BIKE GANG GOING HOLLYWOOD
Thanks to a couple of readers on this one. In 1998, an ATF agent named WILLIAM QUEEN went undercover with the Mongols and operated behind the lines for 28 months. He went by the name of BILLY ST. JOHN. The operation ended with a bunch of indictments and prison sentences. Queen wrote a book about it, UNDER AND ALONE. You can find it on Amazon.

The book is a fast but ultimately not satifying read. He didn't go into enough detail to satisfy the truly curious mind. He didn't explore a lot of areas that I know are out there waiting for exploration. Maybe he was holding back not to screw up future or ongoing investigations. Nonetheless it's a decent enough book and worth the price.

A few readers sent word that the book got some interest from the film business. Apparently it's now official. Mel Gibson is attached to the project, as they say in the biz, and he'll play the Queen/St. John part. Queen scored a $1 million payday for the film rights. He'll also be tech consultant.

While we're always hoping for the best, the movie business has a lousy track record when they turn a "true life" story into a screen product. Especially when it involves crime. In the process of transforming a good story into a movie, the real life aspects are clipped and pruned along the way until most of them are left in the script writer's drawer. What you often see on the screen is nothing like what happened on the streets.

The most extreme example of this happened in 1992 when Edward Olmos made AMERICAN ME. As originally written, the script was an accurate history of the early days of the Eme. The story goes that even Cocoliso blessed the project because it told the truth. But when Olmos decided to make a "few changes" the reality went out the window. The scriptwriter walked away from the project. Unofficial and unpaid "advisors" (Eme dropouts) told the producer that the "changes" would piss off the carnals. Apparently artistic vision took a back seat to the truth. And people paid with their lives.

By the time the dust settled, bodies fell, Olmos was targeted for termination and the movie public was short changed. Even people who knew the real life story walked out of the movie wondering what the hell they just saw on the screen. It was a mess. As it turns out, a deadly one for the official tech advisors.

Hopefully, Gibson won't go the same way Olmos did. But in that business, anything is possible. By the time it's over, it could turn out to be "Biker Gangs from Venus Want Earth Women."

On a related topic, I heard from a pal in the movie business that Tony Scott, brother to Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Blade Runner etc.) is doing a remake of THE WANDERERS. If you young guys out there haven't seen it, rent it. It was an over the top "street gang" movie set in Manhattan. By modern standards, the gangs in that movie were as hard core as Vanilla Ice.

Scott plans on shooting it in LA and we'd love to be there for the open casting calls. Advice: don't cover up those tattoos yet. They'll need hundreds of dressed down homies. Hollywood is comin' to the 'hood so practice up on your mad dog look.

PLEASE SHOW THIS SITE SOME RESPECT
The free exchange of opinions and observations is one of the reasons I started this site. I'm especially gratified to see that a number of the comments to the posts come from people who have come up in the neighborhoods and been through the system. For the most part, the comments are informative and provide the sort of insight that can only come from those who have been there and back. I'm grateful to people who can contribute without resorting to profanity and don't throw fat on the fire of north/south, black/brown animosity. Or for that matter, advocating any form or violence or prejudice.

I've noticed a battle going on in the comments that has no place on this site. I'm not a prude and I'll tolerate a certain amount of profanity. Especially if it's clever and used like a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer. What won't happen here is hate.

If you claim a neighborhood and want to put that in your comment, go ahead. But I won't allow challenges and cyberspace mad dogging. Keep the fights off this site. There are plenty of places on the internet where you can do that. Frankly, they're boring and do nothing to further the outside world's understanding of what's what.

Please don't ruin this place for everybody else. If you've got something to say, do it the right way. Speak your mind but don't add to problem. Don't put me in the position of being a censor. There's already enough of that.

YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, WE HAVE ANSWERS.
The email below asks an important question that resonates deeply into every neighborhood in LA. I'll answer in a very general way. I could go into specifics but I don't want to become the free information library for some LA media types that don't know how or won't do the research. Here's the question.


"Has there been a greenlight issued against so-cal blacks in the los angeles area because of a payment that has not been made to the EME after there was a purchase of narcotics? Some one was telling me that greenlights were issued at any black individual that appears to be bangin no matter their affiliation, if they look the part they are a target. I just wanted to know if this was true."

I'll take the second part of the question first. Nobody (that includes blacks, whites, asians) banging in an established neighborhood needs a greenlight to be regulated or corrected. The reader seems a little confused on terminology. Banging has nothing to do with business or politics. It's street level warfare and it could be brown vs. brown, brown vs. black, black vs. black etc. Banging is keeping your neighborhood free of incursions from rivals with no distinction made on the basis of color. It's a matter of, "This is ours, you can't be here. Period. Trespassers will be dealt with."

Neighborhoods don't issue greenlights because strictly speaking, greenlights come from shot callers. At the neighborhood level, there's always a de facto greenlight on trespassers because that's what neighborhoods do. It's understood from before you get jumped in that it's every homies' responsibility to keep out enemies.

As to the specific brown on black warfare, that depends on a number of factors and those factors vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. Some neighborhoods have shot callers that are more interested in business than warfare. They'll tolerate black dope dealers as long as they pay their taxes and don't start up sets to challenge the established authority of that neighborhood. The question implies that somebody got burned on a dope deal. I'm not aware of any specific big burn but you don't have to be black to get killed over a deal gone sideways. And you don't have to be black to have your whole neighborhood greenlighted.

Other neighborhoods don't tolerate blacks of any kind. They don't care if you're a banger, a dealer or an ordinary civilian that isn't even clicked up. These neighborhoods will not allow a black dealer to set up shop even if he's willing to pay taxes. They won't even tolerate black civilians living next door or down the block. In these neighborhoods, being black is all you need to be to get harassed, driven out or even terminated. I've come across a lot of cases like that and they ain't pretty.

What often determines the racial tolerance of the neighborhood is the personal bias of the shot caller. The shot caller establishes neighborhood policy. If he doesn't like mayates, then they don't live in that neighborhood. If he's the type that puts business above race, then some allowances are made.

As a general rule, the brothers don't do business with blacks. Also as a general rule, brothers don't like blacks moving into the neighborhood because it reflects badly on them. If the neighborhood isn't pure, or nearly pure raza, it's perceived by other neighborhoods as not being in total control. It's seen as slipping. And if you're slipping in that area, you may be seen as weak in others. And weakness is a sign that your forces are standing down and maybe the fortress has some crumbling walls.

Brothers are not big proponents of diversity or multi-culturalism. They're down for the brown and we've heard that some of the brothers won't raise their hand for somebody who isn't 100% raza no matter how much work he put in.

Before signing off, here's a story that goes back to the riots. In the famous chopper footage from Florence and Normandie, DAMIAN "FOOTBALL" WILLIAMS was seen dragging a male hispanic from a car, beating him and then spray painting him. When the brothers saw that, WILLIAMS was greenlighted. Personal hard candy. I've heard he's in PC, but I wouldn't swear to it. If anybody knows for sure, I'd like to hear about it.

Some time down the road, I'll get into the brown on black high school beefs that the big media doesn't seem to know how to report.

WEAK REPORTING
Since I've been getting a lot of emails on my opinion about that CNN report, HOMICIDE IN HOLLENBECK, there's obviously some interest. Yes I did see it and frankly, I didn't think it was very good.

The problems and weird reporting illustrated in that CNN story is actually one of the reasons I started this blog. As my knowledge and understanding of LA neighborhoods grew, the more I realized that the big media way way off the mark in terms of understanding and simple factual truth. All they want is some dramatic footage of tattooed homies flashing guns, a heart-broken mom standing on the flower-laden street corner where her child was killed, a talking-head cop with some sound bites about how bad things are and a politician promising to pass some a law that'll "stop the violence." It's bullshit.

I've seen first-hand how the electronic media works. The lack of depth is staggering. One of my readers asked how come that program concentrated on EL SERENO when there's so much else going on in Hollenbeck. She was asking if somebody at CNN or LAPD had a hate on for El Sereno. The simple answer is no.

To the people who produce this kind of programming, they wouldn't know the difference between El Sereno, Blythe Street, Rancho San Pedro or a jar of Vick's. It's all the same to them.

The way they work is fast, furious and cheap. A field producer parachutes in from New York or Atlanta or Chicago and hits the ground making phone calls on the way from the airport. They work off a formula: street-wise cop, crying mom, hard core homies with tats and cuetes, a politician and, if they get lucky, a fresh dead body they can roll on as the cops are laying out the yellow tape.

That's it. If a producer can hit the required numbers, they can put the meathead "reporter" on a grimy corner for a stand-up and they can cut the whole package back home and make it look like they've "been there" and told the tale. It's pathetic really because for most news viewers, all they're ever going to learn about neighborhoods is what an out of town field producer can put together in under three days. The footage is king. The "reporting" is just the audio background noise to give your ears something to do while your eyeballs are glued to the blood, tears and footage of a cop drawing down on suspects.

There are some rare exceptions. In LA, we've got Chris Blatchford who has done some deep digging and some really good reporting. His two part story on the Mongols was terrific. But that kind of reporting is rare.

The multi-part saga that the LA DAILY NEWS did last year on gangs was a dissapointment. With that much space and all the resources the paper threw at the issue, they basically did a TV style job. They did it by the numbers. This was a case of tissue-thin TV reporting influencing the print media. Instead of aspiring to something deeper, they did a paper and ink version of the TV approach.

It's not all bad news, however. Some great stuff can come out of the most unexpected places. The single best piece ever written about THE BRAND, for instance, came out of the NEW YORKER about a year ago. And I've seen some really good documentaries on cable, most notably the one on the Latin Kings that still airs on occasion.

For the most part, don't expect the media to ever give you an accurate reflection of what's going on in the barrio or la pinta. If you want to find a nugget of gold in that mountain of slag, read and view the big media with caution. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson, "They can't handle the truth."

CLANTONEROS IN INDIANA
I'm back!
As regular readers will see, I haven't posted for a month. I haven't lost interest. I'm running into time and scheduling crunches that have kept me on the streets and off the computer. Lots of interesting postings to come as a result.

Thanks and a big shout out to all the readers who wondered what happened to INTHEHAT. It's nice to be appreciated and I'm happy that so many people in the blog world find what I write of some use.

I just picked up on a homicide that happened in Indiana. The victim was a validated CLANTON homeboy found in the trunk of a car. I won't go into all the details, but it had to do with 400 pounds of weed and a major drug operation.

For students of the LA neighborhoods, this is a singular event. We've reported in the past on the spread of 18th Street and the MS as far away as CANADA, FLORIDA, BOSTON and lots of places in between. For the most part, these are considered newer neighborhoods that don't have really deep roots in LA and therefore the cultural and historic connection to geography is weaker. These are trans-national barrios, if you will, more fluid and able to operate far from the home office. CLANTON, on the other hand, is one of the oldest LA neighborhoods dating back to the turn of the 20th Century and traditionally hasn't strayed far from LOS.

This vic indicates that CLANTONEROS aren't staying close to home anymore. Two factors seem to be driving the expansion. One is the that shot callers that got rolled up in Federal cases are in Federal lockups all over the Midwest. That means they're recruiting and organizing right where they live. The other is pure economics. Dope is cheaper in LA and more expensive in the heartland. Moving cheap LA dope into places like Indiana can double or triple the profits. It's a proposition no dealer/tax collector/shot caller can resist. If this neighborhood continues to expand south and eastward, they may have to change the motto from "RIFAMOS POR VIDA" to "RIFAMOS POR VIDA Y'ALL."

As always, thanks for stopping by.

WHERE'S THE FACT-CHECKING AT THE LA TIMES?
In today's LA TIMES (3/28/05) ANDREW BLANKSTEIN wrote a profile of ROBERT BLAKE'S defense attorney, GERALD SCHWARTZBACH. For those who didn't already know, Schwartzbach has been an activist bay-area lawyer for decades. In his piece, Blankstein mentions one of Schwartzbach's most famous cases, defending STEPHEN BINGHAM, another activist bay-area lawyer. Bingham had been accused of smuggling a gun in a tape recorder to the infamous GEORGE JACKSON who was in San Quentin's Adjustment Center at the time awaiting trial for the murder of a prison guard.

Jackson used the gun in an escape attempt and was killed by gun rail guard. Blankstein says, "Six people, including two prison guards, were killed during an escape attempt in which prisoners used the weapon." In actual fact, three prison guards were killed, not two. For the record, they were JERE GRAHAM, FRANK DELEON and PAUL KRASENES. Two other guards, BRECKENRIDGE and RUBIACO nearly bled to death and might have died if COs hadn't blasted their way into the adjustment center to rescue them. Two other inmates (KANE and LYNN) were also killed that day, but not by guards. They were two white inmates who were delivering food to the cells when Jackson pulled the ASTRA 9 mm pistol and took over the tier in the adjustment center. Jackson and his crimies killed the two inmates just because they were there and they were white.

According to the surviving witnesses of that afternoon on August 21, 1971, Jackson personally shot Graham execution style with one round to the back of the head after saying about the gun, "Let's see if this thing works." DeLeon and Krasenes died a slower, more painful death. They were first beaten, then stabbed and then their throats were cut from ear to ear. They bled out over a period of half an hour.

KANE and LYNN, the white inmates, were hogtied with bedsheets and basically slaughtered with razor blades and shanks. You would think that Jackson, described by BLANKSTEIN as "a leader of a black prison rights movement," would have had some compassion for inmates who were trapped in the same "prison industrial complex" he condemned in his books.

In the Blake case, Schwartzbach, according to Blankstein, "steered clear of the media." "The media, Schwartzbach believed, had already tried his client."

In the Bingham case, for those who remember, Schwartzbach went the other way and courted the media in the runup to the trial. A Bingham Defense Fund was set up and donations solicited through the usual channels. The Defense Fund was run by the same people that provided Bingham with a false passport, identity papers and thousands in cash when he fled the country. House parties were organized where Stephen spoke about his upcoming trial and his 13 years as a fugitive. Selected media, which is to say sympathetic media, was invited to these events. The ground was being softened. Doubts were already planted in the public's mind about Bingham's reason for hiding out in Europe for 13 years. The story for public consumption was that Bingham was afraid he'd be railroaded by a vindictive justice system for the murder of three prison guards. The friendly SF alt press went out of its way to concoct and postulate other possible scenarios for how the gun might have been smuggled to Jackson. These included wild theories that prison officials had actually given Jackson the gun in order to have an excuse to kill him. That it was all part of a larger conspiracy to break the back of the Black Panthers. Never mind the fact that Jackson and Huey Newton were at war at the time of his escape attempt and Newton got a triple bonus from Jackson's death. He gained a martyr to the cause. He got rid of a rival for control of the Party. And he now had complete control of the profits from Jackson's best-selling book, SOLEDAD BROTHER. And never mind the fact that Penny Jackson, George's sister went to the Panther headquarters in Oakland immediately after the escape attempt and railed at Vanita Anderson and the other Panthers in residence that they were responsible for the death of her brother.

Ultimately, Bingham, like Blake, was found not guilty. In both cases, however, common sense would say otherwise.

A BLACK EYE FOR MAJOR CRIMES
We don't usually comment on celebrity cases. Frankly, they function more as public entertainment than a criminal process whose goal is the search for the truth. As Steve Cooley and LA prosecutors are scratching their heads wondering what the hell happened to an otherwise slam dunk case, the LA TIMES this morning pointed to one possible reason for the case going south. The Times calls it the "CSI EFFECT." Thanks to shows like CSI, movies like SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and countless police procedural novels, juries have become armchair sleuths. They come into cases thinking that they probably know as much as any detective or prosecutor about evidence, the law, forensics, the motivation of the defendant and, most worrisome, a large doubt about the professionalism of the police and prosecutors.

Actually, this is nothing new. It's been happening far less visibly, to the public at least, for years. One prosecutor who used to work in Compton told me years ago that it was getting harder and harder to get guilty verdicts out of juries. The problem, as he saw it, was that juries were expecting the sort of forensic magic they see on TV -- hair samples, fibers, miniscule blood spatters, anal swabs, a fingerprint lifted from an eyeball and the sort of esoteric evidence that only a fiction writer would concoct.

Reality is as lot more mundane. In most murder cases, the forensic evidence amounts to nothing more than some shell casings and bullet projectiles. Most of the time, the gun or the murder weapon is never recovered. On CSI, for instance, you've got a team of criminalists armed with everything from print kits to gas chromatographs and computer systems that recreate crime scenes in full color and 3D imaging. They have databases that would put the CIA to shame. With a few keystrokes, they can call up everything from a prior arrest to a suspect's fifth grade math test. Evidence is processed at lightning speed and they operate in a world of unlimited manpower and budgets.

The reality is that in LA it can take six months to get a ballistics report from the crime lab. Homicide investigators rarely get a single criminalist assigned to a crime scene. And in busy divisions, IOs are working from three to ten cases simultaneously and loaded down with maybe another ten cold cases. This is not to imply that the IOs in Blake's case did a less than thorough job. They pulled together everything that homicide detectives could realistically gather. It's just that the evidence did not seem to meet the jury's TV-inflated expectations.

The Blake jury's biggest obstacle seems to be that the prosecutor could not place the gun in Blake's hand. They wanted GSR (Gunshot Residue), prints on the gun, a tidy, airtight timeline, some blood spatter on Blake's clothes when he pulled the trigger -- who knows, maybe even a photo from a spy satellite that happened to be passing overhead at the time of the killing. The kind of "he's so screwed" evidence "as seen on TV." Something so compelling and irrefutable that even Courtney Love on Nembutal would have no trouble deciding guilt. Basically, this jury, and juries in other cases, left common sense at the door and were misled by their expectations of modern crime-fighting techniques. What they don't know is that the LAPD and the DA's office is woefully understaffed, under-funded and still living in the steam age in terms of high-tech gear and people required to operate it.

In the courtroom, juries have also come to expect drama and "Aha" moments, a "You can't handle the truth" tipping point where the suspect hangs himself with his own words. In real life, it doesn't happen.

For the most part, murder trials are as stimulating as an afternoon of ice fishing. Maybe less so because you can't drink beer in court.

Dumb juries aside, there's no avoiding the fact that the DA's Major Crime Unit couldn't make the case. There was some talk early on that the case should never have been filed because it was weak to begin with. But to a thoughtful observer, the case looked good enough for a filing. Besides, with the widespread public opinion that Blake did it, not filing would have made Cooley look like the weakest crime-fighter since Barney Fife. Or at least gun shy after the humiliation of the OJ case.

If the jury wasn't dazzled by the sort of evidence they see on TV, it's possible they might have been convinced by a better courtroom performer. If you can't enthrall the jury with techy evidence, maybe they'll be captivated by the person presenting the evidence. If you can't give the jury CSI, maybe you should send forth Tom Cruise.

As in any organization, the DA's office has the usual mix of colorless functionaries, political operators, bench warmers, loose canons and brilliant crime fighters. While the prosecutor in this case did an admirable job, maybe MAJOR CRIMES could have done a better casting job. To paraphrase the old saw of letting the punishment fit the crime, maybe the next time that unit gets a celebrity case, they should let the prosecutor fit the criminal.

ARENAS GETS LWOP
We originally posted the killing of CHP officer STEINER by 16-year-old VALENTINO ARENAS, a POMONA 12th STREET wannabe when it first happened. If you recall, ARENAS was intent on making a name for himself with his neighborhood and decided that the most dramatic and direct way was to kill a cop. It was an assassination pure and simple.

This week, ARENAS was sentenced to LIFE WITHOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF PAROLE (LWOP). I was discussing this case with a reformed gangster and a retired cop, each of us musing about what can a free society do to keep teens like Arenas from getting to that point of insanity where he pulls the trigger on a cop just to impress a bunch of other teens.

We estimated that if Arenas lives to 70, each of his next 54 years in prison will cost California $36,000 for a grand total of $1.94 million to house, feed, clothe and keep healthy. I wondered what if the state had spent ten percent of that money, roughly $190,000, on him in some kind of intervention or diversion program. Could a kid like him, with a father already in prison, a caretaker aunt who had just come out of prison when the killing happened and a non-present mom, possibly be snatched out of that environment and set straight?

Oddly, it was the reformed gangster in our group who was the most pessimistic. Based on his own eperience with a terrible home environment, time in the CYA, County jail and ultimately State prison, his contention is that there's no government program that can give a kid what he needs and craves the most -- loving parents and a stable home. The most we can hope to do, he said, was the yank that kid out of the house when he was still an infant and either put him up for adoption or put him in an orphanage. That's illegal, to say the least. In a free society, I told him, you can't take kids away from parents on the basis of how they "might" be damaged by their own parents in the future. And besides, I said, there are plenty of kids in supposedly stable, well-off homes who go sideways and set off a COLUMBINE or pull off a drive-by. You yank those kids too?

The retired cop then brought up an example of something that happened in England this week.In this case, it was a 12-year-old who assaulted and raped his special ed teacher, stole her car and went on a cime spree. Like Arenas, he was sentenced to LWOP, something unheard of in England but something that they're learning to deal out. Apparently, the kid had been a professional smoker and drinker since the age of four and was encouraged to have sex by the time he was eight. By his alcoholic, drug-addicted parents.

The point that the cop went on to make was that in England, where they've got every social program known to man, where they've banned guns and the death penalty, provide free cradle to grave medical care, ultra-generous welfare allowances, free housing to the poor, and where you can't even give somebody the finger without being accused of a hate crime, even they can't seem to short-circuit the youth crime problem. Apparently, it's almost as bad there as it is in LA.

"It's the home," the ex-gangster said. "Definitely," the ex-cop said. "There's got to be a way," I said. "Yeah," the ex-gangster said. "But it would be illegal."

CODE TALKING
The recent killing of Federal Judge Joan Lefkow's family is a story we hope will prompt the media to continue focusing on white hate groups. Right now, the suspicion is that all-purpose hater Matthew Hale somehow ordered or at least suggested that one of his crimies or followers execute Lefkow's husband and mother.

The NYT today has a story today that Hale has been communicating with people on the outside through his parents and lawyer by means of coded messages. Hale's mother is quoted as saying that the coded messages was "the dumbest thing I've ever heard of." The lawyer said that Hale's mother made the lawyer write the message down verbatim and deliver it to one of Hale's people on the outside. The message was apparently not delivered.

As a result of all this, POs have cut off Hale from communicating with his parents. Surprisingly, the ACLU has yet to raise an objection about cutting Hale off from his family.

While code comms from prison may be something new to the average citizen, the fact is, codes have been around almost as long as prisons. The range of codes run from simple hands signals, ghost writing, one time pads, Aztec writing, lip reading, imbedded writing with signifiers and variations of all those.

For instance, one of the more common codes is the simple letter that appears innocent to the untrained eye. The key to the code in the letter lies in the salutation. If the salutation for instance is "HI, HOW'S IT GOING?" the recipient knows to pick out every fifth letter. A letter that starts with "WHAT'S NEW?" indicates that every seventh letter in the body is the coded message. All this, of course, is worked out ahead of time long before the inmate lands in prison.

Also common is what cryptographers call the one time pad. Again this is worked out well ahead of time and consists of a number of code guides. Every letter in the alphabet is assigned a random number or letter. The key as to which page of the code guide to use is somewhere in the code. By going to the correct page in the guide, the recipient simply compares the random number or letter in the message to its actual meaning.

The difference between this and a letter with a salutation signifier is that it looks like a code and therefore harder to slide by the POs in charge of reviewing communications.

The most secure avenue of comms still remains legal documents. By law, POs can't open letters addressed from prisoners to their lawyers and vice versa. These are confidential. Some lawyers, as was documented in the Lynne Stewart/Blind Sheik case that recently ended, knowingly cooperate in illegal communications from prisoners to the outside. Other lawyers aren't even aware that they're being used as a conduit.

So Matt Hale's mother's contention that Hale might have been communicating in code is anything but "dumb."

HUNTING THE SIMI VALLEY TIGER
By now, we've all heard and seen what happened to the unfortunate tiger of Moorpark. The big cat escaped from a private exotic animal breeder and spent a few days roaming the hills of Simi looking for a meal, a place to live or maybe just wondering what terrible thing he'd done in a previous life to end up in an overgrown suburb of LA.

If you've been watching the news or reading the papers, you know that animal control agents shot and killed the cat. The public reaction was typical. There were candlelight vigils, calls for investigations, piquant renditions of the The Lion Sleeps Tonight sung by heartbroken grammar schoolers and all manner of simpering sorrow over the shooting.

Animal lovers wanted to know why animal control couldn't tranquilize the tiger. Or throw a net over it. Or lure it into a cage. We wondered too.

Thanks to a connection at the Ventura County Sheriff's office we got to information that for some reason never made it into print in your local faux newspaper.

To begin with, the animal was not walking through wilderness. It was never more than a few hundred yards from schools, homes and stores. They found paw prints right at the edge of a basketball court and parking lots. Something had to be done quick.

From the point of view of liability, if the cat had hurt or killed someone, every public entity even tangentially responsible for capturing the cat would be looking at a major lawsuit. Every lawyer looking for a big payday would be handing out business cards like Free Pipe Bomb Day at a Gaza Soccer game.

The plan to trank the cat involved a helicopter and several ground units. Each ground unit was composed of three individuals -- a game control agent armed with a trank gun and two armed escorts armed with either a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with slug shot, an AR-15 with the standard .223 cal round or an M1-A1 loaded with 7.62 cal (aka .308 cal).

The chopper would spot the cat and direct the ground units to the location. Once the foot units were close enough they'd try the trank gun. The Game people had some reservations, however. Prior experience has shown them that there was only a 6 in 10 chance of hitting a moving animal with the dart. On top of that, the dart hit has to be in a muscle. A gut shot or lung shot would do absolutely nothing to put the tiger to sleep.

They also knew that even a perfect muscle shot wouldn't bring the tiger down for twenty minutes.

When the tiger was eventually spotted from the air, three ground units were directed to converge on its location. Thanks to the heavy brush, the ground units couldn't see the tiger as they advanced. As they and the tiger moved through the brush, the chopper pilot also lost sight of the cat.

The chopper swooped low hoping to flush the animal. The animal flushed, alright, but it popped up BEHIND one of the ground units and it was moving in their direction. The cat was stalking the stalkers.

The chopper pilot told the ground unit to turn around. When they did, the cat was exactly 32 yards away. They measured it off afterwards. Tigers can charge at 35 to 40 mph. They can cover 32 yards in seconds. Not a whole lot of time to concoct a new plan or redeploy the foot units. They took the decision to end the potential danger right there. The first shot was fired from the M1-A1. They finished the animal with two 12 gauge slugs from the shotgun.

Now you know what happened.

Why the big media doesn't give you the details if baffling. They're real quick to stick a microphone in front a grieving 12-year-old holding a stuffed tiger toy. And they can find a dozen animal "experts" who weren't within cell phone range of the event to tell you how "they" would have done it. But for some reason, they never seem to get to the guys on the ground who make the decision and ask them who, what, where, how and why. Maybe it's too much work. Maybe they've already go their minds made up. Maybe they just don't care. Maybe it's because facts are boring but a crying kid is "news."

Whatever the reason, you're only getting what they want you to get. So remember to exercise caution whenever you're watching or reading the news.

SUPREME COURT SAYS NO SEGREGATION IN PRISON
There's no argument that inmates are entitled to all the civil rights a free society can accord them. But there's a big difference between civil rights among law-abiding citizens on the outside and law-breakers on the inside. Inmates and convicted felons can't vote, for instance. And they can't claim the Second Ammendment right to bear arms.

This week's ruling by the Supreme Court that California prisons can't for the most part, segregate inmates according to race is a clear indication that laws often blindly support the ideal rather than reflect the reality.

Segregation in schools, the military or any place in outside world is pure evil. Forced desegregation in prisons, on the other hand can lead to a bloodbath.

Prison is a tribal society. The Supreme Court and law enforcement isn't about to abolish the animosity between prison racial groups by forcing them to share cells and finger paints.

In the past, even the "progressive" and radical prison reformers sued the state to force the CDC to segregate prisoners in the exercise yards, meals and shower time. According to the lawyers of the Prison Law Project, the shooting of inmate W.C. Nolen some thirty years ago was laid at the feet of prison officials for allowing blacks to exercise at the same time and in the same yard as white inmates. While it's almost unheard for liberals and progressives to demand segregation, there's a sound reason for it in the prison environment.

If you recall, Nolen's death was what fueled George Jackson's rage and triggered him to kill CO John Mills. That event was a wake-up call to POs. While there have been sporadic abuses of COs purposely putting enemies in the same yard just to watch the fights, for the most part, the CDC has done the tough work of keeping feuding groups apart.

For the sake of keeping the bloodshed down, let's hope the CDC can find a way of following the spirit of this desegregation ruling without violating the letter of it.

HMONG NEIGHBORHOODS IN NORCAL
The SAC BEE reports that a shooting war has essentially broken out between HMONG neighborhoods in NORCAL. A rash of recent shootings culminated on Sunday in a daylight driveby shooting that left one HMONG soldier DOA. The shooting happened at a busy intersection witnessed by a busload of people who were in the line of fire. There was so many witnesses that LE were able to get a good plate number on the shooter's car.

While the existence of Hmong neighborhoods isn't all that new, LE up north and in the Central Valley have seen a recent spike in criminal activity. Apparently they're forming up into organized groups and are big into weed. Hmong immigrants survive on a combination of government benefits and agriculture. A NORCAL drug agent told me that "farmers" lease land and ostensibly grow legitimate crops at the perimeter. What can't be seen from the outside, however are plots of marijuana growing in the middle. The pot is the actual cash crop. As a result, legit Hmong farmers have been unfairly stigmatized as pot growers.

The story of how thousands of Hmong families have come to live in the Central Valley is long and complicated but it has its roots in the Viet Nam war. US Special Forces armed and paid Hmong tribesmen to fight the VC and the Communists in Laos and Cambodia. American soldiers and brass came to respect the Hmong as fierce warriors who stood their ground and fought to the death even in the face of overwhelming odds. When the war ended and the US pulled out, the Communists went on a rampage of revenge against the Hmong. Out of good conscience, the US government made it easy for Hmong to migrate to America.

Thanks to their intense tribal culture and distrust of outsiders, the Hmong have had a hard time assimilating in the Central Valley and everywhere else they've settled. All these factors have contributed to criminal or near criminal activity ranging from simple game poaching on private and public land all the way up to drug trafficking and set warfare.

Chances are, the Hmong will never achieve the critical mass needed to become a major criminal organization. But one copper told me that what they lack in numbers they make up for in brazen violence like Sunday's daytime driveby.

UPDATE ON LOCKDOWNS
A day after we posted the lockdown at Pelican Bay, Andy Furillo writes about more lockdowns in the Feb. 16, issue of the Sacramento Bee. We already mentioned the Bay lockdown that allegedly uncovered a plot by the Eme to kill three correctional officers. Furillo adds that "skinhead" inmates at New Folsom (we're assuming the AB here), were also planning to attack or kill COs at that institution. This was planned as a retaliation for the November '04 shooting death of inmate Wade Shiflett. Shiflett was shot while he was in the process of attacking another inmate.

And there was supposed to be another plot on COs in Chino, this one organized by the EAST COAST CRIPS.

If you accept all this, it appears that every major ethnic group in the California prison system is pissed off about something and ready to take it out on the COs. Prison officials are saying that there's no connection between these alleged plots. The ethnic gangs each had their own reason for the planned attacks.

It's pointless to speculate what's going on behind the walls. These three plots could be a big coincidence or the beginning of a general resistance movement sparked by prison conditions. We'll update if we hear more.

THE BAY LOCKED DOWN
We're a little late on this one. Two days, late. But we waited until we had something more than the bare bones reported in the press about the lock down in Pelican Bay. What the CDC has released to the public is that they uncovered a plot to assassinate three corrections officers and the prison would stay locked down until they complete the investigation. The LA Times didn't report who planned to do the hits or why.

We still don't know why but we've been reliably informed that the plotters are all Eme brothers. So far, prison officials have confiscated four prison-made weapons (we assume they're shanks) but COs are looking for at least ten more. It sounds like there was a snitch in the mix.

With the information we have in hand, we're not ready to believe that there actually was a conspiracy to kill three COs. It's possible, of course, but it doesn't seem to make sense. First of all, greenlighting COs is bad, bad, bad for business. The whole institution is locked down. Virtually all communications, except with lawyers, is banned. All privileges are suspended and pretty much the entire system grinds to a halt. Plus consider the aftermath of three greenlights on COs. Talk about a shit storm of heat directed like a flamethrower at every shot caller and camarada. There doesn't seem to be much percentage in it for the plotters.

So if it wasn't an aborted plot, what was it? One possible scenario that comes to mind is that POs were handed misinformation by somebody who suddenly found himself in the hat and needed immediate PC. He comes up with a wild story, he's put in PC and starts debriefing. Whether his story is true or total bullshit doesn't matter. He shot his mouth off and that qualifies him for PC. Maybe it was even misinformation he was "ordered" to provide to get POs to put some enemy under the microscope.

Another possibility is that POs used the pretext of an assassination plot to go after somebody that needed going after but didn't want to make it look like they were targeting this particular person or persons. So POs do a general lockdown, toss everything and everybody and come up with what they were looking for in addition to all the other stuff they find in the course of searches. It's been done before in prison and on the street.

The scenarios, while not infinite, can get fairly extensive. And practically anything you can think of already has a precedent. If we've learned anything about the pinta and the people who live there is that truth is way stranger than fiction.

NEW BOOK DEFINITELY WORTH READING
We don't generally cover non violent crime on these electronic pages, but I just came across a new book that just floored me. Don't let the title, GOD WANTS YOU TO ROLL, throw you. It's got nothing to do with religion. What it has to do with is one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated in American history. And it started right here in Los Angeles. Compton, to be exact.

Written by JOHN PHILLIPS III, GWYTR tells the tale of two friends from Compton, ROBERT GOMEZ and JAMES NICHOLS, both still in their teens when they got the idea for the scame. By cunning and force of personality, they managed to convince thousands of victims that GOMEZ had inherited a vast fortune worth $411 million. Part of that inheritance was in the form of cars that ostensibly belonged to GOMEZ's adopted father, a devout Christian.

The way GOMEZ told his tale to church groups was that the hundreds of cars in the collection were earmarked by his late adopted father for Christians, church-going folks who believed in Jesus and miracles. The cars were tied up in probate but victims were told they could sign up, for a fee ranging from $1000 to $10,000, to reserve a car and to cover the shipping and registration expenses. The cars ranged from beaters to Maseratis and Bentleys.

To make a long story short, Gomez and Nichols took in over $21 million over a few years for cars that never existed.

If this story wasn't absolutely true, nobody would believe it as a work of fiction. It's impossible to imagine that thousands of otherwise smart, legitimate and sometimes even dubious people could be so sucked in by a story supported by nothing more than "legal" forms purchased for $1.99 from Staples. This is an amazing read. A real page-turner as they say. I was up until 3:00 AM.

Unlike most of the criminals we discuss in inthehat, Gomez and Nichols weren't hooked up with any neighborhood. They were independents. And they never used a gun, knife or a fist to collect the kind of money that big,violent criminal enterprises can only dream about. And they never spilled a drop of a victim's blood. The most powerful weapons thesse two scam artists used were the victims' faith and, frankly, their greed. You know what they say about something that sounds too good to be true. Apparently, none of the victims paid any attention to that old saw.

Ultimately, Gomez and Nichols caught 20-year sentences for the fraud but the ride that landed them in prison is worth reading about. Frankly, the kind of money generated by drug dealing, murder and extortion pales in comparison to the kind of money that can be made by using your head. We wouldn't be surprised if this book isn't already on some film producer's desk waiting for a production deal from a studio. It'll make an awesome movie. Another CATCH ME IF YOU CAN.

LA WEEKLY AND THE AB
This week's LA WEEKLY runs a feature story on the ARYAN BROTHERHOOD. Naturally, it caught our attention. The focus of the piece is US ATTORNEY GREGORY JESSNER. He's the lead prosecutor in what the author, MATTHEW DUERSTEN, states is the "largest death-penalty indictment in the history of the American justice system." He also called it "the most important trial you've never heard of." Whether you've heard about this trial depends on if you're a regular reader of the New Yorker Magazine. The truth is, the New Yorker ran a huge piece written by DAVID GRANN about this trial way back in 2004. Same prosecutor, same players, same trial. A lot of the information in the LA WEEKLY piece came from that New Yorker story. In fact, I handed one of the AB defense lawyers a copy of that New Yorker article when it first appeared because his client was mentioned prominently.

So essentially the AB story, while new to LA WEEKLY readers, isn't new in the strict sense of the word. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as Jerry Seinfeld says. It's just interesting because DUERSTEN mentions in his piece that USA JESSNER doesn't eat meat, doesn't wear a watch and is an avid reader of the NEW YORKER. You would think that DUERSTEN would have asked JESSNER, "What did you think of yourself in the New Yorker?" If he did, it didn't make it into his piece.

One item in DUERSTEN's article that caught our interest was JESSNER's connection to FAY STENDER. JESSNER apparently played with STENDER's kids when he was a toddler. DUERSTEN, by the way, spells her first name FAYE, which we've seen before, but in fact, it's spelled it FAY. When the CALIFORNIA WOMEN LAWYERS give out their FAY STENDER AWARD, they also spell it F-A-Y with no e. So you be the judge.

STENDER's story is worth knowing. I've mentioned her in previous posts but her life and times are worth examining because of the cautionary tales they contain. One of STENDER's many claims to fame is that she was GEORGE JACKSON's lawyer. He was accused of killing CORRECTION OFFICER JOHN MILLS. STENDER made JACKSON a cause celebre. She was responsible for editing JACKSON's book, SOLEDAD BROTHER, a collection of JACKSON'S letters from prison and got GREG ARMSTRONG at BOUBLEDAY to publish it. The book was a huge seller and the royalties from it were originally supposed to go to the Jackson defense committe that she founded. The money would be spent for legal fees and a PR campaign to raise grassroots support for JACKSON and other "political prisoners." In fact, the money was siphoned off to the Black Panthers who used it to buy weapons and rural property in the Santa Cruz mountains. The property was used as a training camp where Panthers and other revolutionaries learned weaponcraft, bomb making and unarmed combat. JACKSON's ultimate goal in this was to have this "army" of trained insurgents bust him out of prison and escape to Angola.

HUEY NEWTON, founder of the BLACK PANTHERS, was ostensibly JACKSON's comrade on the outside. JACKSON was relying on NEWTON to organize his escape to the point where NEWTON convinced JACKSON to sign over all the royalties from SOLEDAD BROTHER to NEWTON to raise and train this revolutionary army. NEWTON made JACKSON a FIELD MARSHAL of the BPP. NEWTON took the money and quietly abandoned all pretense of helping JACKSON escape. HUEY bought lots of coke and shoveled it up his nose. He also put himself in a 25th floor penthouse suite where he held court and entertained the female employees of his "modeling agency." He also jacked up Oakland drug dealers and befriended Hollywood celebs like DONALD SUTHERLAND, BERT SCHNEIDER (producer of EASY RIDER), CANDACE BERGEN and others.

Fay Stender got caught between competing interests. She saw JACKSON's trial as a political cause, a non-violent showcase that would bring to light all the racial and class injustices suffered by blacks in the US prison system. Her client, by his own admission, wanted to cut throats and create political change via firing squad like his heroes Che and Fidel. On the other side was Newton, who for all his political rhetoric, was never anything more than a slick street thug. Newton was eventually killed by an Oakland drug dealer who refused to pay tribute.

Stender made the mistake of becoming emotionally and physically involved with Jackson. Her performance in court was more emotional than professional and other Movement lawyers eventually convinced her that she wasn't doing her side any favors. When she apparently refused JACKSON's demand to smuggle in guns and explosives into prison, they had a falling out. She left his case and the defense committee.

In 1971, JACKSON was killed trying to bust out of prison. A 9 mm Astra pistol had been smuggled in to him by means of a tape recorder carried into the visiting room by another of his lawyers, STEVE BINGHAM. Bingham was accompanied that day by VANITA ANDERSON, a BLACK PANTHER member loyal to the NEWTON faction of the party. During the bust-out, JACKSON massacred two white inmates (KANE and LYNN) and three prison guards, KRASENES, DELEON and GRAHAM.

In MAY 1979, STENDER was visited by a former PANTHER and member of the the BLACK GUERILLA FAMILY, the prison gang that JACKSON founded. At gunpoint, he made her sign a confession that she betrayed JACKSON and was the cause of his death. Then he shot her five times and left her for dead. Miraculously, she survived but was left paralyzed. She testified against her attacker and then moved as far away as she could from the BAY AREA -- HONG KONG.

A year later, disillusioned and still in fear from associates of her former client, she took an overdose of pills and died. Stender became a "martyr" to the cause of prison reform and civil rights. Others see her as a gullible dupe of hardened criminals who used political reform as a cover. JACKSON even admitted that, "Marxism was my hustle." Ohers have an even harsher perception. In an unpublished memoir by a reformed Mexican Mafia brother, Stender is portrayed as a provacateur. In her efforts to recruit other races to the cause of prison reform she tried to get the Eme to assault and kill prison guards in order to show solidarity with black prisoners. And bringing this discussion to a complete circle, she tried to do the same with the founders of the ARYAN BROTHERHOOD in the CA prison system. She figured that a full court press of blacks, hispanics and whites would turn the prison system inside out and achieve her political goals.

It never happened, of course. The Eme had no interest in politics or in being protrayed as victims by radicals with an anti-American agenda. They saw themselves as warriors, not a class of victims. And the white inmates, for all their violence and antisocial behavior were revolted by Marxism. And neither group would ever make an alliance, in or out of prison, with blacks. A situation that, with few exceptions, exists to this day.

There's more on this piece I'd like to discuss. But I gotta run.

LAPD KILLS 13-YEAR-OLD CAR THEFT SUSPECT
Can you smell lawsuit? We can.

Early Sunday morning, an LAPD patrol unit tried to make a traffic stop on a car theft suspect. The person at the wheel ran a red light and refused to stop. He eventually crashed and his crimey in the passenger seat beat feet. The crimey was caught without incident. The driver, however, threw the 1990 Toyota Camry into reverse and smacked into the patrol unit.

At that point, the unnamed bluesuit fired ten rounds into the car and killed the driver, who turned out to be a 13 year old male black.

Get the $2,500 a night suite at the Loew's Santa Monica ready because Jesse's coming to town.

We don't want to sound cold-blooded about this, but aiming a car at a cop is the first thing they tell you not to do in undergraduate FELON 101. Ageleno's witness something like one car pursuit per week on the local news. And if there's anything to learn from these pursuits is that cops are happy to chase you all day and night until you either crash or run out of gas. They provide car chase suspects with multi-jurisdictional helicopter escorts, plenty of media play on the news and they'll even block on-ramps and intersections to give the suspect vehicle plenty of room to maneuver. They draw the line, however, at having guns pointed at them or being rammed by the suspect vehicle. They'll let you run away at 100 mph if you want to without interference. But aim your car at a cop at even 5 mph, and that's assault with a deadly weapon. Out come the guns and there goes your life.

This incident was probably the kid's first car theft caper. And unfortunately, it was his last. Somebody should have schooled him.

The aftermath, of course, is anybody's guess. Lawsuit for sure. Disciplinary action for the cop? Maybe. More headaches for Chief Bratton? Definitely. Riot? Probably not.

In an unrelated story, somebody fired 20 rounds at the 77th LAPD station. No injuries. Maybe an omen of things to come.

SUGE KNIGHT MAY BE VIOLATED
In the ongoing saga of Death Row Records founder, Marion Suge Knight may be going back to jail. This past Saturday night, Suge was pulled over for making an illegal U-turn in Colton, CA. A search of his car turned up some chronic. Possession of narcotics is a parole violation and that could be enough to send him back to prison.

As we predicted, he was never implicated in the punch-out of Suge's former producer Dr. Dre at the Image Awards two months ago. At the moment when Suge's meat puppet was punching Dre in front of a packed house, Suge was strategically standing right next to an LAPD uniformed cop at the back of the room. That gave Knight the best alibi in the world, a cop witness. This traffic stop be be tougher to beat.

ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT CANDIDATE
Out of town readers may not be aware that a mayoral election is about to take place in LA. I'll spare you all the gory details but LA citizens don't seem to have much to pick from. For one thing, all the candidates are Democrats. Republicans don't even bother fielding a contender because the city is basically a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat Party. While it's amusing to watch liberals savage each other, it's pathetic watching this cast of characters propose the same tired agendas that put the city in the financial hole. They all seem to be saying, "If you don't like what happened in the past, I promise to give you more of it."

Bob Hertzberg is the first candidate to air a TV spot. It looks like it was produced by legendary science fiction shlock-meister BERT I. GORDON. Gordon, known as MISTER BIG, worked the gigantism formula to death in movies like THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN (giant bald guy attacks Las Vegas), WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST (giant bald guy attacks Griffith Park), EARTH vs. THE GIANT SPIDER (giant spider attacks what looks like Palmdale), and BEGINNING OF THE END (giant grasshoppers attack bad background plates of downtown Chicago).

In his ad, Hertzberg looks like a benign Gordon-inspired, 50-foot giant walking around the city in a suit and apparently fixing things like the LAUSD and traffic problems. On the up side, it's a refreshing change from most political ads where the candidate sits in a classroom and pretends to care deeply about teaching kids or is surrounded by uniformed cops and pretends to get tough with crime. On the downside, it makes Hertzberg look like an atomic mutant ready to wipe away traffic jams with the sweep of an arm or crush under-performing public schools. When you're completely out of ideas or have nothing new to contribute, somebody in the campaign must have figured it would be neat to make Hertzberg look like he's about to battle Mecha-Godzilla to the death. Boy do we deserve better.

BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN
January has been particularly rough around here. We haven't posted for nearly a month due to the press of circumstances. The dry spell is over and we'll be posting regularly. Thanks to all the readers who sent emails asking what happened and when we'd be back. It's gratifying to be missed.

HATE CRIME? WHAT HATE CRIME?
Regular readers of INTHEHAT are well aware of our futile attempts to get the LA MEDIA interested in the Kenny Wilson murder case and the ethnic cleansing currently underway on LA's gang-controlled streets. We've been pitching that story to every media outlet in the city, county and state for close to two years now and so far we've only gotten a tentative bite from a soon to be named outlet. And we're not sure that will pan out because they may get a case of cold feet at the last minute.

To recap, Wilson was killed in 1999 by homies that claimed AVENUES. He was picked at random because he was black. Four shooters were involved. Only one was ever prosecute and convicted for a hate crime. I'll refrain from mentioning names right now.

To use a dopey cliche, the Wilson murder is only the tip of a very ugly iceberg. In the course of INTHEHAT's business, we've come across lots and lots of racially motivated assaults and murders all over the county. This was a story the media had completely ignored. I'll leave the reasons for ignoring these cases to your imagination. When we brought this story to the attention of the usual suspects - LAT, LA WEEKLY, LACITYBEAT, LA MAGAZINE, NYT MAGAZINE, ATLANTIC MONTHLY, SACRAMENTO BEE, FRESNO BEE and others, the responses ranged from dead silence to the plain bizarre. One editor told me the story was "unoccasioned seeming," whatever the hell that is. Another told me to supply them with the research and they'd do the story themselves. Thanks, but no thanks. The only outlet that showed some interest was the SACRAMENTO NEWS AND REVIEW. They looked at the info and supporting evidence and concluded that because there was no NORCAL angle, they would pass. The James Byrd killing in Texas had no local angle but that didn't stop that story from making national news. Go figure.

Now it seems the Wilson et al story is finally getting some traction. Two papers in the city are currently working on the Eme's ethnic cleansing policy and gathering up the information to support the case. The newfound interest is the result of a Federal hate crime indictment that was unsealed late last year against some of Kenny Wilson's killers. Back in July of 03, I mentioned that a Federal indictment was coming down on that case. And if you look back through my posts, I already outlined the bare bones of the Wilson case. There's tons more of course, but I'm not giving it away anymore. Late last year I wrote a post to the effect that no hate crime exists until the big media says it does, even though I'd given them the story months and months before the indictment was a gleam in US Attorney Tom O'Brien's eye.

Right now, several reporters are falling over themselves trying to be the first out of the gate with the Wilson murder and the other city and county race homicides. Too late, kids. Inthehat was there first. Strange how they were offered it over a year ago and passed.

It'll be interesting to see who gets there first, how thorough the reporting and what spin they'll put on it. Let's see if we can guess who the stories will quote shall we? My top picks are, GREGORY BOYLE, JAMES DIEGO VIGIL, BLINKY RODRIGUEZ, WES MCBRIDE and MALCOLM KLEIN. Since he wrote STREET WARS, TOM HAYDEN has tried to make himself a go-to guy in this field but he's a very long shot. There probably won't be a quote from Tom O'Brien. USAs are bound by law to be silent on pending cases. Thom Mrozek will probably get quoted. There will be quotes from the IOs and at least three LAC DAs who have prosecuted brown-on-black hate crimes in the recent past. I can point to a few others in RIVERSIDE, ORANGE and SAN DIEGO but we'll let the intrepid reporters find those DAs on their own. The reporters may or may not be able to get hold of a couple of COMPTON PD cops. COMPTON PD was disbanded years ago and I had hell's own time tracking down those IOs. They have some chilling stories to tell. COMPTON VARRIO TORTILLA FLATS figures prominently in two homicides. That one was a freebie clue in the hate crime scavenger hunt. No charge.

More on this as the race develops.

DIANNE FEINSTEIN GETS TOUGH
In today's LA DAILY NEWS, Beth Barrett reports that California Senator Dianne Feinstein is ready to reintroduce legislation that will target street gangs and bring Federal charges on crimes that have previously been considered local beefs.

She sounds steamed up and ready for a brawl. "I've watched, virtually all my political career, gangs go from next to nothing in this country to where they are the major criminal enterprises, more vicious than Mafia crime ever was."

The final wording on the bill hasn't been hammered out yet. Some legislators are afraid the bill might be draconian. An aide to a Senate Democrat 9curiously left unnamed) said, "The big question was whether the federal government should be federalizing street crimes." That objection has been moot for decades. The RICO statutes already federalizes what used to be considered pure street crimes like conspiracy to murder, loan sharking, extortion, drug traficking etc. That horse is already out of the barn.

Feinstein's bill would elevate other crimes to the level of a federal offense. The most interesting item in her bill would make it a federal crime to recruit a minor into a street gang. On the most basic level, if you're an 18-year-old soldado and jump in your 16-year-old cousin, you've just committed a federal offense. Which means you don't go to county or the pinta. You go to Joliet or wherever there's room in the federal prison system. That makes it tough on family visits, not to mention all the other restrictions you don't face in state prison.

Despite objections from juvenile offender activists, the LE sources quoted in the DN piece are all in favor of the new laws. No surprise there.

To all you pee wees, midgets and tinys out there, the eye of Sauron is upon you.

NEW TOOL TO FIGHT NEIGHBORHOODS
It seems that the response to international terrorism is having some fallout on the streets. The New York City DA charged 19 members of the ST. JAMES BOYS GANG, a Mexican neighborhood in NYC, with terrorism for conducting what's normally been considered street gang business.

During a run-of-the-mill street beef, EDGAR MORALES, a homie that claimed SJB, wounded his target but also accidentally hit and killed a 10-year old innocent bystander, MELANIE MENDEZ. Instead of going with the usual charges, the DA decided to prosecute under the new terrorism laws and as a result MORALES is the first street gangster in NEW YORK STATE to be charged as a terrorist. He probably also qualifies as the first gangster in the country to be charged with terrorism. We've never heard of anyone else being similarly charged so this might turn into a milestone case.

MORALES has yet to go to trial, but if he were convicted under non-terror laws, he'd get a max of 25 to life. Under the tighter terror laws he's loooking at life without parole.

Civil libertarians are predictably up in arms about this because the terror laws were never intended to target street criminals. Just the big nasty guys that fly planes into buildings, shoot schoolkids and chop off women's heads. But once a prosecutor has a tool in the toolbox, you can bet the tool will be used. It was inevitable.

The same thing happened with the RICO statutes created in 1970. RICO was originally designed to take down the COSA NOSTRA. But once LE found that other criminal enterprises fit the description, RICO has been used against groups that didn't quite measure up to the power and organization of the LCN.

What this means to neighborhoods is that the next time a group of homies is caught in some anti-social act, even if it's conducting business that doesn't involve civilians, they might be looking at forever. In the eyes of the government, you're no longer a street soldado putting in the work. You're a terrorist.

MORE WORDS FROM OUR READERS
INTHEHAT has to have one of the most well-informed audiences on this subject in the blogosphere. As the reader mentions below, back in March we posted a mention of PROJECT GET GOING and the murder of ELLEN DELIA who ran the operation. We also mentioned that GET GOING had been thoroughly infiltrated by the brothers and they were using government provided cars and expense accounts to run the business of the EME back in the late 1970s. ELLEN DELIA was murdered in SACRAMENTO on her way, it was rumored, to blow the whistle on the infiltration. Here's the reader's elaboration on that post. To make it easier to understand, M.D. is MICHAEL DELIA, ELLEN'S estranged husband. COCOLISO is the late JOE MORGAN, GODFATHER of the EME. J.M. is again, Joe Morgan. The reader also corrects my mistake. I said "city councilman" when in fact I should have said "State Senator." Mea culpa. Thanks for the correction.

"Back on Friday March 5 2004 in the 5th paragraph you stated that an assistant to a city councilman was found murdered. Could that have been Robert L. Lewis, the administrative assistant to State Senator Alex P. Garcia? I do not recall any other government type person being murdered. As to M.D. having "Cocoliso's" blessings in the operation of Project Get Going, that is true. It was through M.D.'s father, M.D. Senior,(A very close friend of J.M. that M.D. was allowed into La EME, in fact, M.D.Jr. was put on a "Hit list" for bringing to much publicity to EME during the murders that were occuring and being tied to PGG.)J.M. had the "Hit" removed from M.D. as a favor to M.D. Senior. (M.D.Senior was a "wheelman" for the Sica brothers, Frank and Joe.)"

For those who may not know, the SICA brothers were connected to the ITALIAN MAFIA aka LA COSA NOSTRA. ROBERT L. LEWIS was supposedly also connected to both the Italian Mafia and to the Brothers. We could actually write a book about all the various connections and cross-connections that emanate from the DELIA case. It would be like reconstructing an explosion in a wire factory. Here it is in brief.

MICHAEL DELIA was a friend of LEWIS. LEWIS was in the construction business and thanks to giving State Senator ALEX GARCIA financial and other forms of "support" LEWIS had GARCIA's fullest attention. It was through LEWIS that DELIA got Federal and State funding and some zoning variance for PROJECT GET GOING's office. PGG was at one time located in GARCIA's office prior to getting its own facility in BOYLE HEIGHTS. LEWIS, however, was also known by law enforcement to have connections with the JOE "CRAZY JOE" GALLO crime family in NEW YORK. This is not the same JOE GALLO who was PAUL CASTELLANO'S consigliere. Different GALLO, different set of connections.

The CRAZY JOE connection was through long-time COSA NOSTRA soldier JIMMY "THE WEASEL" FRATIANNO and his partner MIKE RIZITELLO, aka MIKE RIZZI. Law enforcement at the time (the late 1970s) had observed meetings between LEWIS, RIZITELLO and SENATOR ALEX GARCIA over RIZITELLO wanting GARCIA to help obtain a parole for some of his GOODFELLAS locked up in prison. Or so the story goes. There was also information at the time that MIKE RIZZI had some interest in state pension funds and wanted GARCIA's help. Maybe someone could shed some light on this. My records are incomplete.

To make a very long, very complicated story short, ALFIE SOSA, the triggerman on the ELEN DELIA execution got a life sentence in March 1982. SOSA, according to testimony given by informants, was also DELIA's boyfriend. That was probably the reason she got into the car with him in SACRAMENTO the night of her killing. She trusted the guy.

There are other offshoots and interesting threads in this case. One of the other people in the car that night was EDDIE "SAILOR BOY" GONZALES who was either an informant at the time or became one shortly thereafter. He presented testimony to a grand jury abou the DELIA murder but the information was excluded because it was obtained in a wonky way that JUDGE BOSKOVICH threw out. Another long story there. For those who keep track of these things, SAILOR BOY was a tight pal of another famous informant/dropout/hit man, RAYMOND "MUNDO" MENDOZA. If you follow the MUNDO thread, you go to a lot of places and you eventually wind up in AMERICAN ME and the EDWARD OLMOS dustup with JOE MORGAN. You also end up at the ANA LIZARAGA case, another incident of a woman who knew too much or cared too much.

Follow the thread back to MICHAEL DELIA and you end up with the murder of YSIDRO "FRITOS" TRUJILLO who was found shot to death in LANCASTER about 200 yards away from MICHAEL DELIA SR.'s property. DELIA JR. was also the alleged shooter in the LEWIS murder. There was speculation that LEWIS was killed by DELIA on a contract basis because LEWIS owed money to COSA NOSTRA loan sharks. Keep following the MIKE DELIA thread and you end up with ABRAHAM "ICEPICK JOE" HERNANDEZ and JUAN AGUILAR HERNANDEZ (no relation), war with the NF and a dozen homicides all over the state. It's a rich tapestry of intrigue, drugs and murder.

After seven years of court cases, MICHAEL DELIA was eventually released in 1984 after taking a plea. Current whereabouts unknown.

Anyway, with all the connections, we could spin this out forever. It's getting late and I gotta go Christmas shopping. More to come. And hey, this is to the anonymous reader, thanks for setting the record straight and let's talk.

SOME WORDS FROM A READER

One of the goals of this blog is to provide unfiltered information or information not available elsewhere. We recently got this email from an anonymous reader. Generally, we don't run emails from readers because we're not sure if the reader has an agenda or has a particular axe to grind. This one sounds genuine and fairly balanced. We found it interesting and think you will too. It's worth a read.

"I'm an old veterano from east L.A. friends with true carnales of LA EME and THE MONGOL BROTHERS like many other veteranos and SURENOS here in Los Angeles. I'm glad to hear that the green light was called off. I'd like to school you on a quick tip.

The Mongols motorcycle club was not formed in prison, they were formed on the streets of Montebello consisting of a bunch of low riders and cholos that had grown out of that scene and graduated to motorcycles and hotrods. Eventually finding themeselves with the same interests they got together and formed the motorcycle club. At first they tried joining the white motorcycle clubs that were already in existence but were not accepted by them so they started their own. Actually their first war was with a low rider club called Orpheus and they were jealous that the Mongols had moved up continentally on the streets. But history shows that Orpheus no longer exists. Most motorcycle club names are themed around hell and Satan. The Mongols wanted something different so they came up with the fiercest warriors that ruled Russia and China and most of the world for over 500 years. They even considered Aztecs or Mayans but they felt it was little bit too ethnic. I personally feel the name they chose was perfect. Their next battle was with the Hells Angels with whom they wanted to be friends with but were not accepted and the Mongols were being told what they could wear and how they should exist. Maybe the Mongols did insult them by sewing on the California bottom rocker but the Mongols had thier reasons. As far back as I could remember LA EME was always tight allies with the Mongols. They have done favors for each other many of times. You can ask anyone who has been in a Calfornia prison. The Mongols have brothers from up north and down south. They have white brothers too. This was never a problem with the Surenos before. Hell the Mongols are the only guys in the joint that I know that can walk the yard without having to ask permission that's how much love they have from LA EME. Also, for your information, the second in command to Joe Morgan, which was Robot, is brothers with the ex-president of the San Gabriel Chapter Monogls. So this so called problem is a little confusing to some Surenos and even to some older Mongols. But as with the Pepsi generation things have changed with LA EME and now similar types of changes are happening with the Mongols. So if the youngsters would talk to the elders on both sides I'm sure all this oculd be straighten out. Know the facts, the Mongols never had a reputation for taxing people. They've been known to just be a tight brotherhood that live the Chicano biker lifestyle and have one common enemy with all outlaw organiztions, the local authorities and the federal government. For all we know the federal government is creating chaos amongst us through the media to limit our constitutional rights."

There you have it. The straight word from the street without the spin or filters.

BOTH SIDES STEP OFF
The war between the EME and the MONGOLS has apparently been called off due to television. The medium that was once described as a "vast wasteland" may be responsible for saving some lives or at least prevent some bloodshed.

After CHRIS BLATCHFORD broadcast his story on the war between the two groups on FOX 11 NEWS in LA last week, a shot caller concluded that any overt moves would draw an awful lot of attention from LE.

As a result, all SOUTHERN SOLDIERS have been ordered to stand down and wait for further instructions. For now, we have a cease fire. Further updates as they arrive. Stay tuned.

DEATH OF SOUTHERN SOLDIER
Thanks to a heads up from a regular reader, it's been confirmed that ROBERT "ROBOT" SALAS passed away some three weeks ago in SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

We're not sure of the exact cause of death, but we're positive he did not die by the sword. Salas had been out of prison for years and was living in SOCAL in what some sources claim in a state of semi- or full retirement. His passing marks another milestone in the history of the brotherhood.

SALAS, along with other deceased carnals like MIKE "HATCHET MIKE" ISON, BEN "TOPO" PETERS, and JOE "COCOLISO" MORGAN, could be considered part of the OLD GUARD in the organization. They were there at the beginning, or very close to it, when you could count the number of validated brothers on the fingers of both hands.

It's interesting to note that of this group, only ISON died a violent death. He'd been paroled and living in San Francisco, apparently adjusting well to life on the outside, enjoying his freedom and spending time with his family. He got into a brawl with some guys in a bar and was clubbed to death with pool cues. MORGAN and PETERS died of cancer.

More on SALAS as information arrives.

NEVER WORE THE BADGE
In response to the previous post on long-ago ties between the brothers and Mexican cartels, I got this email from an anonymous reader. This isn't the first of its kind so maybe it's time to reiterate what this blog is all about. Here's the email with some snipping.

"Your account on the Arujo/Morgan association is right on! Also the part of many parolees being "taken care of when they went PAL. At that time it was almost impossible to get them back to the USA. [Snipped] Do you have anything on the infamous "Shoe War"? The more I read from your articles, I believe you to be an ex-cop with a good source...such as 'Mundo.' -- Tio Moco."

To paraphrase RICHARD NIXON, "I am not a cop." Never was and they'd never have me even if I wanted to.

Yeah, I do have really good sources in and out of law enforcement. But the most important tool is doing the homework. Every scrap of information I've come across in the past decade is stored in a way that I can cross-reference it and retrieve it. You'd be amazed at the stuff you can find in public records archives and through Freedom of Information requests if you know what you're looking for. There's no mystery in putting together information even if you have to wade through heavily redacted documents. All you need is enough information to ask the right guy the right questions. Nobody volunteers anything. But they will respond honestly (most of the time) if you ask a direct question about a specific incident. In time, little bits of info start falling in place and you've got a decent picture to look at. Just plain work, some luck and informed guessing.

As to "Machine Gun Mundo," I only wish I could get a tape recorder in front of the guy. Also Chuco, Enriquez, Gratton, and all the other CIs who have debriefed or are currently debriefing. Having a chat with them would be like grabbing the keys to Fort Knox.

As to the "shoe war," there's not much mystery left in that event. It's been documented in books and court documents, verified by interviews with LE who either ran debriefs or have direct knowledge of debriefs and it's even covered on some web sites. Be alert, however, because a lot of the stuff on line is misleading or flat wrong. But even the wrong info can sometimes lead to the right conclusion. I'll take a shot at it for those who may not be familiar with the shoe incident. Look for it soon.

So Tio, I hope that answers your question. If you have more or want to share some insight, you know where to email. Always happy to hear from interested parties and I'm always ready to be set straight if I get it wrong.

AND FURILLO DOES ANOTHER ONE
On December 9, 2004, ANDY FURILLO, staff writer at the SACRAMENTO BEE went a little off his usual NORCAL beat and came up with a terrific article about the Eme and its connection to the ARELLANO FELIX drug cartel with a SAN DIEGO dateline. An easy search should bring you to the SAC BEE website and you can read it for yourself. The story adds a big chunk of information to the diligent student's database.

While the story has a lot of threads (a crooked but so far unconvicted CDC prison guard, an aborted prison escape, a barber shop that was a essentially an EME "war room," a planned hit on a San Diego cop etc.) the most enlightening was a hard connection between the brothers and the AF cartel.

If you follow local drug and homicide trials, invariably, there's always some kind of connection between SOUTHERN SOLDIERS and narco dealers south of the border. Local LE has always suspected that deals were being made at a level way above the average street dealer's pay grade. Furillo's story confirms that theory.

Furillo's story echoes a relationship between the brothers and Mexican drug cartels that goes back to the 1970s. At the time, the biggest Mexican supplier and business associate of the Eme was a guy by the name of CHUY ARAUJO. He lived and operated in Mexico and packaged up big loads for delivery to the US. The brothers also sent him parolees or fugitives so they could decompress with some R&R in sunny Mexico. Araujo's main contact was none other than JOE "COCOLISO" MORGAN. He was also called PEGLEG, but never to his face.

ARUAJO and MORGAN were eventually taken out of circulation, but obviously, the connections were reactivated and have flourished. We're probably only becoming aware of the very tip of that iceberg.

TEEN COP KILLER PLEADS GUILTY
The public execution of CHP officer THOMAS STEINER by a POMONA 12th gangster, VALENTINO ARENAS, has become one of those events you can point to, shake your head and grumble, "Look how bad things have gotten." It's had a similar, though more muted impact that the infamous STEPHANIE KUHEN "wrong way" killing in 1995 in Highland Park. That one even got the attention of PRESIDENT CLINTON and prompted him to try to put an extra 100,000 cops on the nation's streets. The tenth anniversary of the Kuhen killing is coming up next year and it would be an interesting idea for one of LA's major media outlets to revisit that crime and check out the changes that have happened in that neighborhood in the last ten years. And there have been a lot.

Cop killing isn't new. Criminals have been shooting and killing cops for generations and it probably reached its zenith during the age of the Hudson Terraplane and the Tommy gun -- the two pieces of equipment favored by the likes of the Barrow gang, Dillinger and assorted rum runners and mobsters.

The two things that make cop killing different in the modern world are the age of the shooter and the motivation. In the era before inter-jurisdictional radio nets like CLEMARS and helicopters, you didn't earn stripes by killing a cop. You earned stripes the old fashioned way, by having the balls to rob banks where guards could shoot back. And you stuck up stores at a time when every grocery clerk had a sawed-off 12 gauge behind the counter. In some parts of the country, as we saw last week, the clerks still shoot back. One of the reasons for the popularity of franchised gas station and grocery stores as targets for robbery is that the franchisee is forbidden by contract to arm the clerks. It's a basically a written guarantee to criminals that the victim will be unarmed and helpless.

The 16-year-old who executed Officer Steiner outside the Pomona Court House admitted to LE that he shot Steiner to earn stripes from P12. It may have impressed the pee wees and tinys in the neighborhood, but the veteranos are not pleased. It was a bullshit shooting that had nothing to do with business. And it's now drawn the sort of heat that can make business a lot harder to conduct. That's the irony in this case. Instead of elevating his status, this young shooter will forever be stigmatized as a wild hot head by the very people he tried to impress. Hot heads are bad for the organization and many have been put on the lista, even after years of loyal service. Arenas may not even be useful for carrying out prison hits or any sort of high level work. After all, he rolled over and spilled his water the minute he was taken into custody. In short, an unreliable soldado who may not even be eligible for schooling. An outcast even among criminals.

Arenas pleaded guilty on December 6 and will be sentenced in January. Because of his age, he's not eligible for the death penalty.

BLOOD IN, JESUS OUT?
It seems that we periodically have to cover this issue whether we want to or not. Like going to the dentist, it seems unavoidable. The topic in question is this: Do the brothers ever give anybody a pass to leave the Mob without any repercussions?

This post is prompted by a series of emails from curious individuals and by someone who seems to have some rather privileged knowledge. For the sake of protecting identities I'm quoting from the email but snipping out self-identifiers. This is the emailer's quote.

"Wally, again, you made the mistake about "Conejo's" book, "Blood In, Blood Out." This book has nothing to do with the movie of the same name. [text snipped here]. I agree that if one is to buy into the Blood In Blood Out doctrine, then those "preachers" from Victory Outreach would be dead. Could it be that there is something out there a foot that "we" do not have the real story as yet?"

First off, I don't recall saying that ART "CONEJO" BLAJOS' book, BLOOD IN, BLOOD OUT ever had the slightest resemblance to the movie -- BLOOD IN, BLOOD OUT: BOUND BY HONOR. It was originally released with that title but the current video boxes put BOUND BY HONOR up top and use B.I.B.O. as the sub. You can rent the movie anywhere. Getting a copy of Blajos' book to do your own comparison, on the other hand, will set you back some serious money. It's been out of print for years and even Amazon can't seem to find used copies.

To begin with, let's turn our textbooks to the Eme commandments. As outlined in a variety of sources, including unpublished manuscripts of dropouts, court testimony of snitches, confidential informants and from LE gang intelligence here's the law of the Black Hand as laid out by HUERO BUFF FLORES, EDDIE LOERA, JESUS PEDROSA, ALEJANDRO LECHUGA and others back in 1957. I paraphrase the original wording.

• To join, you have to be sponsored by an active member.
• You have to be approved by at least three active members. In the old days, all members in a prison had to vote you in. Now with over 600 members all over the state, the requirement is down to three.
• The only way out of the Eme is death.
• The Eme comes first, before family and friends.
• No homosexual activity. Ever. Anyplace, anytime. No excuses.
• No politicking. That means you don't undermine another brother's operations or badmouth him to other brothers or the outside.
• Admitting the existence of the Eme to law enforcement or anyone not a member is punishable by death. Admitting membership is on a need to know basis. Your homies in the neighborhood, for instance.
• Don't show fear or weakness.
• Orders from brothers have to be obeyed regardless of the personal risk to the person being ordered. That means if you're in a position to hit somebody that the brothers want hit, failure to act will demonstrate weakness and violate the above law.
• If a member goes bad, it will reflect badly on his sponsor. That means the sponsor will have to clean up the books himself. Or else.

There are other regulations regarding drug addiction, paperwork, ethnic purity and others, but these are the important ones.

With regard to Art Blajos' book, he violates all the big ones. He admits to having been made. He admits the existence of the organization to the world. By his own admission, he failed to carry out a hit on direct orders. And, of course, he walked away quite alive and well.

At the end of his book, Blajos tells the tale of being redeemed by Jesus and by the counseling of Victory Outreach pastors. While on the road to becoming a pastor himself, Blajos was working at a car wash when a big Cadillac he recognized pulled up and a window rolled down. He knew the people inside and he was ready to take a bullet. But nothing happened. The car rolled off without a word. A week later he got another visit and this time the caller said, "Be for real." Blajos concluded that the Eme gave him a pass and would not greenlight him unless his conversion proved not to be genuine. Blajos doesn't specify what year this happened, but the book was published in 1996. So we assume it was a few years before that.

By 1995, the LOS ANGELES METROPOLITAN TASK FORCE ON VIOLENT CRIME was in full operation. ERNIE CASTRO, a full-blown carnal, had flipped and was wearing a wire. Shot callers were meeting regularly in a motel room which was wired for video and sound. At one of these motel meetings, RANDY "COWBOY" THERRIEN was discussing the status of DONALD "BIG D" GARCIA with ALEX "PEE WEE" AGUIRRE, CASTRO and other brothers. Garcia was an Eme member who, by his own admission in an LA TIMES article, failed to complete an order to hit another inmate while in jail. Like Blajos, Garcia dropped out and found god. Therrien said this on tape about Garcia's conversion: "People think that's the back door out of the Eme. There ain't no back door. You guys turn on us, pick up the Bible, I'm going to look for you." At the same meeting, a vote was taken to kill Garcia. Interestingly, no one was ordered to do the hit. The only opinion one can form about this is that it was a low priority greenlight, apparently to be fulfilled if and when the opportunity arose. Garcia remains unmolested and free to preach.

Other dropouts don't get anything like a pass. Even if they haven't debriefed and just want out, the greenlight goes on and they become free-fire zones.

So on one side of the equation you've got dropouts who apparently have a pass because of their religion. On the other, you've got the commandments according to HUERO BUFF FLORES, co-founder of the brotherhood.

Looking at both sides of this, you can form your own opinion about the back door out of the brotherhood. But there are a few things to think about while formulating an opinion. If there is a back door then the Commandments need to be rewritten. Or at least footnoted. Being in for life is a powerful tool for maintaining commitment and cohesion. Modifying it makes the organization appear somewhat less than totally serious about what it demands from its members.

If there is no back door, then there may be other factors in play that, as my reader says, "we do not have the real story as yet."

DEATH BY INTERNET
Fightin' words exchanged between rival neighborhoods in chat rooms is nothing new. It's been happening since the beginning of the net. But we now have the first documented case of hostile internet words leading to a homicide. At least this is the first we know of.

Two LAKE WORTH, FLORIDA neighborhoods, SUR 13 and MAKIN LIFE KRAZY (MLK), have been beefing in chat rooms for some time. On November 29, an SUV with SUR 13 homies and an 18th STREET soldado rolled up on MLKs and cut loose. An MLK homie, RICARDO "SILENT" ANDRES, who was all of 14 years old, died from 9mm rounds in the head and chest. A 9-year-old and a 17-year-old were wounded but will survive. Both backed up MLK. Although how much backup a 9-year-old can provide is questionable. The lone shooter was 23-year-old MIGUEL LEMU-FLORES, the 18th Streeter. He's now in the wind.

To the tutored eye, MLK sounds more like a tagging crew than a full-on neighborhood, but then again, we don't know all that much about the evolving neighborhood culture on the other side of the continent.

EXPANSION LEADS TO ATTENTION
What began as a trickle of neighborhoods expanding out of Los Angeles has become something of a flood that now reaches from ocean to ocean. It started logically enough with colonies in Nevada and Arizona. And as posted here, there's a growing presence in places like Idaho and Utah. The wave has apparently hit the East Coast with enough force that two congressmen have written a bill to build some flood control measures.

Rep. FRANK R. WOLF and Rep. THOMAS M. DAVIS, both Virginia Republicans have gotten Congress to approves $48.6 million for regional law enforcement task forces (mostly in Virginia) and to create an FBI NATIONAL GANG INTELLIGENCE CENTER. The FBI Center will cost $10 million and will put up to 80 agents and analysts to work monitoring interstate gang activity. It's no accident that the bill's authors are from Virginia. In the past few years, that state has had a significant spike in gang activity and some celebrated gang murders, the kind we see almost every day in LA but rare for Virginia. So rare that the County Mounties had to send faxes and jpegs to their brother cops on the West Coast to figure out what all the placasos and the tattoos meant.

It's interesting that it only took a handful of homicides in Virginia to energize their congressmen to take some big measures. California's gang homicides, probably the highest in the country, have apparently never prompted our congresspeople to do anything quite this ambitious. We've built a lot of jails, of course, we've got the Metropolitan Task Force on Violent Crime (yeah it's still operational and run out the Federal building on Sepulveda and the 405) and we've got some savvy gang cops, but for some reason, State LE and politicians never took that ultimate step to feed all that information into an FBI database and share it with the rest of the country.

The lag time between appropriating the money and going operational could go on for months, if not years. So West Coast homies planning flag-raising missions to the East have a fairly big window of opportunity before the BIG EYE of the Federales is upon you.

MONGOLS VS. EME: DAVID MAY GET HIS ASS KICKED BY GOLIATH
A large number of LA readers have emailed asking if I saw CHRIS BLATCHFORD'S two-part story on the battle between the Mongols and the Eme on FOX 11 NEWS. Yes I did. A number of these emailers asked me what I thought about the story. I'm pleased that the inthehat audience is as interested in the subject and as eager to learn as I am. While I consider myself more of an ardent student than an expert, I'm rather humbled to be asked my opinion on this situation.

First off, Blatchford did a very good job. I'm also amazed that FOX 11 gave him him enough air time to tell the story as thoroughly as he did. While I don't know Blatchford, from his past coverage of criminal organizations and crime issues, I get the sense he's extremely dialed in and has terrific sources. He seems to have more than an academic interest in the subject.

For out of town readers, here's the outline. The Mongols is a motorcycle gang based in SOCAL with chapters all over the country. They're the Un-Cola, a slightly different flavor for people who don't like the taste of the original -- Hell's Angels. As the world witnessed in LAUGHLIN, NEVADA two years ago, the Angels and Mongols get along about as well as the Palestinians and the Israelis. The Laughlin battle put three soldiers in the cemetery and a bunch more in the hospital.

While the Angels have predominantly been a white group, the Mongols have an open enrollment policy that offers membership to Hispanics. According to the FOX 11 piece, (and it seems to line up pretty well with what I found out) the Mongols have been heavily recruiting among SOCAL neighborhoods. Essentially, a lot of the new members are SURENOS with their cultural roots deep in the neighborhoods. Rather than seeing themselves as traditional outlaw bikers and iron horse iconoclasts, these new members could be better described as Leather Homies. In fact, as the FOX 11 story reported, some of these new members don't own bikes and don't even know how to ride.

When they put on the leathers, they didn't necessarily divest themselves of certain "allegiances" and cultural modalities. They took the Sureno culture with them. So they basically fly both flags -- the screaming skull and the black hand. There's a saying about a house divided against itself.

What probably happened, and this is speculation, is that once there was a critical mass of Sureno membership within the Mongol organization, the brothers perceived the entire organization as merely another set in the larger Sureno universe. And as Surenos, the natural order of things is that they should get in line with the rest and begin to pay tribute.

Apparently, it hasn't worked out that way. The Mongols have officially refused to pay taxes. In response, the Eme issued one of its famous greenlights on the Mongols.

Bodies have fallen on both sides and it looks like a low intensity shooting war has broken out.

The truth is, the Mongols didn't pick this fight. It looks like the fight came to them. Just as it came to MS, Maravilla and other tax-resister gangs.

If this was a horse race, the smart money would be on the Brothers. In terms of sheer numbers, organization, intelligence gathering and horsepower in prison, the Brothers are in complete control. Any Sureno with a strap and some heart is now free to pop a Mongol anywhere, anytime and be assured of earning a stripe. SOCAL Mongol membership right now is reported to be around 200. When you consider that a single Sureno neighborhood like Avenues can muster 800 men at arms, 600 for El Sereno, and equally large numbers in neighborhoods like Florencia, CVTF, VNE, RSP, San Fer, Pacas -- well, you get the idea. Think of a sledgehammer hitting a flea.

This is not to imply that Mongols don't have heart and aren't willing to get grimy. But the numbers facing the Mongols are just staggering.

Will discretion be the better part of valor? We'll see.

SUGE KNIGHT -- INNOCENT BYSTANDER
No doubt, almost everybody with a TV set has seen the stabbing and fight that broke out at the VIBE awards two weeks ago. As usual, the media did a lousy job of telling you exactly what happened. Here's the deal from a guy who was there.

There was a lot of security that night, both private and uniformed LAPD. The private security had been ordered to keep Suge Knight out of the venue if he appeared. The reason to keep Knight out was because DR. DRE was getting a lifetime achievement award and knowing the history of bad blood between him and Knight, nobody wanted a confrontation.

When Knight showed up, the private security people told Knight that he wouldn't be allowed in. Knight pressed the issue. He wanted in and nobody had a right to stop him. On their radios, the security detail asked for confirmation that Knight was not to be admitted. Somebody in charge had a change of heart and told them to let Knight in even though he had no invitation. Big mistake. Suge and his entourage took a table about 20 feet from Dre's table at which time Suge proceeded to mad dog Dre for most of the evening.

Just before the fight broke out, Suge got up, went to the back of the room and took a position right next to an LAPD copper. Apparently, this was the signal for the "autograph seeker" JAMES JOHNSON, to approach Dre. Instead of producing an autograph book, Johnson wound up and punched Dre in the face twice. Knight, of course, had himself the world's best alibi because he was way across the room next to a cop when the fists started flying. Just an innocent bystander. Suge is on parole and can't afford another beef.

That's when hell broke loose. The puncher was swarmed by Dre defenders, including YOUNG BUCK who proceeded to stab the puncher. Knight cohorts jumped in to save him from the crowd, private security jumped in to separate the parties and the LAPD dragged non-involved attendees out of the room and proceeded to lock the doors.

The stabbing could have been avoided if the VIBE organizers had installed metal detectors. Apparently, there weren't any. Maybe next time. Or maybe they should have separate VIBE awards. One for FRIENDS OF SUGE and one for everybody else.

Dre is going ahead with an assault case against Johnson. Johnson is being represented by Knight's lawyer. The DA will probably go after Young Buck for the stabbing. Knight's lawyer is saying that Knight and Johnson have no association with each other. Right.

The AP is carrying a story right now that law enforcement is looking at videotape of the event to determine if Knight was involved in the fight. They won't find a single thing on that tape to implicate Knight. He was way across the room standing next to a uniformed cop. Case closed. Knight skates. Next time, naked VIBE awards in a big padded room with fire hoses at the ready.