism and crime, (and everyone with half a brain knows the litany of causal effects on crime) it'll just be more of the same and probably even more violent and dangerous on the streets of our nations cities and towns.

PS What’s your take on the killing of the Sheriffs Officer on Isabel St.? Should a young rookie be assigned to the High Power Tank at LA County Jail? Was it an Eme directed hit in retaliation for some slight or failure to comply by the young LACS Officer?
Lot’s of chisme on the streets saying that it was retaliation for the killing of that Drew St gangster a couple of months ago, and both shootings took place within a few blocks of each other.
Lots of questions surround this incident.

Anonymous said...

I attempted to comment by phone during the radio interview but they mis-interpreted what I said. The Mexican Mafia is in involved in LA Public School Administrations, not just among the students. Even the little schools get huge budgets that are not closely monitored. Tons of money goes missing and bogus projects are paid for. A few years ago a the HLPUSD was being run by a criminal who had left a previous district under charges of embezzellment and he put his friends in place as principals throughout the district. There's tons of anecdotal evidence but doesn't seem like anyone has ever looked into it.

Anonymous said...

If you really want to stop the continual growth of gangs in Los Angeles, the federal government needs to come to L.A. and enforce immigration laws.

How many billions of dollars are wasted on social programs and law enforcement for illegal immigrants from Mexico? We all know that over 25% of L.A. county jail inmates are illegal immigrants.

When we find out that the recent murder of a sheriff deputy was yet another murder by an illegal alien cholo, maybe a few more people will finally take notice of what is obvious to anyone living in the L.A. area, too many mexican kids are in gangs.

And until the majority of mexicans themselves take responsibilty for their own kids, things won't quickly improve. How many times have we seen old cholos here glamorizing the cholo lifestyle, and using words like soldado and honor?

We need to have the mexicans themseleves label their own cholo relatives as low life losers and quit glamorizing and perpetuating the cholo lifestyle as some sort of honorable bullshit.

Of course we will have the cholo apologist telling us that it's the republicans and gavachos fault that we have the kids of illegal immigrants in gangs. Are the republicans and the gavachos responsible for the honest hard working mexicans?

But any dumb fool who is not concerned with being politically correct can see who and where the growth of gangs is.

Anonymous said...

what do you think of the jamiel shaw law wally, are you for it.

Anonymous said...

Ay dios mio look who is back.

Orale wally is back in the mix
When will see all of Wally's loyal readers, like

Conchita
Marty With The Short Pants
Santiago
Big Betty
Mustang Sally
Jim
Drinking With Tony
Hiroshi
Wallista


I really enjoyed the conversations and comments between them. I laugh just thinking about them all returning to this blog.

Anonymous said...

the comment at 8:09 real hit the nail on the head if we could get rid of the illegal gang members it would be a nice start to help get rid of these gangs.also we know where the gang neighborhoods are why not put a injunction on everyone of them and send in the national gaurd to be all over these guys constantly and i bet it won't take long before being a gang member does not sound so great to them and it might change the minds of there parents who do nothing to stop there children from gangbanging.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

"If you really want to stop the continual growth of gangs in Los Angeles, the federal government needs to come to L.A. and enforce immigration laws."

This, of course, is assuming that ALL gang members are Mexican immigrants...

"How many billions of dollars are wasted on social programs and law enforcement for illegal immigrants from Mexico?"

Rather or not it's all been "wasted" is a matter of opinion. Some of it has. But some of it may not have been. And as far as we know, the majority of that money may not have been wasted.

"We all know that over 25% of L.A. county jail inmates are illegal immigrants.

When we find out that the recent murder of a sheriff deputy was yet another murder by an illegal alien cholo, maybe a few more people will finally take notice of what is obvious to anyone living in the L.A. area, too many mexican kids are in gangs."

All cop killers are Mexican? I wonder how many are, percentage wise. I can tell you right now that if it was more than like 5%, it would be on cable news around the clock. We can deport all Mexicans, and I doubt any cop is going to turn in his vest with the assumption that he's no longer at risk of being killed on the job.

"And until the majority of mexicans themselves take responsibilty for their own kids, things won't quickly improve."

I'm interested in knowing how you've come to the conclusion that the "majority" of Mexicans (meaning more than half), don't take "responsibility" for their own kids.

"Of course we will have the cholo apologist telling us that it's the republicans and gavachos fault that we have the kids of illegal immigrants in gangs. Are the republicans and the gavachos responsible for the honest hard working mexicans?"

So, now Mexicans are honest and hard working? You just said that the "majority" of them don't take responsibility for their own kids.

"But any dumb fool who is not concerned with being politically correct can see who and where the growth of gangs is."

Basically, your definition of political correctness is refusing to buy into the threat of Mexicans immigrants exaggerated by the right wing.

Anonymous said...

To kind of expand a bit on what don quixote has said the one thing that the government is failing to see is that the power is already inside prison. It is not like with the italians who were scared to go to prison and relished the outside world. You really don't get the power until you do a long stretch or doing life. Now don't get me wrong, more people will snitch but, I doubt many of the low level guys will be able to give much info on righteous Carnals.

If anything, what I see coming out of this is a growth of power for La Eme within the Feds. There will always be a huge pool of willing associates to do a Carnal's bidding in almost every So. Cal city so in the streets it will be business as usual.

Another issue that I can see arising from more homies being arrested on federal charges is the rivalry between big homies from the State and Federal institutions. I have heard the Carnals from the state facilities have juice over the ones out of the Feds. There was just a recent case that was in the newspaper over a Big homie coming out of the Feds and stepped on the toes of a Carnal who is in the state. They battled over the same area, now it goes much deeper and I will save it for another time because it doesn't look to be over because of another major detail but, for the mean time the Carnal in the State won the battle.


Youngster with Game

P.S. What's up Quixote it has been a long time. We are some of the originals of this board. I was even thinking I am too old for the "Youngster with Game" handle, I am 26 now, I figure if the blog is still around I will drop it once I hit 30.

Anonymous said...

i heard one of the older homies from venice was down at chino in palmas for a few months and now caught the train up to the bay.and now a youngster from the i.e. has the hoyo?what you know?

Anonymous said...

Orale wally is back in the mix
When will see all of Wally's loyal readers, like

Conchita
Marty With The Short Pants
Santiago
Big Betty
Mustang Sally
Jim
Drinking With Tony
Hiroshi
Wallista
***********************************


They're already here. Right Don Q ?

Anonymous said...

Don Q

Any chisme on the peceta clique Nuevo Flores? Word is they are comming up strong. Uniting North and South.

Anonymous said...

Well put, DQ. Is it just me, or is it that the more people we put in prison, the more society emulates the prison culture? You have to wonder if this has anything to do with cops looking more and more like gang bangers, as well. Those two Hollenbeck guys Anderson Cooper rode along with on that CNN special? They looked like they could have moonlighted as Nazi Lowriders.

Anonymous said...

I hear they call them 25ers because of inflation. Snitches just don't drop a dime they drop a quarter.

Anyways I wouldn't think a gang made up of dudes from protective custody would make much of a difference in the big picture. I am sure they could handle stuff within PC yards but, there wouldn't be enough troops to pull from on the streets.

Anonymous said...

sns would you rather be in a room full of cops or a room full of gangbangers

Drinking with Tony said...

FROM THE CHIEF DAN MATTHEWS FILES

Female Hitchhiker:
Posing as a salesman, Irv Mudderman lines up wealthy prospects in motels. Then his two female accomplices, posing as hitchhikers, relieve the victims of their money. When their game leads to murder, Chief Dan Matthews of the Highway Patrol takes over. In a tense finale, the smell of perfume leads him into one of the most desperate situations of his entire career.

PS. Would of written sooner Capo, but just stepped off the carousel last nite. A wink and a toast.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

"sns would you rather be in a room full of cops or a room full of gangbangers"

Cops... at least for the most part. And, I patiently await any specific examples of yours as to how this answer would contradict any of the points I made in my above comment.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

"we know where the gang neighborhoods are why not put a injunction on everyone of them and send in the national gaurd to be all over these guys constantly"

Well, there's a ringing endorsement for local cops...

"and i bet it won't take long before being a gang member does not sound so great to them"

Heck, with the military taking over the streets, being outside wont' sound so good to them, or anyone in the neighborhood for that matter. Why punish so many law abiding civilians by militarizing a neighborhood?

"and it might change the minds of there parents who do nothing to stop there children from gangbanging."

So, we'll be bringing in the military not only to enforce the law (not their duty, btw), but to also socially engineer (by far not their duty)? Are you sure you there aren't any less drastic measures we can try before resorting to the whole Nazi Germany thing? Come on.

Anonymous said...

Well I see Drinking with Tony has come out of the closet, how long before DWT tells Don Quixote how great his comments are?

Can Conchita, Marty With The Short Pants, Santiago, Big Betty, Mustang Sally, Jim, Hiroshi, Wallista be far behind. Ay dios mio.

SNS why don't you ask Don Q. about the mayates in prison.

don quixote said...

Orale! The old Wallista gang is almost all back at ITH varrio after our Mero Mero Wally did a stretch for wacking Veda (Mildred Pierce's bad seed daughter), in the melon due to her didling Monty Barragan and the USC football team.

Youngster with Game comes strong with some street and life philosophy, (and don't mess with your name YWG! I still know vato's that are close to 70 called Junior and Chavalo,), Still No Script breaks out of the starting gate with another good observation on the dress and deamenor of many LE Cops. And in MHO theres many reasons for this weird scenario,chief among them is why would any cop want to still look like some cop from the TV series Adam 12 or CHIPS.
Want to hear something really strange?, listen to a couple of Prison Guards speaking to each other and their speech is peppered with jail house jargon and gangsterisms galore.

What a world!

Anonymous said...

SNS writes ....
"Basically, your definition of political correctness is refusing to buy into the threat of Mexicans immigrants exaggerated by the right wing."

Don Q writes .......
"Also, as is apparent in Highland Park and environs, while the Avenues have been hit hard by the Jura lately, the Highland Park gangsters are taking control of the old Avenue strongholds, flexing their muscles, gaining power, and now they seem to be all over the place. It's like the kid trying to hold back the North Sea with a finger in the dike.

And finally with millions of little potential gangsters in and around LA, and an economy in decline, schools failing, jobs being lost, racial disharmony and a culture in disarray, popular media glamorizing the gang life, the increasing evidence of a "Haves vs. Have-not’s" society then maybe your analogous use of the great old flick "Soylent Green" isn't too far fetched at all.



***************************************

Loks like SNS is must be talking about D.Q the right wing nut, who see cholos all over the place, and millions more potential cholos waiting in the wings.

Anonymous said...

Well put, DQ. Is it just me?

If only..

Anonymous said...

I posted this earlier but, I forgot to ask if every race has a gang in the PC yards or the Chicanos are the only ones doing it?

I hear they call them 25ers because of inflation. Snitches just don't drop a dime they drop a quarter.

Anyways I wouldn't think a gang made up of dudes from protective custody would make much of a difference in the big picture. I am sure they could handle stuff within PC yards but, there wouldn't be enough troops to pull from on the streets.


"Youngster with Game"

Anonymous said...

StillNoSense....
"Well put, DQ. Is it just me, or is it that the more people we put in prison, the more society emulates the prison culture? "

********************

Coould it be society and young kids emulates popular culture, where gangs are glamorized in music and movies.

Remember the old cholo fools here telling us about sureno honor and pride, come StillNoSense you member. Maybe if older cholo fools were NOT passing this culture down to the next generation gangs would not be emulated.

But with so many old cholos recruiting the next generation of losers amd low lifes what can we really expect.

Anonymous said...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lynwood9-2008aug09,0,5929279.story

16-year-old boy shot and killed on Lynwood porch

Police say the boy was shot after he resisted a confrontation with a suspected gang member.
By Francisco Vara-Orta, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
8:05 AM PDT, August 8, 2008
A 16-year-old boy was shot and killed as he sat on a porch in Lynwood late Thursday, the second shooting in less than a week of a teenager resisting a confrontation with a suspected gang member, authorities said.

Raymond Frias was visiting a female friend in the 2900 block of Poplar Drive near Bellinger Street around 11:45 p.m. Thursday when a male walked up to him and fired a single shot into his upper body, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Derrick Thompson.

After Frias repeatedly refused to respond to the shooter's question "Where are you from?", the male shot the victim in the back and fled, Thompson said.

Anonymous said...

Wally how long before California becomes just like Tijuana with mexican drug cartel fighting the U.S. military? Here is just one more reason we need to start enforcing immigration laws.

***********************

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/08/pot.eradication/index.html

Illegal immigrants connected to Mexico's drug cartels are growing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of marijuana in the heart of one of America's national treasures, authorities say. It's a booming business that, federal officials say, feeds Mexico's most violent drug traffickers.

Authorities have arrested 38 people and seized 29 automatic weapons, high-powered rifles and other guns, Boudreaux said.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/08/pot.eradication/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Illegal immigrants connected to Mexico's drug cartels are growing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of marijuana in the heart of one of America's national treasures, authorities say. It's a booming business that, federal officials say, feeds Mexico's most violent drug traffickers.

Anonymous said...

Wally ,do you think the republicans and the economy is why these cholo pendejos start shooting into a crowd of people, including young kids and babies. Why does this seem to happen over and over in the L.A. area, by cholos? Is it the republicans fault or the fault of lousy parents and lack of parental education? Or a culture among the latinos which glamorize and perpetuate the cholo low life mentality?

Que piensas sobre esto Wally?

*******************************

http://cbs2.com/local/paramount.shooting.2.791845.html


PARAMOUNT, Calif. (CBS) ― Two men were killed today and a 2-year-old boy was wounded in a shooting in Paramount, a sheriff's deputy said.

The two men died at the scene, she said.

The boy was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive.

The shooting occurred around 4:30 p.m. in the 8000 block of Rose Street, near Paramount Boulevard, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Denise Fuchs.

The victims were having a backyard barbecue when two men in their early 20s approached on foot and started shooting, striking two men and the toddler, Fuchs said.

Jim said...

It's good to hear from you again.

Not much more that needs saying, that I can say.

Anonymous said...

When I first discovered your site, it was like falling down a rabbit hole: or, more accurately, like falling down an Abyss. I was practically hiding under my desk, half-convinced that Sgt.Valdemar was going to hunt me down personally.

Anonymous said...

AnonyMouse writes.....

Orale wally is back in the mix
When will see all of Wally's loyal readers, like

Conchita
Marty With The Short Pants
Santiago
Big Betty
Mustang Sally
Jim
Drinking With Tony
Hiroshi
Wallista

*******************************

It didn't take long for the whacky cast of characters to come out of the closet.

I guess it won't be long before "they" start complementing each other on their great comments.

Drinking with Tony said...

OVERHEARD AT MARTY'S COFFEE TABLE
Mexican Mafia Carnal Ruben Castro wants to withdraw his guilty plea to federal charges? He entered pleas last month to racketeering and conspiracy to sell cocaine. He's saying "made a big mistake" and arguments on his plea change will now be heard in October. Se dice que he was running two branches of a drug-dealing Los Angeles street gang from behind bars while serving a life sentence in Colorado for a 1997 racketeering conviction.

Anonymous said...

The owners of a missing 42-year-old chimpanzee have called in exotic-animal trackers to help find it. Family friend Michael McCasland says the two experts are expected to arrive by Friday to give advice on how to locate Moe the chimp, who escaped June 27 from an animal refuge in Devore where he lived.

McCasland says Moe is still thought to be in the nearby San Bernardino National Forest, 50 miles east of Los Angeles, although searches by helicopters and dogs have yielded no leads. Moe's owners, St. James and La Donna Davis of West Covina, raised Moe since he was a baby, toilet-training him and teaching him to eat with a knife and fork. Moe was last seen with a Slim Jim stick in his back pocket.

Anonymous said...

If that Chimp is in the hills a mountain lion will get him. Then again those mountain lions are so adapted to preying on humans now that they might just give the chimp a pass, due to him not being on a bike and wearing spandex shorts.

Hey, Wally, Mike Davis warned us about the animals in the nearby LA hills turning on the increasing human population. I'm sure your ilk mocked him too. How many more people have to die, Wally? How many?

Anonymous said...

Hey, a shout out to DQ and Norwalquero! Wallace don't beat yourself up too much about writer's blocks. They can be tough, but they are impermanent. Unlike wife, kids, and mother in-law. But on weekends I'm at my local coffee house. Me, my laptop, Wally Fay's In The Hat, and my expresso's... don't bother me-I'm busy.

Anonymous said...

89.3 KPCC - FM with IQ
Tony would never say it but I just did.
Forget that Patt Morrison has a hat collection Tony, you should have asked to seen her "teddy" collection, she's a good looking woman Tony. I want a hat lady too.

Anonymous said...

Imagine this in a fire engine red teddy, and in your arms. My vote is for the mature woman.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Patt_Morrison_by_David_Shankbone.jpg

Anonymous said...

An off-duty Seattle police detective was being assaulted and feared for his life when he shot a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle club early Saturday during the famed annual biker rally in Sturgis, S.D., according to the president of the Seattle Police Officers' Guild.

The detective, who works in the department's pawnshop unit and is an active member in the police union, told union President Rich O'Neill that he fired in self-defense, O'Neill said this morning. The detective was on vacation with other Seattle officers when the nonfatal shooting occurred.

O'Neill said the officer was involved in a fight with the biker before the shooting.

"They were there having a good time and he was jumped; it was totally unprovoked," O'Neill said. "I heard choking was involved. I hear he's got facial injuries. He was getting beat up."

The Hells Angels member was being treated at a Sturgis-area hospital Sunday. The hospital would not comment on his condition.

The Seattle police detective was among five off-duty Seattle police officers at the Loud American Roadhouse in Sturgis.

A crowd of 500-plus was jamming to the beat of rock group Judd Hoos at the bar when several Hells Angels members began to congregate, said bar co-owner Dean Kinney. His employees called police just to play it safe.

"We didn't call the police because there was a fight; we called police because we just knew that it was different. We were being cautious," Kinney said. "We have almost no trouble at Sturgis. The people are so happy that you just learn to recognize when things seem a little different."

Kinney said he then heard two shots fired in quick succession.

"There were probably 30 officers outside when it happened, so the response was instantaneous," Kinney said Sunday.

Anonymous said...

MORE CHARGES MORE HELLS ANGELS MORE FIGHTS
More charges filed after Hells Angels bar fight.
The bikers brawled last month in Newport Beach with members of Set Free Soldiers, which calls itself a Christian ministry but which police say is a motorcycle gang involved in criminal activity.
New charges were filed today against Hells Angels members in connection with a double stabbing during a bar fight with a Christian motorcycle gang late last month, Newport Beach police said.

Scott Guinn, 23, was charged with possession of a controlled substance. Brian Heslington, 35, was charged with possession of cocaine and a loaded firearm, and Rodrigo Requejo, 34, was charged with assault and battery.
On Friday, authorities charged five members of the Set Free Soldiers with a variety of felony weapons and gang crimes. One member was charged with attempted murder. Authorities had also charged one Hells Angel member with having a loaded firearm in a vehicle.

Police conducted raids in Orange and Riverside counties last week targeting the Anaheim-based Set Free Soldiers. Authorities found more than 20 handguns, 10 shotguns, rifles, several thousand rounds of ammunition, knives, daggers and Tasers in five homes.

Police also found handguns, shotguns, rifles, ammunition, knives and daggers at three Hells Angels locations.

Set Free Soldiers members say they are a Christian ministry that helps rehabilitate ex-convicts and recovering drug addicts, but authorities believe they are a motorcycle gang involved in criminal activity, said Newport Beach Sgt. Evan Sailor.

Anonymous said...

Hopkins: "What have you lost?"

Gooding: "My freedom."

Hopkins: "NO. You never had your freedom.What have you lost?"

Gooding: "My illusions."

Hopkins: "Now you've got it. You are a student!"

- Instinct / the movie

Anonymous said...

The caged bird sings because her heart is free.

Anonymous said...

wally are you going to post stupid stories from some old fool with many names.

Anonymous said...

Hey Wally, five Orange County cities are outlawing fake lawns. Also, Man charged in biker brawl arrested in earlier killing
Police: Fight between gangs was not chance encounter.

NEWPORT BEACH – A reputed member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang who was arrested after a July 27 brawl with a rival motorcycle gang in Newport Beach was arrested three years ago on suspicion of murder, only to be set free after authorities decided the killing was in self-defense.

Rodrigo Jose Requejo (Hells Angel member), a 34-year-old Rancho Santa Margarita man, was accused of killing a man and stabbing his twin brother during a fight on an off-ramp from the 241 Toll Road.

The surviving twin, Jason Amman, told police that Requejo had followed them off the freeway and instigated the fight, killing his brother Justin. Prosecutors decided to drop charges after witnesses said that the Amman brothers started the fight, and that Requejo only pulled the knife when it turned into two against one.

Requejo is facing charges of assault and battery for his role in the July 27 brawl at Blackie's by the Sea, a popular Newport Beach bar.

The fight between ranking members of the Hells Angels and Set Free Soldiers was arranged beforehand, Capt. John Desmond, detective commander of the Newport Beach police, said at a press conference Monday morning.

"This was not a chance encounter," Desmond said.

Leaders of the Set Free Soldiers arrived first that Sunday afternoon, Desmond said.

When five members of the Hells Angels showed up at 1:45 p.m., 10 more Set Free Soldiers came out and surrounded them, Desmond said.

"We believe the Set Free Soldiers were possibly setting up members of the Hells Angels," said Sgt. Evan Sailor of the Newport Beach police.

There was a heated exchange, followed by a brawl that included a billiard ball thrown by a member of the Hells Angels, and two Hells Angels being stabbed, Desmond said.

Police responding to the scene stopped a car with three members of the Set Free Soldiers inside, along with two knives with blood still on the blade, Desmond said.

Police later learned there was a videotape of the entire incident, and were able to identify a number of suspects.

With that information, police obtained seven search warrants and 11 arrest warrants in Orange County and served them Aug. 6.

A warrant was also served on Set Free member Glenn Schoeman in Norco.

Set Free Soldier leader Phil Aguilar, Sr., along with his son Matthew John Aguilar, 29, a musician, and Michael Alan Timanus, 29, a laborer, were all charged Friday with weapons violations and "street terrorism." Club member Jose Enrique Quiñones was charged with attempted murder, and Schoeman was charged with accessory after the fact.

Other reputed Set Free members arrested but released without charges pending further investigation were Mark Randall Beavers, 52, David Leonard Bermeo, 33, and Jeremy Gaither, 28.

Aside from Requejo, three suspected Hells Angels members from Costa Mesa were arrested. John Phillip Lloyd, a 41-year-old tattoo artist was charged with weapons violations. Police said Lloyd was the Hells Angel that threw the billiard ball. Scott Michael Guinn, 23, was arrested on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance without a prescription, and Brian David Heslington, 35, was arrested on suspicion of possession of cocaine while armed; neither has been charged.

Police don't know the root of the disagreement that led to the July 27 brawl, Sailor said.

"We believe the Set Free Soldiers were possibly setting up members of the Hells Angels," Sailor said.

Police are investigating the groups for other possible criminal activities, Sailor said.

At the press conference Monday, police displayed scores of weapons seized at the two locations.

Police seized 20-plus handguns, 8-10 shotguns, several thousand rounds of ammunition, several rifles and numerous knives and daggers at the Hells Angels locations, and roughly the same number and class of weapons at the Set Free locations, along with several Tasers, they said.

More than 300 police personnel from the Newport Beach, Anaheim, Costa Mesa and Santa Ana police departments, along with the Orange County Sheriff's Department, District Attorney's office and Probation Department, the north county SWAT team, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Riverside Sheriff's Department and District Attorney's office have worked on the case.

Anonymous said...

i know those set free guys, the upper level guys are all crooks using it as a front, the leader has been ripping them all of for years.there is a church part of it that the followers attend that have no idea what is going on behind the scenes.

Anonymous said...

Wally, do you think the corrupt mexican politicans of Los Angeles are responsible for L.A. being the gang capital of the world? I read this great comment, over at my good friend, Joe Mailhandler's blog.

http://street-hassle.blogspot.com/

"We who talk politics a lot all know how Jose Huizar is generally incompetent and a school board stooge in the Mayor's machine, but this morning the Times' David Zahniser begins to spell out how. The backstory that Zahniser doesn't get into is that Tokofsky, Huizar, and yes, Pacheco, and even Monica Garcia all were activists at Berkeley way back when---before they met developers and land-use attorneys, whom they first saw as enablers but came to depend on for preserving power."

Drinking with Tony said...

"I look like a typical gang member," Enriquez says, "but I don't believe I'm a typical gangmember. I believe I'm a cut above the rest. As a mafioso, you have to be an elitist."


http://danielhernandez.typepad.com/daniel_hernandez/2008/06/defecting-from-the-mexican-mafia-rene-enriquez-tells-his-story.html

Open up large window to guaranty complete link.

Drinking with Tony said...

A TELLING COMMENT
Rene Enriquez says alliances within the gang began to fracture, and he began to have doubts about his life in the Mexican Mafia.

Anonymous said...

Wally, what do you think about Sheriff Baca taking extra steps to deport all those illegal aliens cholos in jail?

http://www.ladailyblog.blogspot.com/

Program to Find Illegal Immigrants in Jails Approved



Los Angeles -- A program intended to root out illegal immigrants in Los Angeles County jails will start specifically targeting gang members, following a vote Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.

On a motion by Supervisor Michael Antonovich, the board voted to direct Sheriff Lee Baca to modify his department's agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to ensure that known gang members receive priority for interviews that would determine their immigration status before their release from jail.

"Every known gang member who is on the list for an interview should be interviewed prior to release back into our communities," Antonovich said.

Inmates are already subject to an immigration interview if they are self declared to be foreign born, have been convicted and will serve out their sentence in a county jail as opposed to a state prison, said Anna Pembedjian, justice deputy for Antonovich.

Of those inmates, known gang members will now be at the front of the line for interviews, she said.

The move follows public outcry after the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw Jr., allegedly by a reputed gang member, whom authorities believe was in the country illegally.

The shooting occurred the day after the suspect was released from a county jail.

Shaw's parents were among the dozens of members of the public who requested to speak on the subject before the board voted in what quickly became the most heated and drawn-out portion of the meeting.

"We tell our kids that nationality and colors don't make a difference, but when you have the illegal alien gangbanger come in and killing his brother, or doing all kinds of harm to American citizens, it brings back up the color issue," Anita Shaw, Jamiel's mother, told the board. "Something has to be done."

Other members of the public spoke out against the immigration interviews, saying that they resulted in law enforcement officials targeting and deporting illegal immigrants who had committed only minor offenses.

Roughly 4,000 gang members are currently in county jails, according to Baca.

Los Angeles City Council continues to sit on their hands and see no evil, hear no evil, do nothing about no evil. Oh man, is L.A. City Council going down as a historic do-nothing, laughing stock of a bunch of inept and corrupt dummies.

[ZD says we are going to be living with this problem for quite a while on the streets because we DO NOT have the jail capacity to even scratch the surface -- AND WE WILL NOT HAVE THE JAIL SPACE FOR QUITE SOME TIME. But congratulations to Baca and Board of Supes for starting with this. YEAH, jail space is the problem and will continue to be the problem.

Anonymous said...

Hey, how come you don't write anything about Harry Potter.

Drinking with Tony said...

FROM PRATTERICO'S PONTIFICATIONS BLOG:

8/10/2008
On Friday morning, funeral services were held for another lawman:

Los Angeles County sheriff’s Deputy Juan Escalante, 27, was killed Saturday morning [August 2] in front of his family’s home in Cypress Park.

He had been a sheriff’s deputy for two-and-a-half years and guarded dangerous prisoners, including members of the Mexican Mafia, at the county’s Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles. Authorities are investigating whether his job may have led to his death.

I’d say that’s a pretty good guess, given that 1) Escalante had regular contact with Mexican Mafia members, and 2) the killing occurred in a neighborhood with well-documented ties to Eme, otherwise known as the Mexican Mafia.

The article says that at the time of the shooting, Escalante and his family (he left behind a wife and three children) were living with Escalante’s parents “at his childhood home in a gang-infested neighborhood in Cypress Park, but were about to buy a home in Pomona.” According to the article, the area of the shooting is in the territory of the Cypress Park and Avenues street gangs.

What the article does not say is that the Avenues in particular have very close ties to Eme. Recent years have seen state and federal prosecutions arising out of numerous orchestrated assassinations of people on the Mexican Mafia’s “greenlight list.” The Avenues have been involved in several of these killings.

Whether Escalante was on such a “greenlight” list remains to be seen. Previous articles suggest that he got along well with the prisoners he guarded. I have zero inside knowledge of Eme involvement, one way or the other.

But in my opinion, it’s the way to bet.

UPDATE: I’m hearing that the Mexican Mafia angle is thought unlikely. L.A. Times reporter Richard Winton told Pattt Morrison on KPCC that authorities don’t see an obvious connection.

http://patterico.com/2008/08/10/funeral-for-sheriffs-deputy-juan-escalante/#comments

Drinking with Tony said...

Newsday.com
Census report sees minorities becoming majority by 2042
BY OLIVIA WINSLOW

olivia.winslow@newsday.com

6:11 PM EDT, August 13, 2008

In a new report out Thursday, the U.S. Census Bureau projects the nation will become much more diverse by midcentury, with minorities forecast to become the majority population by 2042, experts said.

The growing national diversity is also a trend seen locally, particularly among Hispanics, experts said.

"It's already happening on Long Island," said Lee Koppelman, director of Stony Brook University's Center for Regional Policy Studies, citing the influx of Hispanics. Recently released census data estimate that Hispanic residents constitute 12.4 percent of Nassau County's population in 2007, up from 10 percent in 2000; and 13.3 percent of Suffolk County's in 2007, up from 10.5 percent in 2000.

"Hispanics are primarily drawn here by economic opportunity," Koppelman continued. "If the economy remains robust on Long Island, this population will continue to expand."

The Census Bureau projects that minorities, now roughly one-third of the nation's population, will become the majority by 2042, and grow to 54 percent by 2050. Hispanics are projected to nearly triple their numbers -- rising from an estimated 46.7 million today to just under 133 million by 2050, out of a projected total U.S. population of 439 million.

The black population is expected to rise from 41.1 million, or 14 percent of the nation's population today, to 65.7 million, or 15 percent by 2050. The Asian population is projected to rise from 15.5 million people now, or 5.1 percent of the U.S. population, to 40.6 million, or 9.2 percent, by 2050.

By contrast, non-Hispanic whites' share of the nation's population is projected to drop from 66 percent currently to 46 percent by 2050. Their population numbers are projected to remain stable, going from an estimated 199.8 million today, to 203.3 million by 2050.

Census officials also expect the nation's population to grow older, projecting that by 2050 one in five Americans will be age 65 and older.

Experts said the emerging demographic shift had social, economic and political implications.

On the housing front, for example, Gregory Maney, a Hofstra University sociology professor, said of the projections: "What it says is there are going to be more people who belong to minority groups looking for housing on Long Island. And basically that's going to create pressure to desegregate predominantly white areas. ... Can ethnic minority groups translate their greater numbers into greater political and legal power to challenge systemic discrimination in housing?"

Martin Cantor, director of Dowling College's Long Island Economic & Social Policy Institute, saw the potential for racial and ethnic tensions, saying, "What Long Islanders have to realize is that change is coming. Rather than being resistant to it, we have to make it work as smoothly as possible so the economy and the social fabric benefits."

Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.

Drinking with Tony said...

FROM THE WALLY WAS AWAY FILES
Mexican Mafia's roots run deep in San Gabriel Valley...

FROM: 02/10/2008 By Fred Ortega.

Ralph "Perico" Rocha and Rafael "Cisco" Gonzalez-Mu oz committed what is considered a mortal sin among the ranks of the dreaded Mexican Mafia prison gang: they encroached into the drug territory of a senior gang member.

Their transgression marked them for death according to county prosecutors, who in early December charged six individuals with trying to murder Rocha and Gonzalez-Mu oz on behalf of another "made" Mexican Mafia member, Jaques "Jocko" Padilla. The six, including Padilla's wife, La Puente resident Maria "Lola" Llantada, are in L.A. County Jail awaiting a March 7 court date.

Despite the arrests, Rocha and Gonzalez-Mu oz are likely still in mortal danger; sheriff's officials have confirmed that Rocha was shot last week in the Norwalk area. His injuries were minor, however, and he was treated from a local hospital and released.

Law enforcement investigators and gang associates say the Llantada case, along with a spate of other Mexican Mafia-related cases over the past year, illustrate the influence exerted across vast swaths of the San Gabriel Valley by the prison gang, also known as La Eme. The cases also show that the pilfering of "taxes" on drugs by rival gangs is behind many cases of Eme-related violence, which has plagued the area for decades.

LOCAL ROOTS

Law enforcement experts trace the birth of La Eme - named for the Spanish pronunciation of the letter "M" - to 1957, when a small group of juvenile gangsters from East Los Angeles banded together for protection at the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy.

Since then, the group has grown to include between 200 and 400 "made" members and is considered the most powerful prison-based gang in California, controlling narcotics distribution inside and outside prison walls and enforcing its edicts on the streets through murders and mayhem carried out by members of affiliated street gangs, which number in the tens of thousands.

"If your gang is from Southern California, you are going to answer to the Eme," said a former Mexican Mafia associate from the Norwalk area who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation.

And the San Gabriel Valley has long been the Eme's backyard. The first murder attributed to the Eme beyond prison walls occurred in late 1971 in Monterey Park, according to declassified FBI documents, when Mexican Mafia member Alfonso "Pachie" Alvarez was found shot twice in the head in a secluded city park. His offense: collecting taxes on narcotics dealers without kicking up the profits to Eme leaders behind bars, known in the gang as "Big Homies" or Emeros.

As early as 1974, according to the FBI documents, the Eme had carved the San Gabriel Valley into seven districts for "the organized trafficking of narcotics." The territories were named for the communities they encompassed - Chapman Woods, Arcadia, Temple City, El Monte, Santa Fe Springs and Whittier - and were each assigned to a different Emero, who was in charge of collecting taxes on gangs and drug dealers operating in the area.

"Based on our intelligence they take about one-third" of the profits from criminal activity in their territories, said Guillermo Moreno, a special agent for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation who specializes in La Eme.

Crossing a powerful figure

Moreno characterized Jocko Padilla, who is serving time in Corcoran State Prison, as one of the most high-ranking Eme members in the San Gabriel Valley.

Padilla was originally an Azusa gangster, but was granted control of the La Puente area based on his relationship with his wife, said L.A. sheriff's Homicide Detective Brian Steinwand, who investigated the Llantada case.

"Llantada was from the La Puente area, so when the families got together, that whole La Puente area became his," said Steinwand.

It is not uncommon for Eme members' wives or girlfriends to control their territories once they become incarcerated, said Moreno.

"It is always someone they trust, and most of the time it is going to be a girlfriend or wife because they start helping them out during their visits, doing stuff for them," he said.

Detectives investigating the 2006 shooting of a Valinda man by alleged gang associates stumbled onto Llantada's proxy control of the La Puente drug territory, and the murder conspiracy against Rocha and Gonzalez-Mu oz.

"We heard from informants that (Rocha and Gonzalez-Mu oz) were encroaching on La Puente and surrounding neighborhoods," said Steinwand. "We heard rumors that (Padilla) controlled parts of Baldwin Park or El Monte but we have also heard of other Eme members controlling those areas. As far as the actual boundaries (of drug territories), I don't think they even know what they are."

The blurry nature of the rules of criminal enterprise, combined with rivalries between different hierarchies within the Eme and old-fashioned greed, often escalate into internecine rivalry within the Mexican Mafia, as it did in the Llantada case, investigators said.

Federal versus state

Steinwand said Gonzalez-Mu oz was from La Puente and was part of a clique of the Puente Trece street gang before he became a full-blown Eme member in federal prison. Trece, Spanish for the number 13, is a moniker used by gangs swearing allegiance to the Eme - M is the 13th letter of the alphabet.

Rocha is the more senior of the two. Like Gonzalez-Mu oz, Rocha, originally from the Norwalk area, became an Eme member in the federal penitentiary system, after he was indicted on federal racketeering charges along with high-ranking Eme members like Benjamin "Topo" Peters, Ruben "Nite Owl" Castro, Raymond "Huero Shy" Shyrock and Randy "Cowboy" Therrien.

But the fact that both were "made" in the federal prison system automatically put them in a position of competition - and subservience - with state prison-based Emeros like Padilla, Moreno said.

"The state prison guys were the founders of the original Mexican Mafia, so they have more power in California - and in La Puente," said Moreno. "And you are not supposed to disrespect any family member of an Emero, so she (Llantada) should not have been disrespected since she was working for (Padilla)."

Making a move

But prosecutors say that is exactly what Gonzalez-Mu oz and Rocha did upon being released from federal prison in early 2007. Officials with the DA's Office would not comment on how much drug tax money the two intercepted, but at least two former gang associates said Perico and Cisco pilfered tens of thousands of dollars from drug dealers in Padilla's territory.

"Norwalk and surrounding barrios are dry right now and the San Gabriel Valley is still a good earner for the Eme so Perico moved in," said the former Eme associate from Norwalk, who said he is related to a deceased Eme member. "A Big Homie like Jocko would control his surrounding area like Puente, Bassett, El Monte, Covina, Bolen Parque (Baldwin Park). So what (angered) Jocko was that Perico was moving in on his turf."

He said drug dealers in the area, and even legitimate businesses including a tow company owner, had been visited by Rocha's associates as recently as two weeks before the Llantada arrests.

"They would say, `The Big Homie Perico has the blessing of' and would name Jocko or another well-known Emero, and these guys out of fear would kick up (the tax)," the associate said.

It is a common tactic employed by Eme members or associates while encroaching on one another's turf, said Steinwand.

"Drug dealers are paying one guy because he is Eme, and then another comes and tells them they have to pay him now," he said.

An official with the DA's Office involved in the case likened the tactics used by Mexican Mafia members against one another to a hostile corporate takeover.

"Control of territory, narcotics sales and prostitution are very important to these criminal organizations," said the prosecutor, who declined to be identified for security reasons. "It is analogous to a corporation. If they are vulnerable to being taken over, they can be taken over. It is all about the money."

Marked for death

Rocha and Gonzalez-Mu oz apparently miscalculated Padilla's influence. Prosecutors allege that Padilla gave his wife permission to target the two by issuing a "greenlight" - gang parlance for an assassination order - from prison. They believe Padilla used family members to sneak out a "kite," a small paper note with his orders printed in miniature writing on them, in order to ensure the hit.

And despite the disruption of the hit, those orders apparently still stand.

"Word on the street is that Perico is still `off the (reservation),' a target," said the Eme associate.

And that could be why Rocha was shot last week. Sheriff's officials would not release details about the incident, only to say that they received a call Friday night about a shooting involving Rocha. He was uncooperative with detectives when they interviewed him, and he was treated for minor injuries and released the same day.

Steinwand would not speculate on whether the shooting was related to the greenlight issued by Padilla.

"I have no idea," he said. "This guy is involved in so much (criminal activity), it's hard to tell."

Still on the streets

While prosecutors disrupted the alleged murder plans by Llantada and her co-conspirators, Rocha and Gonzalez-Mu oz are still free and possibly continuing their criminal activities, in apparent violation of the conditions of their supervised release.

And like the Emero that they allegedly crossed, the two have been convicted of serious crimes. Rocha was rolled up along with other high-ranking Eme members in one of the first federal racketeering indictments of the Mexican Mafia in 1994, accused in court documents of attending Eme business meetings, drug dealing, ordering the stabbing of a rival gangster and conspiring to murder others.

Gonzalez-Mu oz was indicted in 2002 of stabbing a fellow federal inmate on behalf of the Aryan Brotherhood, a white prison gang which is allied with the Mexican Mafia.

Both had served their sentences by 2007 and happened to find themselves as the targets, and not the aggressors, in the Llantada case, said one sheriff's official involved in the investigation.

"They were the would-be victims and we did not target them in the investigation," said Lt. Pat Nelson of the sheriff's Homicide Division. He said that information about the case had been passed on to federal officials.

Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, could not comment on whether officials were investigating the two for possible violations of their conditions of release.

Ongoing influence

The Llantada case is only the latest example of the influence that the Eme wields in the San Gabriel Valley.

In April 2006, four men were arrested in Pomona in connection with an attempted Mexican Mafia contract killing. Their trial is scheduled for this year.

Last November, reputed Emero Frank "Frankie B" Buelna, 61, was shot to death in a Pomona sports bar. Buelna was reputed to have broad power within the Mexican Mafia, and officials are still investigating the motive behind his killing. The perpetrators are still at large.

And in December, reputed Eme member Eulalio "Lalo" Martinez, 46, was charged with ordering the killing of former gang member Donald "Pato" Schubert in Rosemead in 1998. In that case, prosecutors allege that Martinez runs the Lomas Rosemead street gang from Pelican Bay State Prison, where he has been incarcerated for the past 15 years.

La Eme's deep roots in the San Gabriel Valley became clearly evident to Steinwand, the sheriff's homicide investigator, when he moved to the Industry Station from the South Central Los Angeles area early in his career.

"Over there in South Central when there were orders from the Eme to stop drive-bys, guys would go out and do five of them in one night just to spite them," said Steinwand, who has been a detective for 18 years. "But they have a lot more control on this side of the 710 (Freeway).

"When I came to work at the Industry Station, it was amazing," he added. "When the Eme said something, (the gangs) listened."

Fred Ortega

don quixote said...

What a f’’’’g mess the Calif State Prisons are, taken over by the Federal Courts because of draconian conditions. 8 billion dollars to fix the mess?

Celeste Freemon at Witness LA nails the Republicans to the wall and with good reason.
All this sound and fury calling for stricter sentencing, get tough on crime, 3 strikes = life in joint (even for stealing a piece of pizza or a bicycle), now we have some nutty segments of society calling for a special law mandating the LAPD to target Latinos who look like gang members, can you say “unconstitutional profiling of people”.
In the last 25 years billions of dollars were spent and made by the prison industrial complex and almost 30 new prisons were built in California while a paltry 3 colleges were constructed.

And the little money spent on intervention and programs for at risk youth are constantly under attack as wasted money by the nay Sayers and right-wingers who at the same time scream about getting tough on crime.
What a cockamamie screwed up mess they’ve gotten us into.


SACRAMENTO -- The court-appointed overseer for healthcare in state prisons moved Wednesday to seize $8 billion from the California treasury, asking a federal judge to hold Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and California Controller John Chiang in contempt of court.

The LA Times, which has some of the best reporting on the issue, quotes one such Republican hold out.

“Is Clark Kelso out of his mind?” state Sen. Jeff Denham (R-Atwater) asked in a news release Wednesday mocking the receiver. “The idea of providing $8 billion for state-of-the-art healthcare for murderers like Charles Ng, Richard Allen Davis and Scott Peterson is sheer lunacy.”

From Celeste Freemon, Witness LA,

Here’s the thing, Jeff— (may I call you, Jeff?)—When you lock people up, you have no choice but to provide health care for them, especially when they get old, sick and infirm. If you’re not fond of this plan, try instituting sentencing reform so you have fewer people in prison to house, feed and doctoring

Drinking with Tony said...

LAST CALL ON PATO

FROM: Thursday, 24 January 2008
Eulalio "Lalo" Martinez, Daniel Ahumada, and Lomas Rosemead street gang.

By Royal Spot

Donald "Pato" Schubert was shot to death in the carport of his apartment building in the San Gabriel Valley city of Rosemead.
A member of the Lomas Rosemead street gang pleaded guilty to killing Schubert, a plumber and former gang member.
With that, the case was filed away, forgotten by nearly everyone except Schubert's family.
Then, earlier this month, the case suddenly returned to life. At a hearing in Pasadena Superior Court guarded by a dozen deputies, including two SWAT officers, a judge ordered , 46, a reputed member of the Mexican Mafia prison gang, to stand trial for Schubert's killing.
Martinez has sat in a "maximum-security cell" at Pelican Bay State Prison for nearly 15 years.
But law enforcement officers and gang members say he controls the Lomas Rosemead street gang, ordering members to funnel him taxes collected from local drug dealers and directing killings, often by using notes with micro-writing -- known as kites -- smuggled out of the cellblock.
If proved, the case against him would support a belief widely held by law enforcement officers and gang members that many homicides that appear to be simple street-gang fights are instead contract murders ordered by members of the Mexican Mafia, known as the Eme, Spanish for M.
The case is noteworthy because rarely are Eme members prosecuted for street homicides. Often, any link between a specific killing and the Eme is obscure.
Moreover, once an actual triggerman is prosecuted, investigators often have no time to dig further into why the crime was committed. Even when a detective believes there's something more to a killing, a link is often hard to prove.
The case against Martinez, for example, relies on the words of three convicted murderers, one a former Eme member and another a crack dealer who said he once saw a note from Martinez ordering Schubert's death. No such note is in evidence in the case.
Much of the case hinges on Daniel Ahumada, the crack dealer and Lomas gang member who pleaded guilty to killing Schubert. Recently, Ahumada, serving 15 years to life in prison, has come forward to implicate others, including Martinez.
At the recent hearing, Martinez's lawyer, Michael Belter, said the case constructs only a "very tenuous link" to Martinez by "three men who have every motive in the world" to lie. "We have no physical evidence. We have faded memories," he said.
Through a family member, Martinez declined a request for an interview.
Despite the difficulty of proving a link between street killings and the prison gang, the reality of such ties is taken as true by many law enforcement officials and gang members who say the Eme has gained control over street gangs in the last 15 years.
"Usually when an Eme member has a neighborhood sewn up, there's no gang slaying that's not approved" by him, said a Lomas gang member who said he was Martinez's lieutenant on the streets briefly a few years ago. The man, like several others interviewed, spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation from the gang.
Gang members do the Eme's bidding out of either fear or adulation for men they've usually never seen and know only as the "big homies," gang members say.
"The gangs don't run the gangs no more," said a Lomas Rosemead gang member who is doing time in state prison. "Everything's getting run from inside here."
Law enforcement officials say that with gang members as its street soldiers, the Mexican Mafia has evolved into a region-wide organized crime syndicate. The Eme collects taxes from drug dealers and sometimes prostitutes and even unlicensed ice cream vendors on the street.
They also say the gang orders murders on the streets and riots in county jails and thus is a force affecting public policy far beyond prison walls.
"The average gang killing is not always a gang killing," said Rene Enriquez, a long-time Eme member who dropped out in 2002 and is in prison in protective custody. The Eme "has this mythical ability to get people to do its bidding."
A veteran homicide detective believes that included the killing of Pato Schubert. Sheriff's Det. Frank Gonzales, a year from retirement now, has delved into unsolved killings in the Lomas Rosemead barrio for 13 years.
Several of the homicides appeared to be simple street-gang killings, he said. "On the surface, they all looked that way," Gonzales said. "Until you had sources, you would think it was a regular gang murder. But fortunately, people opened up."
Gonzales believes Martinez ordered half a dozen murders, though he declines to name them, saying he hopes to have charges filed over the next year.
Schubert's killing is the first to go to court.
Lomas Rosemead is a Mexican American gang dating to the 1950s and based in the poor neighborhood covering the hills above Rosemead, an unincorporated piece of L.A. County territory that had neither sidewalks nor sewers until the 1980s.
The gang and barrio were profiled in Luis Rodriguez's classic 1993 book on Latino street gangs, "Always Running."
Rodriguez, a former Lomas member, described an insular barrio with a gang that warred with other San Gabriel Valley rivals but took orders only from others in the neighborhood. At that time, the idea that anyone would kill a fellow gang member who wasn't a snitch was unthinkable.
At first, as Gonzales investigated shootings in the neighborhood, he got nowhere. Gonzales grew up in a Mexican barrio and knows that kids growing up in such neighborhoods learn early not to talk to police officers. Cultivating sources took years.
"A lot of times it doesn't happen in the first meeting or thesecond, third or fourth meeting. They're going to test your credibility, your word," Gonzales said. "You think 'this interview I'm going to learn a lot,' and you walk away with nothing. But you keep on trying."
Through the years, as Gonzales looked for a friendly face in Lomas, the Eme extended its control over the neighborhood. Loyalty to friends was supplanted by loyalty to the Mexican Mafia. Barrio gang unity dissolved. As years passed, more Lomas gang members died.
"They were killing each other off," said Det. Ruben "B.J." Bejarano, who has worked on the cases with Gonzales in recent years.
People in the neighborhood "didn't know who to trust any more," Gonzales said. "More and more people were being killed from within the gang. As I kept knocking on doors, they were telling me about other unsolved murders" believed connected to Martinez.
The detective now believes that on Martinez's orders, Lomas Rosemead gang members began turning on homeboys who were lifelong friends.
"I believe they weren't doing the work he wanted done," Gonzales said.
The killings, say the detectives and several current and former gang members, may also have stemmed from Martinez's desire to punish people he believed responsible for the murders during the 1990s of his brothers, Avelardo and Genaro.
"It was common knowledge among a lot of members that he wanted people responsible for killing his brother [Avelardo] to be killed," said Enriquez, the former Eme member.
"He wanted other people to do it for him."
"It's saving face. He cannot let anybody kill his family member and get away with it," said another long-time gang member and Eme associate. "He was very hard line."
Gonzales believes Schubert may have given a ride to a man who helped kill Martinez's brother, Avelardo, without knowing the killing had just taken place.
Martinez was due to be paroled from prison in September, after serving 14 years for robbery. Hours before the parole, Gonzales faxed to prison authorities the case charging him with Schubert's death.

By Royal Spot

Anonymous said...

Whenever the laws of any state are broken, a duly authorized organization swings into action. It may be called the State Police, State Troopers, Militia, the Rangers... or the Highway Patrol. These are the stories of the men whose training, skill and courage have enforced and preserved our state laws.

Anonymous said...

InTheHat is a now a great blog, with Don Quackers and his buddies talking to himself and telling us how the gavachos and republicans have made a mess of prisons and every loser's life who is there.

Maybe some of the losers in prison and in the streets should take some responsibilty for their own lives and crimes.

Wouldn't that be a novel idea to have people be responsible for themselves and not expect the gavachos and republicans to control their lives.

Anonymous said...

StillNoScript said...
I'm also convinced TJ Jailer had a lot to do with In The Hat.com.

I also believe Wally/Tony Rafael was "N", that guy spewing that deep racist shit about blacks and how Surenos are going to take over California, etc. Writing style is almost identical. Where I was really convinced, in fact, is when "N" started talking about the LA City Council wasting tax payer time and money on a symbolic Iraq vote. Wally's blog entry a few years earlier read like it, almost word for word.

Rafael a racist, then? I don't think so. I think it was just another way for him to stir up shit and keep the hits coming to his blog.

And, I know I shouldn't feed the king of sarcasm, but for the umpteenth time, I never said that poverty was the only reason for gang violence.

February 2, 2008 9:43 PM

So after Wally spewed a bunch of racial shit, and you know you shouldn't feed the king of sarcasm, you're back over there trying to get on his nuts now?

Anonymous said...

StillNoScript said...
Not to butt in on your guys' DQ circle jerk, but did anyone read Wally's latest entry? What a fucking baby, man! Stalker? Does anyone else find it funny that a pro coppy type like him would use a word usually used to describe violent x boyfriends, etc, to describe people posting under his name? Talk about working the victim card. My god. Philosophically, I never saw much eye to eye with Wall/Rafael. But I always thought he was a great writer with intriguing information. Now, my respect for him is just about gone. I have no idea what this guy is truly about. Does anyone else want to doubt me now that his entire Mexican Mafia kick was just bidding for the right wing, anti immigration crowd? I mean, shit, the money trail's already there regarding his book publishing. No tough cop guy who covers gangs for a living would ever fancy himself as being "stalked". Such a self emasculating term. I think the smarmy neo con yuppy just revealed himself.

Gava Joe said...

All this sniping is straight out of Grade School ,boys. You guys need to learn to suck it up and just get along. All these old bytes are just that - old. But isn't Mother Digital sumthin??

I'd be interested to know what posture our Boy Wally is going to roll with here? WE're all in agreeance the dude's a helluva scribe, can relate that street pedo.

I personally would suck up like Sunday morning menudo any ruminations he could glean as regards the rumors of a merger between the Big Three. Kind of like a New High Commission, little Appalachia kinda-deal? Is this credible/ Anyone?