TOM HAYDEN’S STREET WARS
While I applaud Tom Hayden’s effort to bring public attention to the gang culture in his new book, STREET WARS, I’ve got some problems with a lot of what he cites as "fact" and "history" and even bigger problems with some of his baffling conclusions.

Hayden has been at the forefront of a lot of radical movements, most notably his opposition to the war in Viet Nam. In his zeal to end the war, he traveled to North Viet Nam as the bullets were flying and appeared in North Vietnamese radio making statements about America that some have characterized as treasonous. His wife, Jane Fonda, allowed herself to be photographed laughing and smiling as she sat in a VC anti-aircraft gun pointed skywards. That famous picture which millions of American citizens and soldiers found revolting forever marked her in the public consciousness as HANOI JANE.

Using the millions that Fonda made in her exercise tapes, Hayden launched a political career that eventually landed him in the California State Senate.

I don’t know as much as I should about Hayden or Fonda, but I do know a whole lot about LA street gangs. So when I first heard of his gang book project a year ago, I was keenly interested to read his take. Hayden has been teaching a course about the gang culture at Occidental College while researching the book and, given the luxury of ample research time and the human resources his vast wealth can afford, I was looking forward to a lot of fresh information and insights. As my readers know, I run inthehat as a part timer. And I can only fantasize about having the sort of money and time that Hayden can afford to spend on this subject.

So when the book showed up in the mail from Amazon, I was primed for a great read and new info. Man, was I disappointed.

Up front, Hayden tells us that "This book is about what I call inner-city peacemakers." Fair enough. But there’s precious little in it about peacemakers. When he comes to the actual brokering of a peace treaty (between Santa Monica and Culver City), he drops the ball. He gets the two factions in his office, brings in Blinky Rodriguez to act as mediator, and then walks out and closes the door to let them work it out alone. The actual mechanics of brokering a truce is left completely unexamined. The LA Times review of Street Wars cites the same flaw. The reviewer was as puzzled as I am. That should have been the heart of the book. How do you get groups who have been shooting each other for decades to drop the "get even?" Hayden doesn't outline or even suggest a plan except to provide "public sector jobs" for dropout gang members. What happened in that meeting? How do you break the cycle? If it works, put in the book so others can replicate it. Sorry kids, no game plan available from Hayden.

There are huge problems with this book beyond that. He gets stuff factually wrong. For instance, he states that "under gang injunctions, there is no right to a lawyer for the indigent." This is false. The indigent always have rights to a lawyer. In fact, at a time when the LA County DA’s office has a hiring freeze and the County closed 27 courts and laid off 250 staffers, the Public Defender’s office has had one staff loss (due to attrition and not a lay off) and the budget has remained the same. In addition, elsewhere in the book he states that indigent defendants don’t have government-paid investigators until the Federal appellate process. This is also false. In cases of sufficient gravity like murder or ADW, indigents can get free investigators right at the County level during the original court case. They don’t have to wait for the federal appeals process to qualify for an investigator.

And there are countless large and small errors, either of omission or worse. The one that really got me scratching my head was his take on the EME’s policy initiative of vertical integration that started in the early 90s.

One of Hayden’s peacemakers, Manny Lares from MS (Mara Salvatrucha) attended the famous EME come-to-Jesus meetings in September 1993 in Elysian Park organized by Ernesto "Chuco" Castro. First of all, Hayden only acknowledges that single meeting in September. The fact is, Chuco organized numerous meetings. Hayden kind of fudges the sequence of events and the purpose of the meetings.

According to Hayden, the Eme called the meetings of street gang representatives to lay down the law about ending drive-by shootings. Which is correct. But that was only one of the items on that Eme policy initiative. There were others. First off, the law was "no more drive-bys." But that didn’t mean no more killings. It was not a truce of any kind. It was the new rules of engagement. The full story was that killings, whether personal or business related, were now to be done at close range and face to face. "Walk-ups," in the language of gangs. In Hayden’s language, Chuco was sent by the EME to "manage the widening war." The key word here is "manage," not "stop."

The rest of the items on the Eme agenda Hayden covers off by quoting Lares who simply says that Chuco Castro was talking, "a lot of high-powered bullshit." Well the "bullshit" was this. Chuco told the assembled gangsters that from that day on, all gangs in Southern California had to become Surenos, which meant swearing allegiance to the Eme. Furthermore, all gangs had to pay tribute (street taxes) to Eme shot callers in their neighborhoods. The Eme wanted complete vertical integration, from the street all the way up to the SHU in Pelican Bay. It was a move to consolidate power. Hayden mentions none of this. And in one instance, distorts the purpose of the Eme meetings beyond recognition.

Hayden says that the Eme’s demand that the MS cough up $5000 to them in order to take the greenlight off MS was a "moment of inclusion." When somebody asks you to pay up or be killed, it’s not an opportunity for "inclusion," whatever that is. It’s pure extortion. This is the way Hayden describes extortion. "Lifting the greenlight meant that the first tentative ‘moment of inclusion’ (his quotes) was allowed by Mexican gangs toward their rivals among Salvadoran immigrants in places like Pico-Union." How much more wrong could Hayden get it? He makes it sound like an outreach program. It was pure and simple extortion. Pay up or get wasted.

A lot of neighborhoods resisted, including the MS. Maravilla was a long-time hold out as was Lowell, Opal and TRGs. They remained "always verde," always green and subject to "enforcement" by any Sureno that wanted to put in work and earn a stripe. Later some Maravilla sets were taken off the hit list because they became Surenos and ditufully paid their tribute.

That resistance to taxation and allegiance led to more violence, not less, because there was now an official Eme policy and failure to obey meant open season.

Hayden’s characterization of the meeting is, "The message of the day was to stop the violence, which Manny’s neighborhood already had begun to do." Wrong again, the message of the day was 1) walk ups, 2) allegiance to Eme, 3) taxation. In fact, if Hayden had done his homework, he would know that in an FBI surveillance tape, Dan "Black Dan" Barella said succinctly. "If you want to down them, down them. All I’m saying is don’t drive by." Barella and a lot of other Carnals met almost weekly with Ernie Castro in a motel in Rosemead. Castro's edicts to the street gangs came right out of these policy meetings with the Big Homies.

Hayden just barely touches on this change in the rules of engagement. "If there was business to take care of, it would follow the older tradition of one-on-one battles." Which is correct but also contradicts his earlier statement that the "message of the day was to stop the violence." Has anybody proof read this book?

In November of 1993, Chuco Castro was arrested for a parole violation that would have landed him in Federal prison for life. This is Hayden’s description of the event. "In November 1993, shortly after the Elysian Park gathering, police raided Chuco’s Alhambra home, shovels in hand, and dug up guns buried beneath the place. Perhaps the guns were his, perhaps not, but Chuco was in big trouble as an ex-con, drug addict, and active member of La Eme since 1983."

There’s some factual errors here and a thorough lack of research into the crucial event that precipitated the biggest Federal RICO case in LA history against the Eme. First of all, the cops didn’t need shovels to find the guns. The guns, along with dope, wilas, greenlight lists and thousands of dollars in cash were stashed in a cement-lined bunker under a trap door in Castro’s bedroom closet. The raid cops never had shovels. And Hayden never mentions the dope, documents and cash. And indeed the guns were Chuco’s. One of the weapons, a full-auto MAC 10, was confiscated by CHUCO at one of the Elysian Park meetings from an ARMENIAN POWER shot caller in attendance. CHUCO’s palace guard disarmed everybody before they went into the park. He didn't want any objections to taxation and allegiance by means of bullets directed at the speaker. CHUCO actually gangster-slapped the AP homie after the MAC 10 was confiscated. The cops know all this because they were there recording everything that happened. Video footage of the Elysian Park meeting showed up on local LA TV soon after. And, contrary to Hayden’s claim that information about Chuco is "shrouded in mystery," the surveillance tapes were entered into evidence at the RICO trial and are available to any citizen from the Federal Court in downtown LA for the sum of $20. It’s public information.

Worse yet, Hayden is implying that the cops planted the guns in Chuco’s house. I interviewed the cops on that raid. I’ve seen the property report of the items confiscated. I’ve seen the pictures. Again, all part of the discovery evidence used in the trial and also public information. Throwing mud at cops when it’s undeserved is just sleazy. And just to round out the picture, most of the cops on that raid were Hispanic, and a lot of them grew up in the same neighborhoods as the homies they arrest. One of those cops that Hayden implicitly accuses of planting evidence, has been a foster father to 17 at-risk kids plucked from abusive gang families. He took them into his home and with the help of his wife and natural children, steered them away from the gang life that was ready to destroy them. You know, the typical evil cop who only wants to slam kids in prison.

Hayden’s book is so chock full of this kind of misinformation, incomplete information, factual mistakes and sleazy implications that it would take a whole book to set him straight. I’ll probably post more about this book, but in general, STREET WARS does a real disservice to the reader, the cops, the genuine peacekeepers and ultimately, to the very people Hayden professes to care about, the kids catching bullets.

The gang culture is operating at full throttle. Kids -- black, brown, white, asian, innocent and not so -- are dying every day, not just in LA but all over the country. It has to stop. Everybody agrees on that. Especially the young people on the barrel end of the gun.

Gangsters aren’t born evil. They’re manufactured. The big question is by whom, why and how do we stop it. To fix the problem, let’s at least start with not distorting history. Laying out conspiracy theories, falsehoods and bogus accusations to advance a political agenda, as Hayden clearly does, should qualify as its own crime.

OXNARD OKAYS THE INJUNCTION
Just before I left for the wilds of Utah, the DA in Oxnard was fighting to have a gang injunction imposed against the COLONIA CHIQUES. There was some doubt it would happen. Going through my backlog of clippings and downloads, apparently the injunction was imposed and coppers started handing out copies to individual gang members. As of June 9, seven individuals have been given copies of the injunction that bars them from gathering in public within a specified "safety zone." To be enforced, a copy of the injunction has to be served to individuals and they have to sign for it so there's proof they've been informed. As a result, a lot of CCs are making themselves scarce. If you can't find them, you can't serve them.

Cops and the DA claim that by individuals disappearing, the injunction is already having a positive effect by getting active members off the streets, even if it isn't served to everyone on the list. Injunction violators can face a $1000 fine and 6 months in county.

This injunction is temporary, but the DA will appear before a judge in August to try to make it permanent. We'll see how it works out.

In the past, the LAPD claims success when they applied injunctions to Blythe Street, 18th Street and other neighborhoods. Some people, most notably civil libertarians, activists and gang advocates, claim that injunctions infringe on civil rights. One objection is that an injunction makes it illegal for cousins or relatives to even hang out in a bar if they're members of the same neighborhood. Or that an ex-banger doing gang intervention work is technically breaking the law by going around the 'hood trying to talk sense to the homies from his former set. These are valid points.

Interestingly, though, Father Greg Boyle, who's been a long-time opponent to injunctions had a change of heart some time back. When Chief Bratton asked for and got an injunction covering an East LA neighborhood, Boyle blessed it as a good thing. He said the day after the injunction was issued, his office was filled with homies asking for jobs and claiming to quit the set. My sense is that these guys weren't so much "scared" into dropping out but actually relieved to have a way out without a lot of negative set politics and loss of pride. As in, "I can't kick it with you no more because I can't afford to go to jail." It's an easy back door out and sort of a graceful exit. Let's face it. If you're banging for any amount of time, the anxiety, fear, and constantly having to prove how down you are gets fucking old. Especially when you see the hardest, downest, illest, brick-hard pelons end up in prison, dead or in a wheelchair for life. If I've heard this from one guy, I've heard it from a hundred. It's a shit life and if they see an injunction as a semi-honorable way out, then it may be a worthwhile tool. Even if it crunches right up against Constitutional rights.

BACK FROM THE ROAD
No, I haven't been abducted by aliens. Thanks for all the concerned emails from regular readers. I'm fine and back in LA after almost two weeks of traveling around the Southwest. I've been working on non-gang related projects and I can see by the emails that I've got a lot of catching up to do. I especially appreciate the kind words from my European readers. And I don't mean just you Brits. I thank the European educational system for creating multi-lingual, interested readers from Denmark, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and Romania. Oddly, I've yet to hear from a French or German reader.

From the emails, I gather that while every Euro knows about the Bloods and Crips, there's very little coverage of Hispanic street gangs and prison gangs like the EME, NUESTRA FAMILIA, FRESNO BULLDOGS and white prison gangs like the NAZI LOW RIDERS and ARYAN BROTHERHOOD. I suspect the popularity of black gangster rap is probably the main reason for the high level of awareness of black gangs. As I mentioned in the past, Hispanic gangster rap has yet to make it into the public consciousness here in the U.S. so it stands to reason it hasn't made it to Europe. Maybe KNIGHTOWL and LIL CUETE should organize a European tour and put SURENO RAP on the European cultural landscape.

Stay tuned. As soon as I get a chance to go through some of the electronic and paper mail, I'll be back shortly with some fresh posts.

RETURN WITH US NOW TO SLEEPY LAGOON
If you fancy yourself a gang scholar or historian of street crime and criminal organizations, the Sleepy Lagoon murder case looms large as a defining moment in the creation of the gang culture as we know it. If you go up to the 17th Floor of the Criminal Courts Building, the floor where most of the DAs toil, along with the photo murals of the Black Dahlia case, Charles Manson, and the Keating Savings and Loan case, you'll also see images of the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial.

A lot of disturbing realities arose from that murder prosecution. One was the less that wonderful police work done by the LAPD. It was a time in American history before Miranda rights, free public defenders and when cops used their fists to "encourage" suspects to confess.

The other disturbing thing LA citizens learned from the trial coverage was the budding gang culture.

The combination of cops behaving in an extra-judicial manner and street gangs behaving in their usual anti-social ways makes it almost impossible for a modern researcher to figure out exactly what happened the night of August 1, 1942 and who killed JOSE DIAZ. The investigation and court proceedings were anything but orderly by modern standards. Add to that mix the social activists and defense lawyers (in some cases they were one and the same) who blamed the murder on everyone from William Randolph Hearst, to Mexican Sinarquists and Adolf Hitler and what you’re left with is an impenetrable stew of facts, conjecture and hare-brained opinions. Remember, the case ran from August 1942 until early 1943. At the time, given the fear of Japanese gas attacks, real German saboteurs, racist Isolationists, openly Communist organizations with their own post-war agenda, war profiteers, hoarders and every color of the political spectrum screaming for attention, people were seeing conspiracies inside every linen closet.

While activists and social commentators were busy looking for the "big" reasons behind the murder of Jose Diaz and fans of Uncle Joe Stalin were looking for the underlying "American imperialist pathology" to explain the actions of what ultimately was acknowledged as a 38th Street gang rumble, nobody at the time seemed to notice that the gang culture had arrived. And it wasn’t going away.

Back then, Hispanic gangsters were called Pachucos. And in contrast to today’s shave-headed, tattooed street soldiers, the Pachuco gangsters opted for the flashy Zoo Suit as their outward symbol of affiliation.

Granted, not everybody who wore a Zoot was a criminal. Lots of jazz musicians, including Cab Calloway wore the Zoot as a hipster’s icon. So did a lot of jazz fans. Same things goes today, of course. Not everybody with a shaved head and wife-beater T-shirt is a gangster.


Only through the benefit of hindsight do we see that the people who first rang the alarm about organized street gangs were correct in their assessment. And the alarm ringers weren’t just cops. A lot of them were Hispanic social organizations that viewed Hispanic street gangs as a threat to the Hispanic community’s progress towards assimilation.


It’s hard to imagine, but at the time, activists, reformers and others refused to acknowledge these youth groups as gangs. They actively resisted the term. People like Guy Endore and Carey MacWilliams described the young people in the neighborhoods as "frolicsome youth," "high-spirited youngsters," "downy-cheeked youngsters," and they described the ongoing gang fights as "nights of revelry." Endore never budged from his opinion even after events like the 1942 murder of Frank Torres from Clanton Street. Three suspects from a rival neighborhood shot him outside the LA Coliseum after an all-city track meet. A riot broke out between neighborhoods and while Torres was the only fatality, a lot of heads were broken before cops restored order. Clanton, as we know, is still an active gang with a lot of sets. The term "frolicsome" and murder are rarely uttered in the same breath.

By the time of Diaz’ homicide, the reality of "neighborhoods" and neighborhood warfare was already well-established. The people who were accused of killing Jose Diaz called themselves 38th Street and sometimes as the P-38s, in honor of the twin-engined fighter aircraft that was wreaking havoc in the skies over Germany and the Pacific. At the time of Diaz’ killing, 38th Street was already feuding with Downey. 38th Street is still around today. Downey morphed into a number of different neighborhoods.

The neighborhoods that went to war against the servicemen during the downtown Zoot Suit riots of 1943 were Alpine Street, Temple Street, 8th Street and Boyle Heights. Temple, 8th Street and Boyle Heights are still around. I have no information if Alpine is still around or has morphed into some other neighborhood.

The big tantalizing question, of course, is what, if anything could have been done back then to blunt the growth of gangs. As we know, in the sixty odd years since the Jose Diaz homicide, thousands of young hispanics have joined him in early graves. And that handful of original neighborhoods has grown into hundreds of quarrelsome, Balkanized tribes of warring factions. While there’s plenty of blame to through around, no one has ever come up with a solution. Even the Eme’s Draconian policy initiatives of a creating a united Sureno nation failed miserably. As did the failed attempt at creating the Generation of United Nortenos in Norcal.

If history is anything to go by, it would appear that intra- and inter-gang warfare is only going to get worse. If you were to plot the growth and body count of gangs from 1942 to the present, the arrows on the chart would point straight up like a triple diamond ski slope. And I don’t see anything on the radar that’s going to change the upward progress

HIGH DESERT GANGSTERS

If you’ve been following the local crime news lately, you’ve probably noticed that Oxnard and the Antelope Valley are experiencing a big spike in gang-related crimes, shootings and murders. Oxnard LE is alarmed enough by the spike that the DA wants to file a gang injunction against the COLONIA CHIQUES, an Oxnard gang. This is a homegrown neighborhood that’s been around for years.

Further inland in the Antelope Valley, there’s an interesting development taking place. A 19-year-old, AARON MATHEU, just pleaded no contest to an attempt murder charge. He was already serving 25 to life on a carjacking beef and the nine years will be served concurrently. One of his crimies, JUAN RODRIGUEZ, was just hit with an attempt murder filing for a drive-by shooting.

BYRON MATHEU, older brother to AARON, is currently at large but wanted for allegedly committing a murder in FEBRUARY.

These three suspects wouldn’t merit a mention except that they’re all members of VNE (VARRIO NEUVO ESTRADA), a really deep EAST LA GANG that goes back generations. Gang fans will probably remember that ERNIE "CHUCO" CASTRO came out of VNE. And VNE has been trying to live that down since 1995 when CASTRO became INFORMANT numero uno in the first of three big FEDERAL RICO cases. CASTRO is living under an assumed identity in parts unknown.

If you’re reading this from out of town, the geography means nothing to you. Locals, however, know that the ANTELOPE VALLEY is way out there in the high desert. It’s the home of the B2 bomber, Edwards Air Force Base and a lot of aerospace contractors. Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier over the Valley in 1947. So what are homies who claim VNE doing way out there in the puckerbrush far from their ELA homeland? For that matter, you can also ask what are Crips, Bloods, El Sereno, Cuatro Flats, Avenues and other traditional big city gangs doing out there? The answer seems to be SECTION 8 housing.

For those who aren’t familiar with Section 8 housing, this is a government program where poor families pay a maximum of 30% of their household income for rent and the government covers the rest.

What’s happening with the gang spike in the Antelope Valley is a result of the end of the Cold War. During the height of defense spending, the Antelope Valley was the fastest growing community in the country. The influx of highly paid engineers and technicians working on Pentagon-financed galactic hot rods created a demand for upscale housing which the private sector was all too ready to provide. Two story tract housing with three car garages went up faster than you can say "Joint Strike Fighter."

Just when the housing market reached the saturation point, the Soviet Union took the air out of the bubble and decided to conveniently implode. Great news for the Free World. Bad news for the defense business and its employees.

Mass lay offs in the Valley were quickly followed by an exodus of engineers and space techs and that left a lot of really nice houses suddenly empty. Developers walked away from half finished communities, a lot of them still in the framing stage. What was left were brand new, centrally air-conditioned ghost towns.

In an effort to get out from under, developers went looking for buyers or renters. In steps the government with Section 8 vouchers. Anybody in the County who qualified for Section 8 was eligible to move to the recently vacated ghost towns. While they weren’t getting market value, developers were happy to have any kind of income.

If you’re a mother with six kids living in a two bedroom rat hole in Long Beach, East LA, South Central or Pacoima, the idea of 2000 square feet, brand new everything, front and back yards and a three car garage sounds like paradise. And it’s especially tempting if you can take your kids out of a risky, gang-oriented environment. The poor moved out by the hundreds and then the thousands.

But as history has shown, you can take the kid out of the neighborhood, but you often can’t take the neighborhood out of the kid. Unfortunately, along with the furniture and Nintendo games, the gang culture was also packed into the U-Hauls and car trunks. The tattoos and attitudes don’t fall away when you cross the LA City line. Mom wanted a fresh start someplace better, but the kids brought it all with them.

From a purely sociological point of view, an interesting dynamic is taking place amidst the cactus and Russian Thistle of the AV. Old rivalries haven’t been transplanted. At least not yet. You’ve got Bloods and Crips living in a state of détente on the same block. Same thing with the Hispanic gangs. Some LEOs I’ve spoken to think that the reason old rivalries aren’t resurrected is that gangs lack the critical mass of the old hoods. The individuals are too scattered to really form an active neighborhood. And a lot of the homies are still fairly young and inexperienced. For instance, the carjacking that sent AARON MATHEU to jail for 25 to life was a training mission conducted under the tutelage of MARIO GARCIA, a VNE veterano.

The other interesting phenomenon is that Valley drug dealers have yet to feel the sting of the EME’s tax collectors. One LEO told me the Valley is still a 100% tax-free zone and in terms of drug dealing, it’s a Wild West of entrepreneurs who work independently and outside the long reach of the Big Homies and shot callers from the old neighborhood. This may change in time, but for now, it’s every pusher for himself. A DA told me he recently filed on a single mother of six and an ELA transplant, for dealing meth out of her kitchen. She employed runners to go out and solicit and the customers would come to the house to buy. She didn’t pay taxes to anybody. An operation of this size anywhere in East LA would certainly draw the attention of the Homies and you can bet your last rock she would we kicking up or get put out of business.

Local LE is concerned that over time, the critical mass will be reached. Right now, LE is seeing active recruitment. The gangs are in the building stage. Veteranos are checking out the local talent, building a foundation out of the best from the farm team and probably in time, they’ll ramp up to start claiming neighborhoods. No one can tell, of course, if old allegiances hold or new neighborhoods develop their own identity. We’ll know first from the tags. If we start seeing things like VNE-AV (VARRIO NEUVO ESTRADA – ANTELOPE VALLEY) or VNE-PD (VARRIO NUEVO ESTRADA-PALMDALE) then we’ll have the start of a trans-county structure. If the new gangsters reject the old neighborhoods and their roots then there may be trouble in the colonies. In either case, the Antelope Valley will definitely experience some interesting times in the next decade.

WHAT IS BALLISTICS EVIDENCE?
I got some emails regarding ballistics evidence in reponse to my previous blog on the LAT's story about the LAPD crime lab. One of the readers wanted to know if gun "fingerprinting" that he'd read about was as unique as human fingerprints. Another asked a more basic question about what exactly a crime tech does to identify a shell casing or spent projectile.

While a complete answer could fill a book, I'll address both as briefly as possible.

First off, a loaded round consists of four components: the projectile, the shell casing, the powder charge and the primer that ignites the powder. The projectile is found either in the victim, buried in a car, wall or whattever, and the powder is completely consumed in firing. What's left for analysis is the casing and the primer. The projectile is a separate discussion I'll leave for another time. Right now we're talking about shell casing analysis.

There are two basics types of handguns. Semi-autos and revolvers. When a semi-auto is fired, the slide ejects the spent round (shell casing) and automatically feeds a fresh round into the chamber. A revolver on the other hand, retains the spent shell casing in the cylinder. If a revolver is fired at a crime scene, chances are, there will be no spent shell casings on the ground. That is, unless it was a long firefight and the combatant(s) shot dry and then reloaded. This is highly unusual.

Semi-autos are used way more frequently and the spent shell casings are what's under all those paper tents you see on TV at crime scenes.

When a round is fired, the shell casing is subjected to a number of forces that leave scratch marks on its surface. The shell casing is generally made of brass, a material that's softer than the steel of the gun. Because it's softer, it's imprinted with the tool marks and other marks unique to the gun. Think of it as pushing modeling clay into a mold and lifting out the clay. What you have on the clay is the imprint of the mold.

After firing, the shell casing has the firing pin mark on the primer, the mark of the gun's extractor on the rim of the shell casing, scratch marks from the chamber of the gun and imprints of the gun's breechface on the base of the shell casing. These imprints and scratches are the result of the tool marks put on the gun during the manufacturing process. An analyst can determine with a high degree of accuracy if shell casings from different crimes all came from the same gun. The one caveat is that the gun has not been altered between crimes.

Unless you're dealing with a fairly sophisticated criminal, guns are rarely altered. However, it's not unheard of. I've sat in enough court trials where informants have admitted to receiving guns used in a crime and altered them before the next use.

How is that done? It's not that hard. The firing pin and extractor can be easily replaced. Even though these new parts are the same brand as the original, the tool marks are probably different enough to change the "fingerprint" of the firing pin and extractor. As to the chamber, which is part of the barrel, that too can be replaced or altered. Like the chamber, the breechface can also be altered with nothing more sophisticated that sandpaper and elbow grease. If you want to get fancy, you can by a $40 Dremel tool and a polishing stone attachment and completely change the "fingerprint" of the breechface.

So to answer the two readers, shell casings can be analyzed and traced back to a specific gun thanks to the toolmarks. If, that is, the gun hasn't been altered as I outlined. And this speaks directly to the second question about uniqueness of gun "prints." Gun fingerprints, unlike human prints, can change either through use of the gun (all that rubbing and pressure will in time have an effect on the toolmarks) or deliberately altered.

And that leads to my personal opinion on the proposed nationwide "printing" of all guns prior to sale. Lawmakers wanted to create a nationwide database of gun prints cross-referenced with the serial number of the gun and the name of the purchaser. It's ultimately an exercise that can be rendered pointless by the use of sandpaper and/or replacement parts. Gun prints are not permanent and that whole database will amount to nothing more than an elaborate and expensive collection of useless scratches.

LEOVY REDEEMS HERSELF
The last Jill Leovy gang piece I read in the LAT gave me vertigo. It read like it was edited through a shredder. You can read my comments in the archives, but basically it was about a couple of guns that were used in a bunch of shootings and the shootings may or may not have been done by the same "cell of shooters" or different groups of people and then the people were arrested and the guns confiscated but the shootings continued - - - and that's when I felt like Jimmy Stewart chasing Kim Novak up the bell tower.

Her latest (5/5/04) doesn't move the confuso-meter needle at all. It partially addresses an issue that's been hamstringing detectives for years -- the glacially slow processing of ballistics evidence by the LAPD crime lab. Years ago, a D2 told me he once waited nine months to get a lab report on a murder weapon.

Chief Bratton and the city council have addressed the problems with the crime lab and help is on the way. But in the meantime, detectives patiently wait and hope their wits and informants don't die of old age before the lab results come back.

Leovy's article reported on the lab's new WALK-IN-WEDNESDAY policy. Every Wednesday, detectives from all over the city can bring in evidence and get nearly instantaneous service. This to short circuit a process that currently has a backlog of 2400 firearms tests. Another detective told me that cases are literally dying on the vine thanks to the backlog. Unlike TV shows, investigators don't get lab results back after the next commercial break. They get them at the next ice age. This is the reality of LA style crime-fighting.

Don't start blaming government workers, though. The lab techs are not skateboarding through the halls and watching TV on city time. There just aren't enough of them. And the equipment is old. And the pay isn't very good. An entry level gun tech gets paid around $27,000 a year. And you need a minimum of a BS to qualify for that breathtaking salary. Imagine the recruiting pitch. "The pay sucks, the equipment you'll be using was already old in the first season of Adam-12 and you'll have lots and lots of unpaid overtime. Sign right here."

As Leovy relates in her article, WALK-IN-WEDNESDAY is already producing results. Read it to find out how. But imagine what the positive fallout might be if fast lab results were the rule rather than a once a week exception.

The other part of her article profiles the crime lab's ace shell casing analyst, RICHARD SMITH. Smith, a sworn officer, sort of fell into the job after 11 years on the street. And he discovered he was terrific at analyzing spent brass. He's now considered one of the best in the country.

Unlike her "cell of shooters" article, this one didn't make the room spin.

BOOK NOTES
I recently read "THE RISE AND FALL OF THE NUESTRA FAMILIA" written by Nina Fuentes. While there are numerous problems with the book, there's a lot of information an interested reader will find useful. Most of the gang books on the market generally fall into one of two categories -- the confessional and the academic. Examples of the confessional are BLOOD IN, BLOOD OUT by ART BLAJOS, MONSTER by Cody Scott, MY BLOODY LIFE by REYMUNDO SANCHEZ and others. These personal histories give you insight into one person's experience and peripherally into the gang culture. They're good for context but don't provide the reader with the broad scale of the gang phenomenon or the organization and policies of criminals organizations like the NF or the EME.

The academic books, most notably those written by JAMES DIEGO VIGIL, are just that. Academic to the point of boredom. Riddled with sociology department jargon, they create the MEGO effect -- MY EYES GLAZE OVER. The average reader will get precious little understanding of gang culture or the motivations of the players. In the world of the sociologist, individuals are viewed with the same detachment that a doctor looks at blood cells -- biological units with no internal dialogue, motivation, passion, lust, love or revenge. They act merely in response to their environment. While it looks neat and tidy to the sociologist, this approach bears little resemblance to reality. If individuals are nothing more than responses to stimuli, how do you explain the fact that a lot of cops grew up in the same neighborhoods and even in the same families as gangsters. According to the socio-economic models of the academics, there would be no cops coming out of the same environment that produces gangsters. It also doesn't explain the even stranger phenomenon of the upper-middle-class Asian gangsters who carry A averages, receive BMWs the minute they turn sixteen and are as overprivileged as any Beverly Hills teenager.

The confessionals written by reformed gangsters are sometimes useful, sometimes self-serving and almost always end up glorifying, intentionally or otherwise, the life they left behind.

In contrast to these two genres, Feuntes' book is written by a non-academic and an outsider. She does a great job of identifying invididuals and articulating their crimes and prison experiences. As the title implies, the people she writes about are all NORTENOS, NF members, NUESTRA RAZA members or familianos in street gangs. The core of the book is the personal history of BOB GRATTON, an Anglo who worked himself up into the NF ranks and had the keys to MODESTO, CA. Through him, we see the structure and organization of the NF, the members of LA MESA (the NF board of directors) and how the NF projects power to the streets. GRATTON eventually dropped out and became an FBI informant in exchange for a reduced sentence. GRATTON also went on to create TAG, TEACHING ABOUT GANGS, a gang intervention and suppression organization that works closely with law enforcement.

There are side roads in the book that explore the decades-long fight with the EME and the failed policy initiative that created and then disbanded the Nuestra Raza, a cover organization that was supposed to keep the heat away from the NF. This is all good historical stuff that should be mandatory reading for anybody who wants to be more than casually familiar with the gang culture.

The major flaws of the book have to do with Fuentes' limitations as a writer. The prose is clunky, cliche-ridden and there's precious little analysis. She just lays out a mountain of facts. Sometimes all those names and shootings become a giant blur and you have to go back and figure out what exactly happened. The most tedious parts of the book are the court documents reproduced in their entirety. This stuff is interesting only if you're a fan of legal speak. The book could do without it. It would have been more useful if Fuentes had spent some time analyzing the documents and give the reader a capsule summary. Court documents are part of a writer's research, not part of the narrative. On the other hand, she reproduces the NF CHARTER and a number of WILAS. These give you a real sense of the organization and the amount of time and effort the NF spends on creating a self-sustaining structure that, at least theoretically, should function effectively even if the shot callers and top homies are taken out of power.

Her failure to go beyond the facts has the ultimate effect of turning all the people she talks about into cardboard cutouts. We don't see the individuals, just the shooting and scheming. While that's enlightening to some degree, it really leaves you wanting to know more. The other topic that leaves you wanting more is OPERATION BLACK WIDOW. This was the operation launched by an FBI, DOJ and local law enforcement in NORCAL. Knowing how extensive that operation was, how little it cost in actual dollars and manpower and how many gangsters it took off the street, OBW is a subject that deserves an entire book to itself.

Despite the flaws, this is must-have book for anyone who wants to know more about the NF and California's gang culture. With a 2003 copyright, the information is still fresh and relevant. You can get the book for $25 from www.knowgangs.com.

THIRTEEN IS THE MAGIC NUMBER
In response to my last posting about prison comms between inmates and the number thirteen, a very astute reader asked if there was any connection to the X3 tag she's observed around LA. There is.

The X in X3 is the roman number 10. So X and 3 add up to 13. She further asked if the letters that precede X3 is the actual gang name. And once again she's right.

Generally speaking there are two broad categories of tags. There are those done by tagging crews who may or may not yet be affiliated with a gang. They'll generally have the name of the crew on top and the monikers of the individual crew members stacked below that. On occasion, you might see a tagging crew that also affixes the 13 or X3 suffix to their crew name. This may be an indication of allegiance to an actual gang who in turn is a SURENO gang. You may also find SUR or SUR13 added to the gang name.

A pure gang tag will follow roughly the same protocol -- gang name on top, maybe the 13 or SUR suffix and then the names of the gang members. However, by the time individuals are actually jumped in, they're well-known enough by law enforcement that they don't need or want to advertise their gang association. That's just common sense. Why give the cops another piece of evidence that you're a banger. So you'll just see the the gang name and sometimes the X3 or 13.

For instance, the reader noticed a CPAX3 on a pedestrian overpass to the beach in Santa Monica and wondered what it meant. She said it had no other names with it. If I'm not mistaken, CPA is CANOGA PARK ALABAMA and X3 of course, is 13. Santa Monica is a long, long way from CANOGA PARK. I don't think whoever put it there is claiming Santa Monica for CPA. Probably a youngster just screwing around.

Some gangs, of course, are resistance gangs also known as tax-free gangs. They're locked in eternal combat with Eme over taxation and will never put a 13 suffix on their name. More later.

LAT GETS IT RIGHT. AGAIN.
I hope this becomes a habit with the LAT. In today's edition (4/5/04) staff writer RICHARD FAUSSET had a great story on gang communication inside the jail system. He focused mainly on birthday cards sent to inmates by their homies in the same prison and went into considerable detail about how the information in the B-DAY cards (monikers and gang names) help CDC gang officers track gang affiliations and individual's standing in the gangs. Great stuff. Props to Fausset and the editor who assigned him the story. READ it online.

I had a long conversation about this very topic with a CDC gang coordinator about a year ago. At the time, this lieutenant asked that I not run anything about the cards because he feared public knowledge might put a stop to the greeting cards and deprive him of a valuable source of gang information. So I obliged. Now that the cat's out of the bag, I guess I can't get blamed if the cards stop. Which they probably won't.

Here's some specifics and background on how the CDC operates their gang intelligence system. The LAT didn't get into this kind of detail, but we'll give them a pass on it. They can't be expected to deliver this kind of minutiae.

The CDC has an elaborate system of determining an inmate's membership in a street or prison gang. As with any bureacracy, especially one that comes to the attention of defense lawyers and civil rights groups, it has to demonstrate scrupulous attention to detail. In other words, they just can't call an inmate a gang or prison gang member on a whim or by the presence or absence of tattoos or the crimes committed inside or outside of prison. There's paperwork to fill out, the lifeblood of bureaucracies and the law.

The entire process of naming an individual as a gang member is called VALIDATION. And the validation procedure needs to have at least three independent sources. Those three sources have to comply with the 13 items articulated in section 3378 CRITICAL CASE INFORMATION of the CDC operations manual. The 13 items are as follows:

A) Self admission. That's self explanatory.
B) Tattoos and symbols. If you're all inked up with a gang name, that's a strong indicator of membership.
C) Written material. The greeting card would fall under this category.
D) Photographs. If you're in a picture standing with a goup of known gangsters, you may be a gangster.
E) Staff information. If CDC staff sees or hears you, or someone else, implicating you in gang membership.
F) Other agencies. Another agency may cite you as a gangster, but that information itself has to pass scrutiny.
G) Association. Any information that proves your association with validated gangsters.
H) Informants. This is sort of double layered. An informant could name you as a gangster, but that informant himself has to pass through the whole DEBRIEFING process which could take months and months to accomplish. The CDC doesn't just take somebody'd word for it. After all, the informant may have a personal beef with you. I'll post something a little later about the whole debriefing process.
I) Offenses. If the nature of your crime was such that it leads them to think that it was part of gang activity. And this has its own validation and verification procedure.
J) Legal documents. If it was proven in court that you're a prison or street gang member.
K) Visitors. I'll quote the CDC on this one. "Visits from persons who are documented as gang "runners" or community affiliates, or members of an organization which associates with a gang."
L) Communications. This includes phone taps, notes, or coded messages.
M) Debriefing. This is the extensive process where you decide to drop out and become an information and admit to having been a street or prison gang member.

As I said earlier, the CDC has to have at least three items on that list to VALIDATE you as a gang member. And once they have, there's form 812 to fill out. There are three flavors of 812 -- a, b and c. An inmate may qualify for one, or all three of those.

You can see how valuable a simple greeting card can be. On one card, they can add one validation criteria to dozens of inmates. The irony of have 13 items in the validation process I'm sure isn't lost on the Mexican Mafia. M is the thirteenth letter of the alphabet and you see an awful lot of 13 tattoos on Eme carnals, affiliates and average street gangsters. There's an awful lot of 13 grafitti as well.

IS A GANGSTER A TERRORIST?
I got a very interesting email yesterday from a regular reader. He mentioned the young Palestinian boy with the explosive vest who was stopped by Israeli checkpoint troopers. The reader made a comparison between HAMAS using easily-controlled kids to do their bidding and our own local gangsters who do the same.

He wondered if we couldn’t apply the term “terrorist” to our home-grown gangsters since they seem to employ the same tactics as terrorist groups. At least when it comes to manipulating impressionable young people to do dirty deeds.

That’s a tough one. Agreed, some of the tactics are the same. Like the PLO, and others, gangs intimidate and victimize their neighbors and everyone in the neighborhoods they claim. That’s a chronic problem when law enforcement comes knocking for eyewitnesses to a crime. Nobody sees or knows anything.

So in a way, you could say that gangs use terror to further their goals. But so do the Italian Mafia and every other criminal organization. Terror is the currency of criminals. But my sense is that the term “TERRORIST” should be reserved exclusively for islamo-fascists and other groups who have an agenda far more ambitious than the aims of street gangs. Street gangs don’t want to bring down a government. In fact, they like this one just fine the way it is. Under most other justice systems, there’s no such thing as a jury trial, free lawyers, sentencing guidelines or appeals for murder convictions. Even a drug conviction can get you executed in Red China and many parts of the Middle East. Here, the County sends a car to your house to bring you to the treatment center if you can't get a ride.

Like liquor and antibiotics, the term TERRORIST should be used sparingly and only when absolutely necessary. Throwing it around too loosely dilutes the impact to the point that it becomes meaningless.

OVERCOMING WRITER'S CELL BLOCK
I took the LAT to task in my last post for that meandering piece JILL LEOVY did on -- well I'm not sure what it was about except an AK-47, lots of shootings and something about elusive gangsters.

Today, I've got to thank the TIMES for alerting me to two bills that passed committee in the State Assembly and the Senate. JENIFER WARREN has the byline. Both bills would make it easier to visit state inmates. And boy, could it ever be made easier. In a word, prison visits are a pain in the ass.

Here's how it works. Once you contact an inmate by mail and he agrees to talk to you, you fill out a form and mail it to the particular institution. The prison then sends the paperwork over to the CALIFORNIA DEPT. OF JUSTICE where they do a background check on you. That process can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. On one hair-pulling, teeth gnashing, phone slamming occasion, it took me nine -- count 'em nine -- months to get the DOJ clearance. Of course, they'd cleared me numerous times before but somehow they couldn't find my paperwork. They kindly offered to have me PAY to get fingerprinted again. I don't mind the fingerprint part. It's the paying for it AGAIN that pissed me off. I'm hoping they're better at tracking terrorists than they are at finding people who pester them twice a week, every week, for nine months.

Once you do get clearance to visit an inmate, that permission is apparently only good at that institution. I've had several occasions where I got permission to vist a guy in SUSANVILLE let's say. Then found out he'd been moved to MULE CREEK. The SUSANVILLE permission wasn't good at MULE CREEK so I had to apply all over again. Technically, all the CDC institutions are supposed to be linked to the same visitor database and the system should be the same all over the state. In reality, each institution is a sovereign entity and doesn't have to recognize policies from other institutions.

Once you do get to visit, the TIMES piece correctly points out that you're not allowed to bring a notebook or a writing instrument. I can understand the reason for that. One way of smuggling drugs into a prison is to soak paper in anything from liquid meth to LSD. And it's easy to pass an innocent looking sheet of paper to an inmate in a CONTACT VISIT situation. Same thing with a pen. Even a .39 cent BIC can make a devastating stabbing weapon if delivered somewhere soft and jellatinoid like an eyeball. So yeah, these are real concerns for prison officials.

The facility sometimes provide you with a few sheets of paper and the tiny nub of a pencil. The reason for the tiny pencil, of course, is that it's tough to use as a stabbing device. I can understand that. So why don't they let us bring a laptop. I've never heard of anyone getting stabbed or shot with a laptop. And what's with the no recording device?

On NO CONTACT visits, (the glass walls and phones you've seen on TV) I have been allowed to bring a notebook and pen. But no tape recorder or laptop. Trust me, there's nothing you can pass through those walls except looks.

I sympathize with the CDC. One of the big problems they have is information flowing into and out of jails. I'm not talking about the kind of information writers and journos are after but the kind that can get people killed on the street or in other prisons -- GREENLIGHTS, ORDERS etc. So if the CDC wants to monitor my conversation, have at it. They'll be reading about it anyway. Same goes for letters. This is a very serious concern for the prisons and dropping the standards for easier access is just one more avenue the bad guys can exploit for evil purposes. Even with the strict regulations, the prisons are already as leaky as a HAITIAN refugee boat. And the gangster intelligence net is impressively effective and robust. Giving bad guys another communication channel will not serve society.

Another issue the TIMES raises is the possibility of glorifying criminals through interviews with media. This is an argument made by victims groups and LAW ENFORCEMENT. This is another legitimate point. You can imagine what some supermarket tabloid or "reality" media would do with audio and video access to people like DAHMER, NG and that psycho with the BOB MARLEY hair that killed his wives/daughters and his children/grandchildren. It's bad enough having a loved one murdered. Seeing the murderer on TV sandwiched between a segment on J-LO's ring and COURTNEY LOVE's boob flashing is just a heartless opening of wounds. This is a tough issue and I'm not sure if anyone can construct a policy that would prevent disgusting exploitation and still allow even-handed access. SB1164, the bill under discussion would allow cameras, notebooks and recording devices in jail interviews. Good luck on threading through that minefield. It would make my work easier but it could turn into NBC's NATURAL BORN KILLER OF THE WEEK SHOW.

Clearly, I've got a dog in this fight and I'd like to have access that's more streamlined and one that makes it easier to do my work. I'd like to have a still camera and a tape recorder. I wish it would happen. And I hope those who might abuse the privilege don't make me regret that my wish came true.

OVERCOMING WRITER'S CELL BLOCK
I took the LAT to task in my last post for that meandering piece JILL LEOVY did on -- well I'm not sure what it was about except an AK-47, lots of shootings and something about elusive gangsters.

Today, I've got to thank the TIMES for alerting me to two bills that passed committee in the State Assembly and the Senate. JENIFER WARREN has the byline. Both bills would make it easier to visit state inmates. And boy, could it ever be made easier. In a word, prison visits are a pain in the ass.

Here's how it works. Once you contact an inmate by mail and he agrees to talk to you, you fill out a form and mail it to the particular institution. The prison then sends the paperwork over to the CALIFORNIA DEPT. OF JUSTICE where they do a background check on you. That process can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. On one hair-pulling, teeth gnashing, phone slamming occasion, it took me nine -- count 'em nine -- months to get the DOJ clearance. Of course, they'd cleared me numerous times before but somehow they couldn't find my paperwork. They kindly offered to have me PAY to get fingerprinted again. I don't mind the fingerprint part. It's the paying for it AGAIN that pissed me off. I'm hoping they're better at tracking terrorists than they are at finding people who pester them twice a week, every week, for nine months.

Once you do get clearance to visit an inmate, that permission is apparently only good at that institution. I've had several occasions where I got permission to vist a guy in SUSANVILLE let's say. Then found out he'd been moved to MULE CREEK. The SUSANVILLE permission wasn't good at MULE CREEK so I had to apply all over again. Technically, all the CDC institutions are supposed to be linked to the same visitor database and the system should be the same all over the state. In reality, each institution is a sovereign entity and doesn't have to recognize policies from other institutions.

Once you do get to visit, the TIMES piece correctly points out that you're not allowed to bring a notebook or a writing instrument. I can understand the reason for that. One way of smuggling drugs into a prison is to soak paper in anything from liquid meth to LSD. And it's easy to pass an innocent looking sheet of paper to an inmate in a CONTACT VISIT situation. Same thing with a pen. Even a .39 cent BIC can make a devastating stabbing weapon if delivered somewhere soft and jellatinoid like an eyeball. So yeah, these are real concerns for prison officials.

The facility sometimes provide you with a few sheets of paper and the tiny nub of a pencil. The reason for the tiny pencil, of course, is that it's tough to use as a stabbing device. I can understand that. So why don't they let us bring a laptop. I've never heard of anyone getting stabbed or shot with a laptop. And what's with the no recording device?

On NO CONTACT visits, (the glass walls and phones you've seen on TV) I have been allowed to bring a notebook and pen. But no tape recorder or laptop. Trust me, there's nothing you can pass through those walls except looks.

I sympathize with the CDC. One of the big problems they have is information flowing into and out of jails. I'm not talking about the kind of information writers and journos are after but the kind that can get people killed on the street or in other prisons -- GREENLIGHTS, ORDERS etc. So if the CDC wants to monitor my conversation, have at it. They'll be reading about it anyway. Same goes for letters. This is a very serious concern for the prisons and dropping the standards for easier access is just one more avenue the bad guys can exploit for evil purposes. Even with the strict regulations, the prisons are already as leaky as a HAITIAN refugee boat. And the gangster intelligence net is impressively effective and robust. Giving bad guys another communication channel will not serve society.

Another issue the TIMES raises is the possibility of glorifying criminals through interviews with media. This is an argument made by victims groups and LAW ENFORCEMENT. This is another legitimate point. You can imagine what some supermarket tabloid or "reality" media would do with audio and video access to people like DAHMER, NG and that psycho with the BOB MARLEY hair that killed his wives/daughters and his children/grandchildren. It's bad enough having a loved one murdered. Seeing the murderer on TV sandwiched between a segment on J-LO's ring and COURTNEY LOVE's boob flashing is just a heartless opening of wounds. This is a tough issue and I'm not sure if anyone can construct a policy that would prevent disgusting exploitation and still allow even-handed access. SB1164, the bill under discussion would allow cameras, notebooks and recording devices in jail interviews. Good luck on threading through that minefield. It would make my work easier but it could turn into NBC's NATURAL BORN KILLER OF THE WEEK SHOW.

Clearly, I've got a dog in this fight and I'd like to have access that's more streamlined and one that makes it easier to do my work. I'd like to have a still camera and a tape recorder. I wish it would happen. And I hope those who might abuse the privilege don't make me regret that my wish came true.

OVERCOMING WRITER'S CELL BLOCK
I took the LAT to task in my last post for that meandering piece JILL LEOVY did on -- well I'm not sure what it was about except an AK-47, lots of shootings and something about elusive gangsters.

Today, I've got to thank the TIMES for alerting me to two bills that passed committee in the State Assembly and the Senate. JENIFER WARREN has the byline. Both bills would make it easier to visit state inmates. And boy, could it ever be made easier. In a word, prison visits are a pain in the ass.

Here's how it works. Once you contact an inmate by mail and he agrees to talk to you, you fill out a form and mail it to the particular institution. The prison then sends the paperwork over to the CALIFORNIA DEPT. OF JUSTICE where they do a background check on you. That process can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. On one hair-pulling, teeth gnashing, phone slamming occasion, it took me nine -- count 'em nine -- months to get the DOJ clearance. Of course, they'd cleared me numerous times before but somehow they couldn't find my paperwork. They kindly offered to have me PAY to get fingerprinted again. I don't mind the fingerprint part. It's the paying for it AGAIN that pissed me off. I'm hoping they're better at tracking terrorists than they are at finding people who pester them twice a week, every week, for nine months.

Once you do get clearance to visit an inmate, that permission is apparently only good at that institution. I've had several occasions where I got permission to vist a guy in SUSANVILLE let's say. Then found out he'd been moved to MULE CREEK. The SUSANVILLE permission wasn't good at MULE CREEK so I had to apply all over again. Technically, all the CDC institutions are supposed to be linked to the same visitor database and the system should be the same all over the state. In reality, each institution is a sovereign entity and doesn't have to recognize policies from other institutions.

Once you do get to visit, the TIMES piece correctly points out that you're not allowed to bring a notebook or a writing instrument. I can understand the reason for that. One way of smuggling drugs into a prison is to soak paper in anything from liquid meth to LSD. And it's easy to pass an innocent looking sheet of paper to an inmate in a CONTACT VISIT situation. Same thing with a pen. Even a .39 cent BIC can make a devastating stabbing weapon if delivered somewhere soft and jellatinoid like an eyeball. So yeah, these are real concerns for prison officials.

The facility sometimes provide you with a few sheets of paper and the tiny nub of a pencil. The reason for the tiny pencil, of course, is that it's tough to use as a stabbing device. I can understand that. So why don't they let us bring a laptop. I've never heard of anyone getting stabbed or shot with a laptop. And what's with the no recording device?

On NO CONTACT visits, (the glass walls and phones you've seen on TV) I have been allowed to bring a notebook and pen. But no tape recorder or laptop. Trust me, there's nothing you can pass through those walls except looks.

I sympathize with the CDC. One of the big problems they have is information flowing into and out of jails. I'm not talking about the kind of information writers and journos are after but the kind that can get people killed on the street or in other prisons -- GREENLIGHTS, ORDERS etc. So if the CDC wants to monitor my conversation, have at it. They'll be reading about it anyway. Same goes for letters. This is a very serious concern for the prisons and dropping the standards for easier access is just one more avenue the bad guys can exploit for evil purposes. Even with the strict regulations, the prisons are already as leaky as a HAITIAN refugee boat. And the gangster intelligence net is impressively effective and robust. Giving bad guys another communication channel will not serve society.

Another issue the TIMES raises is the possibility of glorifying criminals through interviews with media. This is an argument made by victims groups and LAW ENFORCEMENT. This is another legitimate point. You can imagine what some supermarket tabloid or "reality" media would do with audio and video access to people like DAHMER, NG and that psycho with the BOB MARLEY hair that killed his wives/daughters and his children/grandchildren. It's bad enough having a loved one murdered. Seeing the murderer on TV sandwiched between a segment on J-LO's ring and COURTNEY LOVE's boob flashing is just a heartless opening of wounds. This is a tough issue and I'm not sure if anyone can construct a policy that would prevent disgusting exploitation and still allow even-handed access. SB1164, the bill under discussion would allow cameras, notebooks and recording devices in jail interviews. Good luck on threading through that minefield. It would make my work easier but it could turn into NBC's NATURAL BORN KILLER OF THE WEEK SHOW.

Clearly, I've got a dog in this fight and I'd like to have access that's more streamlined and one that makes it easier to do my work. I'd like to have a still camera and a tape recorder. I wish it would happen. And I hope those who might abuse the privilege don't make me regret that my wish came true.

CONFUSED BY THE LA TIMES? ME TOO.

In the March 22 LA TIMES, JILL LEOVY has one of her patented confuse-o-rama gang pieces, the kind that leave you less informed at the end than you were at the start.

Let’s start with the headline and sub-head. It reads as follows:

WEB OF CRIME PROVES TOUGH TO UNTANGLE

A small, changing gang cell appears responsible for some of the worst violence in South L.A.

Wow. Knock out story. I thought this was going to be a piece about the SOUTH LA equivalent of MURDER INC., the infamous Italian MAFIA murder-for-hire squad. The first three sentences certainly seem to point in that direction. Multiple murders, same area, same weapon. Whoah. Sounds like hard-core gunslingers taking out enemies either for fun or profit. .

But then you get to the meat of the piece and realize this is just LEOVY’S undigested, poorly-thought out and confused take on the criminal life. It turn out that an AK-47 semi-auto rifle, a .45 and a 9 mm handgun, in various combinations, were connected to a dozen shootings.

But then the AK-47 was confiscated and some of the shooters arrested and – SURPRISE, SURPRISE – other shootings and murders happened that involved semi-auto AK-style rifles and handguns. What gives?

The whole premise of the piece starts falling apart and then completely goes off the rails when LEOVY starts citing statistics that a third of murder defendants have no previous criminal record. Where'd that come from?

Then the piece really crashes and burns when she quotes South Bureau DC EARL PAYSINGER who says that chasing the guns is less important than finding the shooters. After all, he says, “people pull the trigger.” So what happened to the connection with the magic gun that did all the shooting? Nothing about this piece tracked. Just like her disconnected interview on PACIFICA RADIO some months back.

JILL, just FYI, here’s the deal with guns and gangsters.

Let’s start with the basics. There are two categories of guns we’re talking about here. First is the purely defensive carry gun. This could be anything from a tiny .22 to full-house .45 ACP.

Generally speaking, the carry piece is clean. And concealable, natch. It may have been used in a crime somewhere, sometime in the past, but the current owner probably doesn’t know about that. Given a choice, a criminal would much rather carry a clean gun than a dirty one. Just in case he's stopped by cops and they find it. Common sense.

The carry piece, as I said, is a DEFENSIVE firearm. It’s carried for that “Oh SHIT!” moment when the owner encounters a rival gangster or is suddenly drawn down on by a drive by shooter. In the military they call this surprise firefight a “meeting engagement.” In fact, last week two known gangsters walked on a murder charge because they fired in self-defense in response to a drive-by. See earlier post.

These are broad strokes I’m taking here, but generally speaking, gangs have a stash of OFFENSIVE guns. It could be a single gun or a closet full. Whether or not she’s aware of it, the subject of LEOVY’s story is the OFFENSIVE weapon. This is a weapon a shooter would “draw” from the ARMORY, if you will, to do a mission. The term ARMORY is not something a gangster would use, but in effect, that’s what it is. Most of the time, OFFENSIVE guns are long guns – rifles and shotguns. Handguns, unless used in short range situations, are a bad choice for a drive by or if you’re planning on firing into a car or through the walls of a house. Again, this is speaking generally. Sometimes handguns are used by secondary shooters as suppression fire weapons to keep opponents heads down while the primary shooter cuts loose with the long gun. In truth, virtually every kind of gun you can imagine has been used in drive-bys, but here LEOVY was talking about an AK-47.

It’s no surprise that a single long gun like the one in her piece would be used multiple times because chances are, that gun is "controlled" by a big homie. It could be stashed in the homie’s house or at the house of someone he trusts. The ARMORY, if you will. The armory "supervisor" may not even be a gang member but may be just an affiliate or somebody that owes the gang something.

Drive by shootings are planned, as opposed to the “meeting engagement” mentioned earlier. Some are planned better that others. Read “MONSTER” by CODY SCOTT or talk to gangsters and you’ll learn that part of the most minimal planning process is “how we strapped?” Which means what guns are available, who’s got them, where’s the ammo and who takes the guns back after we’re done?

Sometimes, the guns in the ARMORY are traded for other weapons which may have just as bad a history but come from another part of the county. The ARMORY stock is fluid. Guns come and go. They’re used as currency to buy drugs or buy a knucklehead out of a tough spot. If you owe your dealer a wad, he’ll probably take a gun in payment or partial payment. And that gun will get traded around or bought or just change hands when some homie gets arrested and goes to jail.

OFFENSIVE long guns, unlike the cheapo throwaway .22s and .380, don’t get dumped in ECHO PARK LAKE or into somebody’s back yard. They’re too valuable for that. They get returned and recycled for other operations even if they’re super hot with lots of crimes to their credit. In fact, a gun with a long criminal history can be an asset to the defense in court.

Think of this scenario. You’re a 16-year-old active gangster who’s just been connected to a homicide. You don’t have much of a criminal history as is the case with 30% of murder defendants, according to LEOVY’S piece. You’re arrested. The bullet(s) recovered from your victim match(es) the bullets found in five or six other homicides. The defense attorney, because he knows the gun’s history through the full discovery process, stands up in front of the jury during the argument phase and tells them, “The prosecution is asking you to believe that my young client, with no criminal history, is responsible not only for this heinous murder, but also for a string of shootings and six other homicides. This is preposterous. If this were the case, this young man would be the most notorious criminal since BILLY THE KID. He wasn’t even on the streets when three of those shootings happened. He was serving time in Youth Authority.” If handled right, being connected to a gun that’s really, really dirty can be an easy “NOT GUILTY” verdict. No jury is going to believe that any single person could possibly have committed so many murders.

Trust me on this one. I’ve seen it happen. So you see, JILL, a single gun with a lot of history is nothing new. It’s not some highly motivated “cell” as she calls it, committing a lot of homicides and operating like some death squad. It’s just a lot of active shooters taking lives and destroying neighborhoods and knowing how to work the system.

While I won’t say that her piece was totally without merit, I just don’t see what her point was. I mean, listen to this one. “But it is not just the shifting of guns that makes solving gang crime difficult. Suspects are a fluid, elusive group.” Yeah, Jill. That’s why they call themselves criminals. After they do something bad, they don’t immediately surrender to authorities. They try to evade suspicion and capture. That makes them elusive. Day in, day out, the LA TIMES is committed to the relentless pursuit of the obvious.

THE UNSEEN COST OF CRIME
A reader recently emailed me wondering if I could provide a figure on the dollar cost that street gangs impose on society. Great question. And I wish I had the answer. In fact, I've been trying to pull together as much as I can on this topic and every time I think I have it, there's more.

In a future posting, I'll list some obvious costs like the budgets for the DA's office and how much of that resource is devoted to street gang prosecutions. Ditto for the public defender's office, the County jail system, the State prison system, and the welfare system that frankly pays to feed, house and take care of the wives and children of convicted and unconvicted street gangsters. In addition to that though, are the unseen costs that can never be calculated. One bears scrutiny.

In all the interviews I've done with victims, families of victims and regular citizens in communities savaged by street gangs, to a person, have all either moved to other parts of the county or state or plan to do so as soon as possible. Here's just one case.

This guy, I'll call him ROBERTO, moved from ECHO PARK all the way out to FONTANA. He's a family guy with three kids and a wife that works as well. He works in SANTA MONICA as a building custodian. He got out of ECHO PARK, which he liked a lot and was close to his family, because, according to him, the CHOLOS were trying to influence his kids to join gangs. He did what any person would do. He moved.

To save them, he took the family to the most affordable place he could find -- FONTANA. Now here's this guy who doesn't make a lot of money who has to leave his house in FONTANA at 5:30 in the morning to make it to SANTA MONICA by 7:30. Anybody who's been on the 10 WESTBOUND in the morning and EASTBOUND in the afternoon knows what clusterfuck the 10 is. He's burning up a lot more bucks in gas and wear and tear on the car than he would otherwise need to if he could still live in ECHO PARK. These are dollars he could be spending on improving his life and the lives of his kids. But to save his kids, he makes the sacrifice in time, money and resources. Scale this man's experience up by the thousands and tens of thousands and we're talking billions of dollars a year -- fuel, wasted man hours, pollution, time away from his family, money better spent on other things like books or whatever. The negative impact on society can never be adequately calculated.

Just something to think about the next time somebody tells you that smoking the occasional doobie or snorting a line is a victimless crime. The country of full of victims. They just don't have "activists" looking out for their interests.

SELF DEFENSE FOR ALL.
Two readers have asked me to comment on the story that ran in the Times yesterday in which two gangsters accidentaly killed a woman in her house while in the course of returning fire against two other gangsters who were shooting at them.

If you remember the case from late last year, LAUDELINA SALAZAR was shot in the neck while hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree in her living room. The bullet came from a block away. Sometime later, ANTHONY SHELTON and DANIEL MAYO, two convicted felons, were arrested for her shooting.

Yesterday, the DA decided not to file murder charges against the two because they shot in self defense. Naturally, this is unwelcome news to the detectives or the family.

As unpleasant as it may be for law enforcement, the DA made the right call on this one. Granted, they were gangsters and they were carrying concealed weapons. But despite all that, the law concerning self-defense applies to them as well as to any law-abiding citizen. It can't make distinctions.

The DA could, of course, prosecute them as felons in possession of a firearm or for breaking CAL PC12050, the law banning carrying concealed without a license. But that would be small potatoes. And any defense attorney would make a prosecutor look silly pressing ahead with a charge. If history is a gauge of this, they'll probably be liable for a parole violation at most.

Yeah it sucks. And yeah, the incident itself may have been sparked by some unknown action on their part sometime prior to the shooting. In other words, they may have had that drive-by coming for something they did earlier. You almost never know for sure when you're dealing with street gangs. But there's no "they-had-it-coming" statute in the PENAL CODE.

In truth, this isn't the first time a known gangster walked on a shooting by claiming self-defense. One of the first I remember writing about happened in 1982 in, I believe, BALBOA PARK in the SF VALLEY. I don't remember the names of the players but I think the "victim" claimed SAN FER and the shooters were from over the hill. At any rate, it was a stand up gunfight, all being on foot when the rivals let go on him. He surprised them by pulling out a sawed off lever action MARLIN rifle (I remember the gun because it's such a weirdly archaic weapon to carry) and actually killed one of the attackers. The victim walked on that one and was never prosecuted for illegal carry or for being a felon with a firearm. So this latest case has precedents. What's different in this case, of course, is the fact that an innocent bystander was killed. But according to the law, an accidental death as the result of a righteous self-defense shooting does not carry any penalty.

This is small comfort to SALAZAR's family or to the detectives who I know for a fact, become emotionally invested in cases of this nature.

But the big wheel does keep on turning. MAYO and SHELTON may walk on this one, but don't be too surprised if they get theirs in some unexpected but thoroughly deserved way. One way or another, justice will be served. If they were smart, they'd break camp and head for safer parts. If they were smart.

SOME OFFERS YOU CAN REFUSE
Late last week I was chewing the rag with a retired gangster. In truth, he was forced into retirement by a felony conviction. The years in state prison have been, according to him, a blessing in disguise. Prison forced him to examine his life and eventually took him away from the gang life and do what he terms "a 90% rehab." He gets crazy ideas 10% of the time but, so far, has resisted acting on any of his darker impulses. He says he doesn't want to go back to jail but, get this, would gladly go back if it meant keeping him out of the life or off a morgue slab.

I was trying to get a sense from him of day to day life in the gang and the influence of the EME on street gangsters. He said the pressure is always there. The EME is ever present and relentlessly attempts to widen and strengthen its influence on the street. Some gangsters, and entire gangs, keep their distance. Others can't wait to pick up and wave the flag of the black hand.

Local EME associates on the street who are sanctioned to use a BROTHER'S name are in a constant state of war and conquest. And they need a lot of willing soldiers to do their bidding. Generally street soldiers are asked to back the ASSOCIATE'S play -- collect taxes, intimidate a rival faction or check somebody (with bullets or fists) who has broken a regla (rule).

My gangster claims that the favor can either be asked politely or in the form of a demand. The difference is one of being ASKED to do something or TOLD to do something. According to the protocol, if you can find a graceful way out when you're asked, the matter is generally dropped and the refusal isn't held against you. Of course, that also depends on whether or not the person being asked OWES the individual or the group something. If in the past the local soldier has accepted drugs, money or a big favor, then it's almost impossible to say no. Refusal in this case is looked upon as disrespectful and a breach of protocol. Also cowardly and a black mark on the reputation of the neighborhood as a whole. And you don't want your neighborhood to get a reputation of being bad soldiers. If you refuse what your whole gang would consider a LEGITIMATE demand from a BROTHER or SHOTCALLER, often the gang itself will retaliate against you just to uphold their honor. Depending on the severity of the affront, you could be thrown out, beaten or killed.

If, on the other hand, you're clean in terms of not owing the EME or an ASSOCIATE anything, you're on safe ground making a reasonable sounding excuse. Something on the order of, "I got to go do something for the neighborhood," or "I'm cool like this, me and my homie are going on another mission." That's generally enough to get you dispensation.

If a street soldier does decide to do the favor, say like watching somebody's back while the SHOTCALLER jacks a car or collect taxes or checks a miscreant, it's important for the soldier not to take any reward. Often, he'll be reward with money, drugs, a stolen car or stolen property. Unless you want to get deeper with the EME and SHOTCALLERS, it's best to refuse the reward. Having your favor go unrewarded leaves no further obligation hanging. You've done the favor, you've upheld the reputation of your neighborhood, shown some courage and refused payment. That earns you respect and a pass on future demands but not necessarily a stripe. Chances are, you won't be asked again. In the code of the street, for whatever the code is worth, you've demonstrated to the shot callers that you're a good soldier, but you don't aspire to be some kind of star. You're happy with your station in life and don't want to get sucked into the EME sphere of influence, which, according to my retired gangster, is riddled with political landmines. You don't want to go there because it makes IRAQI politics seem rational. You could unwittingly be crossing somebody somewhere for something that's happening way above your pay grade. And you don't want to get sucked into somebody else's war.

To sum it up, you can't take any account of a shooting, carjacking or other gang crime on its face value. No matter where you read about it. Even here.

Behind every carjacking, drug ripoff, gang assault or what have you, half understood dynamics, byzantine undercurrents, old beefs, new stripes, cowards and warriors are always in play. In the gang life, nothing is ever as simple as you read about. Bear that in mind the next time the LAT, LA WEEKLY or any other LA outlet runs a gang story that seems like something you saw on TV and hangs together a little too simply.

SON OF PROJECT GET GOING
There I was having an innocent lunch with some coppers last week and one of them drops something of a bombshell. The fact that he threw it out there as casually as he did was merely an illustration that the topic was common knowledge among gang cops.

Let's start with some background. Way back in 1977, a bright, energetic and well-intentioned young woman named ELLEN DELIA was killed execution style about a mile from the SACRAMENTO airport. Her body was dumped by the side of the road. She had just arrived at the state capital from LA and she was apparently on her way to a meeting with state officials to express her concern that OPERATION GET GOING, had been infiltrated by the MEXICAN MAFIA.

She was uniquely qualified to speak on the subject because she ran OGG and had single-handedly secured the funding to make it happen. The goal of OGG was to secure jobs and training for released felons and try to make them productive citizens. A worthwhile task. MICHAEL DELIA, her husband, was one of the ex cons she hired to help run the operation. For you history fans, the headquarters of OGG was in BOYLE HEIGHTS and was located less than a mile from where FATHER GREG BOYLE now runs HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES. The location is now an import/export business run by Pakistanis. I wormed my way in there some time back. But that's another post.

The short version of the story is that MICHAEL DELIA had never really gone straight. He hired active gang members and EME brothers to work at OGG. And they were doing things like selling drugs out of the halfway house OGG operated, using government-funded vehicles to transport drugs and guns and generally ran gang and EME business under the OGG cover. Apparently, MICHAEL DELIA had the blessing and active support of legendary EME brother JOE "PEGLEG" MORGAN to conduct this business. MORGAN saw this profit center as a neat and safe way of running EME affairs. What better way than to operate with impunity under the nose of law enforcement and have the government pay for it? A stroke of genius rivalled only by CHICAGO'S BLACKSTONE RANGERS who got the FEDS to give the gang $1 million. The money was supposed to go for gang intervention. It went instead to drugs and crates of fresh automatic weapons. And it started a bloody gang war with a body count that ran to close to 300.

When an OGG halfway house employee was found shot to death and another died of an overdose in the halfway house and when the assistant to a city councilman was also found murdered after he became aware of the EME's influence in OGG, ELLEN decided to call in State officials. It was her last act on earth.

Eventually MICHAEL DELIA was prosecuted and convicted as an accomplice to the murder of his wife as were several other EME members. And there the story ended. MICHAEL DELIA was released a few years ago and is apparently living in Orange County.

Fast forward to 2004 and I'm having lunch with these cops and one of them says real casual like, that he knows for a fact that most of the gang intervention programs he's familiar with have been infiltrated by active gangsters and EME brothers. He mentioned names. Which I won't do here. And he also said he knows for a fact that these players are actually collecting taxes for the EME while they go about their civic-minded roles as gang intervention activists. I mentioned the DELIA case and asked him if the politicians and "activists" who promote these programs hadn't learned anything about history repeating itself.

The problem as this cop outlined is that CITY and STATE politicians are so desperate to have gang intervention programs to their credit that they don't look as hard as they should when they fund organizations that hire EME dropouts and "retired" gangsters to run these organizations. They basically take these DROPOUTS at face value.

It needs to be made very clear that there's a big difference between an EME DROPOUT and street-gang member who, for whatever reason, decides to park the GLOCK and go straight. There are thousands of ex street gangsters leading normal productive lives. Look hard enough and you'll see them everywhere. The fact is, there is little to no retribution at all for leaving a street gang and going straight. There may be personal beefs or even EME related beefs if you did something like steal from or rat out a brother that could come back to haunt a gangster-gone-straight. But there's no OFFICIAL EME sanction against a reformed gangster unless he committed some very specific crimes against the gang. This is specially the case if the gangster was a THROWAWAY to begin with. More on that in another post.

The EME DROPOUT is an entirely different creature. This is a man who has made it ALL THE WAY IN and took the oath. And once you take the oath, you're in for life. As EME brother RANDY "COWBOY" THERRIEN was overheard saying on an FBI surveillance tape, "There's no back door out of this motherfucker. You pick up a bible, I'm still coming after you." The fact that there are EME DROPOUTS walking around in public doing gang intervention without drawing the vehement disapproval of the EME makes you wonder how they have created a bullet-free zone around themselves.

Just something to think about.

SHARPIE TO BE PROSECUTED
In the ongoing saga of TOONERVILLE RIFA (TVR) and its now seemingly aborted quest for hegemonic expansion, one of this gang's more active members, JUAN "SHARPIE" RODARTE will soon face trial. Late last year he was arrested for possession of a firearm (a GLOCK, for those who want details) and possession of rock cocaine. SHARPIE is a close associate of TIMOTHY "HUERO" MCGHEE, the TOONERVILLE shot caller who is facing numerous homicide charges of his own. With HUERO and SHARPIE both out of circulation, the organizational chart is somewhat fuzzy and no clear replacement for HUERO has yet to step up to fill the opening.

FROM FOOTBALL TO DRIVE-BYS.
In a conversation with an SEU cop the other day, I was told that the VINELAND BOYZ gang is actually a migratory gang that used to claim NORTH HOLLYWOOD but were driven out or moved out due to pressure from other NH gangs. At one point in their move from NH to SUNLAND, they called themselves the VILLAGE BOYS. If anybody can shed light on this, feel free to correct me. This cop also pointed out that most VB players don't like to be inked and don't look like the average citizen's image of a gangster.

If you notice, DAVID GARCIA shows no visible tattoos in his mug shots. This goes back to the roots of the VINELAND BOYZ, which, according to this cop, began life as a football team. From the beginning, VB didn't dress down or get inked up and preferred a clean cut look. That footballer tradition apparently is still part of the VB code and you won't find much ink on guys who claim VB. They made the transition from ball players to tagging crews back in the mid 90s and by 1998 were heavily involved in drive-bys, slanging and tax collection. VB, of course, took a big hit when BURBANK PD and LAPD arrested dozens of players after PAVELKA's murder. While it may not be in shambles, VB isn't the hegemonic powerhouse it used to be. In the wake of police pressure, we heard that some shot callers in VB actually GREENLIGHTED every cop in the area. That may or may not be true. But the cops sure as hell believed it and it got them hotter than the last glass pipe at a CRACK HOUSE.

IS MEXICO STILL A SAFE HIDEOUT?
While going through my backlog of recent gang activity I was struck by how quickly the Mexican authorities handed over DAVID GARCIA to the BURBANK PD after his arrest in Tijuana on Thanksgiving Day of 2003. No doubt you recall GARCIA is the alleged killer of BURBANK POPLICE OFFICER MATTHEW PAVELKA. PAVELKA was killed and another BURBANK cop, GREGORY CAMPBELL was wounded in a shootout with GARCIA and fellow VINELAND BOYZ gang member RAMON ARANDA. ARANDA was also killed in the shootout.

In the past, MEXICO has been forbidden by their own laws from extraditing criminals to the US who faced either a death penalty case or even life imprisonment. As far as I know, those laws are still on the books in MEXICO. So it makes me wonder why the historically reluctant MEXICAN officials gave GARCIA up faster than SADDAM offering to negotiate. Something clearly happened with their attitudes towards harboring US killers. We wonder if this was part of some agreement between VINCENTE FOX and GEORGE W. BUSH. Is it possible that in exchange for offering near amnesty to illegal aliens, BUSH got FOX to promise to give up bad guys without the MEXICAN government putting on their holier than thee face with regard to capital punishment or even life sentences? We'll see. If the Mexican authorities suddenly allow US law enforcement to carry guns across the border, as we let MEXICAN cops do in the US, then we'll know somebody in the FOX administration is getting religion.

But for the immediate future, the once safe haven of MEXICO may no longer be fugitive friendly. So anybody out there thinking of making a break for the border, be advised that friendly MEXICO has yanked the welcome mat for wanted criminals.

WHEN THE HOOKERS COME BACK, THE GANG IS LOSING POWER.
I was having lunch with a cop last week and he mentioned an interesting dynamic that SEU officers use as a barometer of gang activity and influence.

It's a known fact that well-organized and efficiently run gangs collect street taxes on a regular, weekly basis from the local dealers. What isn't as well known is that they also collect taxes from illegal street vendors and prostitutes. The vendors generally pay up and are afforded a form of protection by the gangsters. The prostitutes on the other hand, pull up stakes and find other neighborhoods to sell themselves.

Cops have noticed that when they take active shot callers and tax collectors off the street (through arrest or otherwise), the prostitutes filter back into the hood and set up shop again. So this leads to the rather weird situation that when SEU coppers patrol the hood and notice increased hooker activity, they know they're making a dent in the gang power structure and gang influence on the street. "The hookers are back. We must be hurting the homies." So in a sense, the hookers are the canaries in the coal mine. If they're visibly doing business, gang influence is diminished. Keep that in mind the next time you see a tarted up bimbette tapping her stilletos on your streets. It could mean that your local gang just lost the last few rounds with law enforcement.

BACK IN THE SADDLE
Okay. I'm back and I'll be blogging more regularly from now. As I mentioned in my previous, I've been traveling a lot. Too much, in fact. And it's good to finally be home and get back to business as usual. And now for my first gang-related blog in months.

BACK ON THE AIR
It's been quite some time since I posted anything to INTHEHAT. My schedule has been frenetic and I've been doing more traveling than I can tolerate. But the realities of earning a living and keeping myself in cigars and gasoline (an incendiary combination) have forced me away from my keyboard and, in fact, from the rest of my stuff.

I've been living in motels up and down the state (Brawley, Palm Springs, Eureka, Red Bluffs and other even lesser known towns) and while I generally love road trips this one got tedious. There's only so much bad food and local meathead TV weathermen I can take before I start reaching for pre-emptive cocktails as a curative. I was well stocked with books however and I finished several new ones (new to me at least) and re-read some old favorites.

At the top of the new-to-me list was HELL IN A VERY SMALL PLACE by BERNARD B. FALL. This was a first edition copy published in 1967. For those interested in the subject, the book is a blow-by-blow account of the battle of DIEN BIEN PHU, the FRENCH army's final stand in INDOCHINA. At DIEN BIEN PHU, the VIET MINH under the command of GENERAL GIAP, drove the last nail into the coffin of FRENCH colonial adventures. GIAP later went on to lead the fight against the US military. Ironically, most of the French casualties happened after they surrendered and were forced by GIAP and his political officers to make a Bataan-like death march north to HANOI. FALL was an outstanding writer and reporter who was killed in VIET NAM during the AMERICAN part of the war.

I also finished TR, THE LAST ROMANTIC by HW BRANDS, TREASON by ANN COULTER, and THE BOER WAR by THOMAS PAKENHAM. I had just dipped into MERCENARY by MIKE HOARE when my trip ended. When I got home, there were three boxes from AMAZON which contained HOMICIDE SPECIAL by MILES CORWIN and a couple of hard-core how-to books -- building a stone wall and rebuilding a motorcycle. Yeah, I got things to do other than tap away on a keyboard.

To all those who have wondered what happened to me, thanks for the kind enquiries and I happy to say I'm back in the saddle. I'll be posting as soon as I catch up with the mail, the papers, and all those messages on my machine.

BLACK ON BLACK VIOLENCE
In the LA TIMES SUNDAY OPINION section, KERMAN MADDOX has a piece on BLACK ON BLACK VIOLENCE. MADDOX teaches political science at LOS ANGELES SOUTHWEST COLLEGE and is on the board of directors of FIRST AME CHURCH. He opens with the murder of one of his students, LEE DENMON, who returned to his neighborhood after graduating college with the intention of doing something to help the community. This admirable young man was killed by a black gangster in an all too familiar case of mistaken identity. MADDOX contrasts the total lack of response to this murder to the response generated when an INGLEWOOD cop slammed DONOVAN JACKSON onto the hood of a cop car. While not condoning police abuse, he rightly asks why the nationwide flap over a body slam by a cop and the nonchalance over the "routine killing of young black males by other young black males."

He also states that he’ll probably be in hot water with AFRICAN AMERICAN leaders for stating this but "I’m tired of being politically correct, because that has not helped the problem." In a statement that makes him sound a little like LARRY ELDER he says, "It’s time to quit blaming everybody else for the problems of violence in our communities. We need churches to launch a crusade to discuss individual responsibility."

This will clearly take some doing. His piece brought to mind the WARREN OLNEY remote broadcast from the AME CHURCH I attended last year. On the panel that night OLNEY had the REV. CECIL MURRAY, CHIEF BRATTON and a young LATINO ex-gangster who was steered out of the gang life by one of AME’S many programs.

What struck me about that meeting was the public reaction in the Q and A session that followed the broadcast. I got the surreal impression that while the people in the audience were all residents of the area, they seemed to inhabit an alternate universe. One self-described community leader asked BRATTON why there weren’t more cops in the neighborhood and why the response times were so long. He got the usual answer about staffing levels, budgets etc. BRATTON also said the, "LOS ANGELES is one of the most underpoliced cities in the country, if not the most underpoliced." He said he needs 15,000 cops to do an adequate job of crime suppression.

A few minutes later, he got another question to the effect that there were too many cops on the street and why were they always harassing and stopping young people for no reason at all. Another guy chimed in that the police were nothing more than an occupying force and that they were the street enforcers in some Trilateral conspiracy to funnel black kids to jails and keep the prison industrial complex operating. In a frightening indicator of how deep that idiocy is ingrained in some people in the black community, that guy got a round of applause and attaboys.

So here we have two deeply held convictions that there are simultaneously too many cops and not enough cops in the black community. To quote MADDOX, "What gives?"

Another question from a woman also got a round of applause. She wanted to know why the cops don’t do a better job of instilling positive values in young black males. She suggested that when a kid gets in trouble, the cops should take them under their wing and guide them to a better life instead of just throwing them in jail. This is the COPS AS SOCIAL WORKERS WITH GUNS syndrome. BRATTON responded politely. In a roundabout way he suggested that it wasn’t the job of the LAPD or any police department to educate young people. That’s the job of schools, churches and parents. That got hisses from quite a few people in the room. The REV. MURRAY looked like he’d just been informed of some bad lab results. BRATTON took that in stride and tried to keep the conversation on some level of reality.

After that night, I wondered how many generations it would take for those absurd attitudes to be filtered out of black communities. And I realized what an uphill struggle people like CECIL MURRAY are shouldering on a daily basis. And I was awed by the courage people like him display by getting up every morning, knowing that the day will bring only tiny victories, if any. Lesser men would probably be driven to despair. Or just give up and go fishing. The REVEREND MURRAY just keeps at it with a happy heart.

From an intellectual or public policy basis, I’m not a fan of government relying on religious institutions to cure social problems. But my mind is slowly changing. We’ve tried everything else and the problem has only gotten worse. The power of black churches to mobilize public sentiment and instill positive attitudes cannot be denied. We have only to remember the big players in the civil rights movement. So why not try the approach that MADDOX proposes in his OPED piece?