HERE COMES THE BIG HAMMER.
Oh boy, here it comes. In case you missed it, the suits and uniforms made their appearance on 204 yesterday after the "Truce" was signed by people who weren't fighting. The attendees included Mayor Tony V., Chief Bratton, Sheriff Baca, Janice Hahn and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller among others. When the head Fed shows up, you know the heat's on. The thrust of the press op was to announce a "campaign for the 'strategic dismantling' of two street gangs" according to the LA TIMES. In addition to the usual law enforcement presence, the Federal authorities will also send in the DEA and ATF. Yikes! One interesting approach is to put LASD and LAPD in the same radio car. It looks like the LAPD and LASD have also signed a truce because those two agencies have never gotten along all that well. The Feds will provide electronic surveillance (wiretaps) and obversation posts (eyeballs on the street). The Mayor offered carrots and sticks in the form of "services and suppression" to put, "you [204] out of business."

Throwing a kink in the works was Aqeela Sherrills who doesn't seem to know what he wants. He wanted after-school and youth programs but then criticized spending money. The Times quoted him saying, "They are going to spend millions of dollars even though Najee Ali already brought about a peace treaty." On the subject of the "peace treaty" Chief Bratton said on TV last night, "I don't believe in fairy tales." From all the indicators, the "truce" sure looked like a fairy tale because the shooters on both sides were no shows. And for sure there are shooters on both sides. Sherrils and Ali are probably a little pissed off they weren't invited to the press op party. In the game of power brokering, those two are more like gate crashers than mediators.

Why all this attention to a conflict that's been going on for years? For one, it's because the cat's out of the bag. The media, politicians and activists could only keep a lid on it for so long. Now it's getting national attention and while all the parties involved are genuinely disgusted with street violence, there's probably the feeling that they don't want this happening on their watch. If you're a politician with aspirations to higher office, you don't want a future political opponent pointing a finger and saying your record as a civic leader sucks. This is what happened to Mayor Jerry Brown in Oakland. Of course, he failed up. He was such a dismal failure riding herd on the street killings in Oakland, that he was rewarded by being elected the State's top cop. Go figure that one out.

Also, regardless of snow in Malibu, summer's coming and that means the kids will be taking the guns out of the gym lockers and bringing them home for the holidays. Is that too cynical? Maybe. But we've got all the ingredients brewing right now for major 415s, a.k.a riots. And riots don't just kill people, they kill political careers.

While the media totally ignored this, one of the flash points of the current race violence was when Demian Williams and his homies dragged Hispanics out of their cars, beat them, robbed them and then spray painted them. These were civilians, not soldados. The Big Homies put a major green light on Football and the Mara was only too happy to pick that up. It was lucky for him the LAPD got to Football first.

So 204 right now is the most recent participant in the whack-a-mole game. Welcome to Gaza.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY TRUCE?
The truce in Harbor Gateway is apparently a flop. The soldados from 204 who were supposed to show up this afternoon to sign a truce never made an appearance. Najee Ali never indicated who the other side to sign the truce was supposed to be. So the only people to sign the truce were people who weren't fighting to start with. In other words, civilians who weren't involved in the friction except as victims of the crossfire. So the truce must have been worded something like, "We promise to continue not shooting you." This is like Iceland declaring a truce with Lichtenstein. As much as we would have liked a different outcome, it looks like the entire peace initiative was a total figment of the public's imagination. Political myth, may we introduce you to reality? Tomorrow Tony V., Chief Bratton and others will travel to that neighborhood and will hopefully apply common sense to the infected area and continue application until the issue is resolved. Maybe.

DELGADILLO HAS DOUBTS.
With all the concerned parties looking hard at Connie Rice's jumbo gang study and more or less mulling it over, Rocky Delgadillo apparently has some reservations. He doesn't want to create a new giant bureaucracy. It's a legitimate concern but it may be a premature concern until they figure out how to run it, where to put it, and how it will work. We wondered why Rocky voiced reservations so quickly until we dug up an LA Times announcement from November 2006 in which Rocky named former Federal Prosecutor Bruce Riordan to head the LA City Attorney's gang prosecution and intervention efforts. When Rocky made that announcement he called Riordan his new "Gang Czar." It appears that Delgadillo was already laying the groundwork to have the new anti-gang organization attached to or under the supervision of the City Attorney's office. We wonder if Rocky would be objecting as strongly to a new bureaucracy if this new entity was placed directly under his supervision? One of the problem with politicians is that they're always looking to carve out little empires for themselves. It's called job security.

TRUCE ON 204th.
There's been an interesting development in Harbor Gateway. After all the airtime and ink in the aftermath of the Cheryl Green homicide, Najee Ali has apparently brokered a truce between 204th Street and parties that to date have not been named. The representative from 204, according to the article in the Daily Breeze, is someone named Jonathan O'Gorman. The Breeze states he's a 16-year veterano from that neighborhood. The details on the "truce" are vague but apparently everybody concerned wants to stop the threatened injunction and use the truce as a bargaining chip to get a community center and jobs. There's an awful lot not known about this. For instance, who's signing for the other side? And what are the penalties for breaking the truce, if any? Will they yank the jobs and demolish the center if somebody breaks the truce? Will they rat him out? And what's O'Gorman's horsepower for keeping the soldados in line? We wish all parties the best of luck and we're keeping our fingers crossed. Here's the link to the story.

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/5220486.html?showAll=y&c=y

THIS IS GETTING TO BE A HABIT.

I've been asked this about a thousand times and I'll just get it over with so we can move on. Jim asks:

Wallace, I have two questions, entirely out of genuine interest and not meant to critique my esteemed "pal". I thought that the inclusion of "Southern Soldiers" into your book's original title was sound on several fronts, but I amicably chided you on your decision to have dropped it, and instead go it alone with the ~MM~ Mexican Mafia.What were your reasons, or whims, on deciding this?
2. "Wally Fay", why did you choose the name Wally Fay? Is there any connection here to the Wally Fay character in the Joan Crawford vehicle "Mildred Pierce" of many years past? We are curious Wally, be a sport and tell. Bunch of us old time vatos here in SanFer, Borrego Valley, "Sylmar Ranch" and Kansas are dyin' to know.
Felice año nuevo to all.


Since you're asking, I used the name Wally Fay because every combination of Tony Rafael was already taken when I started using Blogger and Yahoo. A lot of people got there before me and I got shut out. So as I was casting about for some appropriate handle, I went to a default mode and searched the mental memory banks for something that connected the topic with earlier generations of LA noir writers. To me, the one guy that seemed to catch the spirit of this place better than the rest was James M. Cain. And as I started replaying his books and the movies made from them in my head, one guy popped out -- Jack Carson, to my mind, one of the greatest character actors ever to step in front of a camera. There's one other actor, Vito Scotti who ranks right up there with Carson. But it had to be Carson because he was connected to Cain and bingo -- Wally Fay from Mildred Pierce. "You know me, Mildred. I see an angle and I can't help cutting myself a piece of throat." Perfect. All this took about 30 seconds. And nobody had claimed the handle on Yahoo mail so I grabbed it.

So yeah, Wally from the movie and I wear the handle proudly. Send my your info Jim and you'll get a signed copy. You're the first guy to actually make the connection so you get a prize for being so well rounded.

As to the book, I still think Southern Soldiers is a cooler title but I was overruled. It wasn't my call. Those who spend the money call the shots. The publisher and the distributor thought Southern Soldiers sounded too much like a book about the Civil War. They didn't want to confuse the public and having to explain the title just makes the book harder to sell. It was a purely commercial decision.

YOU TALKIN' TO ME?
When covering the topic of race violence, I don't use a bias filter. If it happens, or there's some news item related to it like the city's new "weighted matrix" gang strategy I'll talk about it. But as we all know, the race-biased violence in this city has, for the most part gone in one direction. When the three Hispanic civilians were machine gunned on Central by three male blacks, I talked about that too. The reason I haven't posted more on it is because that case is going nowhere. No good wits, no suspects and no progress. There have been a handful of puzzling homicides of Hispanics in remote parts of the County that may be race related but, like the Central homicides, no strong wits and no suspects. They look hinky to me and they may go that way if the investigations ever bear fruit. But at this point, there's no way I could legitimately call them race related because nobody knows. So I'm waiting until there's something to talk about.

Bear in mind it took almost a year before Northeast had any reliable information on the Wilson killing. And I waited two years before I had enough info to characterize that as a race murder. There's no doubt, even without the shooters in custody that the Central Ave. killings were race-motivated. It's the only way it figures right now.

So does the race thing work both ways? It sure does. And when anything happens on either side of the color line, you'll hear about it without the spin. Just as an aside, there was a time when the Bounty Hunter Crips had Hispanic members and XVIII had Black members. The 18th broomed all the blacks and Bounty Hunters threw out all the Hispanics. Believe it or not, there was such a thing as Hispanic Bloods [I erroneously said Crips, thanks for the correction] and Black Surenos. Can you picture anything like that now? Unthinkable. I'll post something about that whole thing sometime soon.

On the other topic of comments, I don't care what opinions you hold, just don't be stupid or offensive about it. I disagree with a number of comments but I run them because they're articulate and they don't get down in the gutter. The basic rule is, if it adds something to the dialogue, even if it's extreme, I'm okay with it. A foul rant, adds nothing.

COMMENT MONITORING WORKS!
In response to a query from a commenter, I've only had to reject a handful of comments. It appears the loud mouths, bedwetters, cell soldiers and net bangers got the hint they're not welcome here. The quality of discourse and the level of thought you commenters have put into the effort has never been better. As a result, the hits have gone up, we're getting some old commenters back and adding some new ones. Congrats all for keeping the discussions to high level. And as to the number of pix in the book, I submitted "lots." How many will appear is another question. We're working on it.

WE GOT OUR ANSWER.
As if making a direct response to our question in the previous post on how "targeted" versus "blanket" suppression would work, yesterday Chief Bratton and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo unveiled a new strategy for addressing gang violence. The plan is to create a matrix using weighted factors to identify the "worst" gangs in the city and then hit them with a brick.

At first glance, it seems like an interesting idea and something that veteran law enforcement and even activist types have suggested in the past. We'll hold off on commenting about this particular approach until we can get more information on the stuff that can make or break any concept -- the details.

The LA TIMES article on this initiative mentions that one of the neighborhoods under consideration for special attention is CPA, "a relatively small gang that police say is responsible for a disproportionate amount of violence in the Valley." For decades, CPA had a reputation more as a party neighborhood than hard core shooters and looters. Obviously that's changing. The question is why? We a have a few theories but let's let the initiative take its course and see what develops officially. When it's over, we'll compare notes.

The takaway from the LA TIMES piece seems to be that the killing of Cheryl Green finally got somebody's attention and it created the motivation for this new strategy. This phenomenon clearly underscores the fact that it's not a story (in this case, ethnic cleansing) until the big media says it is. The Green case generated lots of ink, unlike almost all the previous cases.

Let's recap some of the racially motivated homicides and assaults and the level of press attention, shall we?
Kenny Wilson, Anthony Prudhomme, Christopher Bowser: Nearly six years after the fact.
Hightower: No press.
Haggins: No press.
Boikins: No press.
Winston: No press.
Mellancon: No press.
The Williams family: No press.
Green: No press.

We got a bunch more. The point is the gatekeepers of what qualifies as news literally have to be overwhelmed by reality before they take official notice of "racially sensitive" issues. In this particular instance, the reality that overwhelmed them was the Avenues trial last September. Once the ice was broken with that case, well, all of a sudden, it's NEWS!

I clearly remember numerous fruitless pitches and serious conversations with the gatekeepers about this phenomenon years ago. They didn't want to know it. They never heard of it. And will someone escort this man out of here?

In the immortal words of one brave editor, "We don't want to start a race war." Using that line of reasoning, no one should have reported the Rodney King beating or Pearl Harbor for that matter because it could raise some eyebrows.

TONY V. ASKS FOR FEDERAL MONEY.
Today's LA TIMES has a report on LA Mayor Tony V's request to the US DOJ for Federal money and prosecutorial resources to fight LA's gang problem. Our mayor wants the DOJ to prosecute gangs on Federal crimes and focus harder on the Mara Salavatrucha, a gang that the Times calls, "a gang from El Salvador." This is all well and good but the MS (aka MS-13, dutiful tax-payers and occasional shock troops for the Eme) isn't the heart of the problem. That's like starting a fight with a big guy but you decide to beat up his little brother. Additionally, the mayor wants more resources to prosecute racially motivated hate crimes committed by gangsters. After a decade of ignoring the issue, it's refreshing that somebody in power has at last acknowledged that the problem exists. The truth is, the DOJ was already on the case long before Tony V. became the city's chief executive. Three jumbo RICO cases in LA, Black Widow in NorCal, the AB trial down south, the Sana and Nite Owl prosecutions, the Vineland crackdown and the Avenues race murders. It's clear the Federal authorities have been doing their part.

This is not to say that local and State LE has been slacking. All those cases required a tremendous amount of talent from LAPD, LASD, CDC, OC and other departments.

And we haven't gotten where we are by not spending money. In the same article, Connie Rice states that we're spending $82 million a year on gang intervention programs that "are designed to fail." It can't help, of course, when Hector Marroquin is handed a million dollars under those programs and ends up buying a $600,000 nightclub. Rice also states that, "We need smart suppression, not blanket suppression." Rice is a smart lady. We just wish she'd offer some concrete ideas instead of generalities. Connie, if you're listening, please give us a usable definition of smart suppression. And councilman Herb Wesson is quoted. "It's about stopping kids before they join gangs." Absolutely correct. Herb, that's what the $82 million a year is for. Show us results.

The good news is that overall crime is down in LA, but gang crime is up 14%. Most of that is in Valley Bureau. There's a concrete reason the Valley is kicking up dust that has to do with certain moves taking place in County Jail. If Ms. Rice wants to exercise her smart versus blanket suppression concept, that might be a good place to start. Here's hoping for the best.

WE HAVE A WINNER!
Actually we've got two winners. The first in with the correct answer was SOUTHERN GENT. He clocked in with his correct answer - Rafael Sanvodal, Jimmy Coppolla and Robert Salas - at 3:05 PM. But since MAD MEXICAN clocked in at 3:06 PM, it was close enough, and I was in a generous mood to give both of them a signed copy of the book. If you winners want to send me your mailing info back channel, I'll make sure you get the first two copies off the press. If either or both winners want to fill the rest of us in on the background and the relationship among the three at the time the picture was taken, we'll all be the wiser for it. Thanks for playing at home and here's hoping for a more peaceful year.

NEW YEAR'S DAY PUZZLER.
While going through the voluminous InTheHat secret vault deep in the Wally Fortress of Solitude, this ancient Polaroid popped up. Instead of revealing who the three individuals are, I'll turn this over to you all. First person to accurately name all three individuals gets a free autographed copy of the book when it hits the stores in July. All readers, including law enforcement, are eligible.

ARE THE FEDS COMING TO THIS ONE?
In today's LA TIMES, Sam Quinones has a follow up story on the murder of 14-year-old Cheryl Green, a black teenager shot by a 204 gangster a few weeks ago. It was apparent almost from the beginning that this was one of those murders that the media has, up to now, been reluctant to call by its rightful name -- ethnic cleansing. That seems to be changing as a result of this year's Federal trial against members of the Avenues. As we reported years ago when dicussing the Marco Milla murder of Reginald Hightower in connection to over a dozen other racially motivated homicides the media never covered, Harbor Gateway (aka Shoestring) is no stranger to B-on-B killing.

To underscore the utter ignorance and powerlessness of our politicians, the piquantly coiffured City Councilwoman Janice Hahn wants the city attorney to issue - get ready - a gang injunction. That'll put the fear of god into the shooters. The other thing she wants to do is sue landlords who rent to gang families. This is something she should know is as unconstitional as prohibiting landlords from renting to illegal aliens, drug users, Wiccans, the disbaled, crazy cat ladies or Al-Qaida sympathizers. Who elects these people?

During the time that Bird, Sneaky, Clever, Lucky and Shadow were going around Northeast shooting and harassing blacks, there were three separate gang injunctions in effect against the Avenues. You can see how well that worked out. Note to Janice Hahn: for the sake of your own credibility, please check your history and examine your premise. Lucky was living in a house owned by his parents. So what do you do with gangsters who are homeowners and not renters? Burn down the house and put the family on the street? According to the court testimony in his Federal trial, Lucky was also earning an excellent salary working construction at Vandenberg Air Force base.

With two murders and half a score of shootings, assaults and acts of intimidation to that neighborhood's credit, you have to wonder if this is enough to trigger interest by the US Attorney. The USA did it in Northeast and it may do it again in 204. We'll see.

And true to form, the NAACP has been as silent on this latest murder as it was in the race-motivated murders in Avenues, Compton, Watts, Pacoima, Pomona, Colton, San Berdoo and other neighborhoods. I hate to sound cynical but they're planning a march (bring your own candles) and organizing a display of solidarity. Good luck with that. God forbid they should ever tackle the root of the problem.

THE DANGER OF WEB RESEARCH.
During a conversation with a curious civilian the other day he wondered if the membership of the Mexican Mafia was going up or down from the 30,000 members he read about. He was asked where he got this insanely inflated number since the actual membership numbers in the hundreds, not thousands or tens of thousands. He said he got it off Wikipedia on the net. A visit to that site confirmed the bogus number of 30,000. In addition there were other errors such as Joe Morgan being one of the "original" members. God knows where hacks get this information and where they get the confidence to blast it to the world. There's an awful lot of good stuff on the net but there seems to be an equal amount of crap.

If we can impose on some of our old friends to bang out a few words on the true birth and original membership of the Mexican Mafia, maybe we can educate some misinformed readers and make this place the repository of correct information. Turning it over to you all for this one.

COMMENTS ARE UP AGAIN.
After consulting with people who know a lot more than I do about the net, the concensus of opinion seems to be that hands-on moderation is the only bulletproof solution to dealing with knuckleheads. So the comments are back up but the catch is I get to approve or reject them before they show up on the blog. That means a lot more work for me but there appears to be no easy digital solution to this problem. There will inevitably be a delay between posting a comment and having it show up in the Comments section because I've got a life. So to those who tried to screw things up, don't even bother. I get to play grand inquisitor so if you act like a jerk, you're just wasting your time.

NEWS OF THE WORLD.
It's always interesting to see how other countries handle gangs and street violence. While going through some downloaded news stories this week, this interesting piece of information left me a little puzzled. Apparently Spain is starting to have a street gang problem as a result of immigration from Central and South America. This is their conclusion, not mine.

Young people are forming pandillas, their word for gangs, comprised of people from the same home country. So they've got Salvadoran and Guatamalan gangs and, of all things, the Latin Kings. The Kings started in the U.S. primarily as a Puerto Rican gang so how they ended up with official chapters in Spain is a story that's probably worth looking into.

While some areas in Spain are using conventional methods to suppress gang activity, others are trying to buy off gangs to get them to stop capering. The way it works is, if your gang swears off violence and drug dealing, the government will "charter" you as a legitimate organization and give you money and benefits. It was unclear from the story what the benefits are but the upshot seems to be that you can get paid in Spain for being a reformed gangster. Depending on how this works out, this can be a brilliant idea or a totally absurd one.

On the one hand, getting paid to be a reformed gangster sounds great for a gangster. Free government money and whatever benefits. And you don't have to risk your hide regulating the neighborhood. But if you're going to be off violence and dope, what's the point of joining in the first place. You might as well join the YMCA or the Boy Scouts or whatever the Spanish equivalent is. So on the face of it, it sounds like a neat idea. Forget the gang, I'm joining the church soccer team.

But as history has shown, there's the little matter of the unintended consequence. Way back in the 1960s, New York City tried a similar approach using the squeaky wheel concept to apportion resources and money. The biggest and most violent New York gangs were flooded with social workers, free clubhouses, meetings with politicians, jobs with the city on gang intervention programs and the like. Smaller, less violent gangs who weren't getting any of these benefits decided they wanted some of that too. But the only way to get the city to pay attention to them was to make some noise and kick up dust. Which they did. And New York found itself in the unhappy position of actually encouraging more violence. It was good idea gone sideways when it hit the realities of the street and the law of unintended consequences.

You have to wonder if Spain is going to run into the same problem. For instance, why join what is essentially a government sponsored non-violent gang making a little bit of money when you can sling dope and make a lot of it. One could see a situation arising where the chartered gangs may decide that they're not getting enough resources from the taxpayers. Human nature being what it is, once you start getting free stuff, you start wondering if there isn't some more to be gotten. This is the argument that activists and gang intervention people in the U.S. have made for years. As in, why would a kid work at MacDonald's flipping burgers for $10 an hour when he could make ten times that slinging crack? The call here has been to get more money into people's pockets to keep them from capering. So who gets to decide how much is enough to get the Latin Kings or the MS to stop capering? You can only imagine what the negotiating sessions are like.
Govt: "For five bills a week each, you must stop all illegal activities."
LKs: "No way. For five we'll stop BFMVs and home invasions, but we reserve the right to sell dope. If you want us out of the dope business, that'll cost you another five a week."
Govt: "We'll go two fifty. Not a penny more."
LKs: "For that we'll stay out of coke but we're still in the chronic business."
Govt: "Done. Here are the papers. Have you lawyers call our lawyers."

You could see where this starts being more of an extortion racket than social welfare.

The Spanish model seems even more puzzling when you consider that Spain is often held up as a shining Socialist model. Like England, France and Germany, Spain has a cradle-to-grave benefit system. Spanish citizens get near universal health care, free education, generous welfare payments for the unemployed, nearly free housing, six weeks guaranteed vacation every year, a mandated 35-hour work week, generous maternity leave, almost unlimited sick leave and it's almost impossible to fire a worker for poor job performance. If, as many claim, that the seeds of gangsterism are sown in the fertile soil of poverty, then Spain shouldn't have a gang problem to begin with. Go figure.

SANA GETS 14 YEARS.
As a number of SOCAL papers reported this week, Peter "Sana" Ojeda was sentenced to 14 years on various RICO charges having to do with selling dope and collecting taxes. If he serves his entire sentence, he'll be 78 when he comes out. As a lifelong reputed Emero, Sana will no doubt be placed in the Pantheon of legendary brothers along with Huero Flores, Chy Cadena, Joe Morgan, Hatchet Mike and a handful of others. While there's some dispute as to whether the idea of taxation was original to him, there's no question that he was the first to launch that particular initiative and enforce it with extreme measures. History will have to give him the credit for that.

What was a first a mere trial balloon, the idea of street taxes took off and became more successful than anyone on either side of the law had imagined. Frankly, the Emeros really had no idea that the neighborhoods were going to fall in line as quickly as they did. We're at the point now where tax resistance is isolated to a few cliques that, despite all efforts to bring them into the fold, remain holdouts. The overwhelming majority of neighborhoods, however, got with the program and continue to salute the blue flag, happily or otherwise.

The issue of taxation can't be viewed as a standalone phenomenon. With the taxation came a significant consolidation of power, a huge network of intelligence and naturally, large amounts of cash. The concept of consolidation, or as a business theoretician might call it, vertical integration, is one that policy makers, politicians, activists and, to some degree law enforcement, has yet to fully understand or deal with. Some, even when presented with irrefutable evidence, continue to insist on the model of "disorganized" crime. If the planned LA "gang Czar" is ever to succeed, the first lesson he, or she, will have to learn is that the problem has to be tackled from top down. With a combination of suppression at the top and intervention at the bottom, there may be a chance to break the chain of command, disrupt the internal policy structure and enforcement and deprive the mid-level and senior level managers of the next generation of recruits.

NO MORE COMMENTS.
As you'll notice I've taken down the comments section. Frankly, I'm sick of the infantile nonsense that transpired there. I tried to create a forum for intelligent, or even semi-intelligent conversation. And for a long time it seemed to be working. Then the assholes showed up and drove out the smart ones. And the assholes just make everybody look bad. And I don't want to be associated with assholes. I tried blocking and banning and you idiots still snuck in. I apologize to the people who were there at the beginning and had a clue about what was happening here. To the rest of you cell soldiers and net bangers, fuck you all very much. Let me know when you start evolving into something that resembles a human being.

I'll continue to post because this is a topic that deserves attention. I just won't have to read your bullshit anymore.

NEW FACES, SAME OLD STORY.
The recent stories here and elsewhere about Hector Marroquin are a classic example of history repeating itself and our political leaders' inability, or maybe refusal, to learn from previous mistakes.

Let's take the wayback machine to the year 1977. Then, as now, politicians were flush with cash and were looking for "novel" and "innovative" ways to curb gangsterism and drug addiction. And there was no shortage of groups lining up for government money.

Then, as now, politicians were making alliances with people with very dubious histories. Los Angeles had groups like LUCHA (League of United Citizens to Help Addicts), SPAN (Special Program for Alcholism and Narcotics), CCC (Community Concern Corporation) and the Get Going Project. All these programs had one thing in common. They were all being run by "reformed" criminals. The most notorious of these was Get Going located on 127 South Utah Street in Boyle Heights, just a few blocks from Hollenbeck station. Get Going was founded by Michael Delia, a convicted bank robber and associate of Jimmy "The Weasel" Fratianno and Jimmy Coppola, both Cosa Nostra operators. Delia was also an associate of several high ranking brothers. Get Going's most visible and vocal supporter was State Senator Alex P. Garcia. Garcia ran interference for Delia and greased the rails to get Delia government funding.

Michael Delia had another ally, Ellen Levitt who would eventually marry him and change her name to Delia. Ellen Delia was a brilliant writer of grant proposals. One person who hired her said that when, "she walked in the door, the money would follow."

Get Going was nothing more than a front to rob the government. And the house on Utah Street was nothing more than a heroin distribution center for the Mexican Mafia. When people in the neighborhood complained to the police and Garcia that the "patients" at Get Going we shooting up right on the sidewalk, breaking into apartments and threatening anybody that complained, Garcia told the citizens of Boyle Heights that Get Going was there to stay "whether you like it or not."

When Ellen Delia eventually realized that the project she helped fund was thoroughly corrupted and infiltrated by the Eme, her husband conspired to have Alfie Sosa kill her. Ironically, the car that drove her to that drainage ditch on Elkhorn Boulevard in Sacramento was bought and paid for by a government grant. She helped finance her own killing with the help of idiot politicians. Her killing, and a number of other murders connected to Michael Delia and his associates, eventually prompted City Councilman Art Snyder to pull the funding on Get Going and every other program that had questionable directors and missing funds. Of course, Snyder got the usual death threats and the usual invectives about not caring for poor and drug addicted people. According to the estimates at the time, Los Angeles wasted roughly $48 million on these programs. Most of that money just vaporized.

Then, as now, the politicians had ample warnings from law enforcement that all these programs had been infiltrated. Then, as now, the politicians ignored the warnings. Then, as now, the programs ran with almost no supervision or oversight. Then, as now, the program directors put family members on the payroll which is contrary to the directives of the program charter. Then, as now, the politicians looked the other way. Then, as now, the programs never needed to show verifiable proof that the programs were working.

Has the current crop of bonehead pols ever read any of this? Is there no corporate memory?

The concept of turning over drug programs, or gang intervention programs to ex offenders without the slightest level of supervision is criminally negligent. This is worse than pounding money down rat holes. This is handing your tax money to criminal enterprises. And even worse, or course, is that the people who genuinely need and want help get nothing.

DON'T COMMENT UNDER MY NAME.
Okay, it's time for a little housekeeping and some reminders of common courtesy and simple rules.

First of all, don't sign Wally to any comments you post. Let me state this again. I never post comments in the Comments section. Ever. And I take great exception to anyone who signs my name. Veteranos who are regular readers already know this but new people that drop in don't. To avoid confusion and trouble, your comments will be deleted if my name is used as a signature, even if you call me the greatest contribution to literature since Shakespeare. Since I started tracking hits,we're well over 350,000 page views so far but only a handful of that number are regular commenters. I don't want to confuse the occasional drop ins with things I may or may not have said. My voice is the blog, the comments are yours.

As I've said in the past, I've got a high treshold for trash talk and foul language but some of the stuff lately had to be deleted because not only was it foul, it was stupid. I have no tolerance for stupid.

Secondly, I stand by everything I've ever written, here or elsewhere. If you want to argue or cofront me with anything, quote me or ream me, be my guest. Just use a signature other than Wally.

If you want a response to something specific and want it aired out in the blog or dealt with one on one, email me directly -- wallyfay@yahoo.com. The reason is I don't read every word of every single comment. No time. But I do read all my email.

On the subject of the long-awaited book, I just got notice it will hit the bookstores in July, 2007 -- all 700+ pages of it. We're undergoing the tedious but necessary vetting process right now so that every word of it will be verified with facts, dates and the blessing of the people involved. I'm also trying to work out a system so that anyone who wants a personally signed inscription can order a copy, have it inscribed and then shipped to the buyer. For some reason, it's a lot harder than I thought, but I'm working on it to make it affordable and quick.

Thanks for your patience and now back to business.

NO GUNS NO MORE?
We've been holding off on this until we could develop some intel on the recent events involving Hector "NO GUNS" Marroquin. I'll quote Tom Hayden from his book "Street Wars" in describing Hector and some of his history. Hayden calls him, "An older veteran of gang wars who owned a roofing business and was deeply involved in a violence prevention group called NOGUNS." Hayden goes on to say, "He [Hector] was a regular target of police and occasional media harassment for purported connections to La Eme, but in my experience he was sincerely interested in ending the violence. Years before, he'd sought a blessing in a family safety matter from an individual known to be 'connected,' a relationship that might now be helpful."

The naturally curious wonder what that safety issue was, what was the root of it and how was it resolved.

As interested parties might recall, Hector got in legal hot water this year when LE found him in possession of firearms, a serious violation for a convicted felon and at the very least a questionable circumstance for someone who runs a group called NOGUNS.

Then a few weeks ago, a hit team confronted Hector at his business and shot him but failed to kill him as they intended. We recently learned the same hit team rolled up on another victim in another part of town and ran into a buzz saw. We'll refrain from getting into the details of that one until the dust settles.

Needless to say, the gun possession and the attempted murder has stirred renewed LE interest in Hector. But all sorts of questions arise from the incidents. Who tried to hit him? And why? It's obvious he's made some enemies. The question is who are those enemies? Local soldados? Shot callers? Emeros? We'll leave the guessing game to you. The saga has yet to play itself out but it's obvious Hector has lost his political capital as a peacemaker and probably whatever status he had on the street. Like a lot of guys before him, Hector may end up becoming a man without a country.