PROFILING WORKS.
Based on past experience, you'd think that the administration and teaching staff at UC Berkeley would be blowing a gasket right about now. Two of their campus cops, both females, profiled the hell out of Philip Garrido and his two daughters when Garrido walked in to organize a lecture he wanted to inflict on the campus.

The two cops said that the girls appeared "robotic" and Garrido "didn't settle right with me." The two cops have obviously never taken a sensitivity class or been taught that being "judgmental" is anathema in a Progressive society. They were being cops. And they should be applauded for using gut instincts to ferret out a sick pervert.

Across academia, professors teach their captive audiences that profiling, especially when it comes to Middle Eastern terrorists, "doesn't work." They know this as an article of faith, the same way that Medeival "scholars" knew that witches float when you put them in water.

You'll notice that cops don't rush out to find the nearest Race, Class and Gender professor when they need to debrief a Sammy Gravano. The reason is that tenured professors live in the surreal world where no one can ever know anything with certitude. Their world is so complex and nuanced that they can back themselves into an epistemological corner, paralyzed to the point of moral and physical atrophy.

THIS TIME WE'LL GET IT RIGHT. SERIOUSLY. WE MEAN IT.
Once again politicians are reinforcing defeat. According to today's L.A. Daily News, Tony Cardenas and Maxine Waters announced a new bill (H.R. 3526) to "professionalize" gang intervention work and make an effort to make sure that taxpayer money isn't being skimmed, stolen or wasted.

You can set your watch by these periodic announcements that "this time, we'll get it right." The new bill comes on the heels of news that some intervention workers have been rolled up in criminal investigations. In the past few years we've had Hector "Big Weasel" Marroquin and his children, Mario Corona, Marlon "Bow Wow" Jones and Alex Sanchez as poster boys for what can go wrong with gang workers.

If we go back into deep history, that list of violators gets very long indeed.

We haven't heard exactly how this new bill will be any better than the dozens of bills previously passed. The most curious sentence in the Daily News story is, "The congresswoman (Waters) said her bill will use Rodriguez's Valley-based Communities in Schools program as a model for other cities." If you recall, Mario "Big Spyder" Corona was a Communities in Schools intervention worker when he was caught with a pound of meth in 2007. The question is, how bad are the other programs if this is the one they picked as a model?

No doubt, this blog will be accused, (yet again) of throwing all gangsters in the "no hope" category and left to survive on their own. For the record, I absolutely believe in redemption. I have to believe it because I've seen it too many times for it not to be a reality. My main objection is the spending of taxpayer money on these programs. As with most government programs, once they're up and running, and they develop a constituency, and there's a bureaucracy in place whose purpose will dissolve if the programs go away, it's almost impossible to pull the plug. If a program is de-funded, the losers are the most protected and coddled sector of the population - government workers.

My objection would be pointless if these programs were hugely successful. But they're not. The Advancement Project studied these programs for a year and couldn't find a single gang member who walked away from the life. This new bill is nothing less than an admission that the programs don't work. So the answer, according to Waters and Cardenas, is to continue to spend money on them.

Let's do something radical. Let's get some private funding from Tom Hayden, Bill Gates, Ed Asner, The Ford Foundation, The Annenberg Trust, The Pacifica Foundation and other activist groups. Let them create the model, fund it and run it. If they can make it work, I'd have no objection to matching private money with taxpayer money.

MENDOZA BOOK.
Clearly there's interest out there for more information. I've gotten numerous emails inquiring on the availability of Mundo Mendoza's CD autobiography, "From Altar Boy to Hit Man." The only place I know for sure that has it is the following.

Ken Whitley & Associates
P.O. Box 2623
Corona, CA 92878-2623

There's no phone number available but the cost is $22 per CD. That includes shipping. Make the check payable to Ken Whitley & Associates. I'm told it takes two to three weeks for delivery. Like Blatchford's book, this one is a must have for the library.

ENRIQUEZ BOOK A GREAT ADDITION.

TV journalist Chris Blatchford's long awaited book on Rene Enriquez is finally out and it's an awesome read. Second only to Raymond Mendoza's CD autobiography, The Black Hand is the best look we've had so far into the workings of the mob, the vertical integration of the mob with street gangs, Eme and CDC politics and some insight on how the mob can play prison reformers and politicians into actually advancing the mob's agenda.

If you've ever heard Enriquez speak (he was on the Glenn Beck show last week with Blatchford, albeit on the phone) you'll get a dose of cognitive dissonance. He sounds thoughtful, he's clearly bright and presents an image totally out of character to what his life's been about for the past few decades. This is not a knuckle dragging thug. Blatchford keeps himself totally out of the narrative and allows Enriquez' conflicted and sometimes tortured personality to come through.

For the serious student of this subject, it's all there - who stabbed who in what yard and what was behind it, who's the stone killer, the paranoid schemer, dirtbag manipulator - names are named and events chronicled. While there's the inevitable morbid fascination with all this, the violence in the book isn't gratiutous. It's not there for shock value or to sell more books. Violence and murder are, after all, the mob's mechanisms of control and influence. To leave that stuff out - - as earlier books about the Panthers and other criminal groups have done -- is to miss the central point.

In contrast to a book like "Monster," Enriquez doesn't weasel around like Cody Scott who blames his actions on some imaginary "Amerika" that "made" him a criminal. Enriquez, and for that matter most emeros who have expressed opinions on the subject, cops to the fact that he was a criminal, proud of if when he was active, and doesn't try to lay off the blame on anyone or anything. In fact, he credits his parents for trying from the very beginning of his criminal career to get him pointed in the right direction. And they never abandoned him even when he was buried in the SHU.

When it first became common knowledge that Rene had dropped out and was actually willing to testify against his former brothers in court, close observers marked his departure as a milestone event in the mob's history. In the mob world, Rene's defection and redemption is on the same Richter magnitude as Aldrich Ames, Kim Philby or Robert Hanssen in the spy biz. Now we have the book that documents his steps from high ranking shot caller to drop out/informant. For the student of the subject, this book is a no brainer for acquisition. You just gotta have it in the library if you're going to speak with authority on the subject. For cops, correctional officers and prosecutors, the book is invaluable for doing the job. The people who should be forced to read this book, or have it read to them while jetting around the country or riding in the back of chaufered limos are the politicians and policy makers. Policy decisions and laws cannot and should not be made based on information filtered through staff panels, social scientists, mis-informed or biased "advocates, " or groups who have a financial interest in the outcome of policies.

Speaking from personal experience, you don't make a lot of money writing this type of book. Blatchford and Enriquez collaborated on this book for reasons that have nothing to do with making a few bucks. There are lessons in this book that need to be drilled into heads -- young and old ones, shaved, grey or what have you. There are of readers of this site that are either smack in the middle of the life, dabbling at the fringe of it, know people who are heading there or are trying to come back from it. Buy a copy for yourself and one for somebody you care about. Then talk about it. And never stop talking about it until the subject of your concern gets the message.

Despite his clearly genuine change of heart and thorough redemption, Rene Enriquez will spend the rest of his life in prison. That's just the way the world works. As he states in the book, he "wasted" his life pursuing false gods and corrupt ideals. In or out of prison, society will never have anything to fear from him. The saddest and most tragic idea to ponder is "what if." Talented, bright and energetic, what if he'd gone another direction? That's a question that will never be answered for him. But for tens of thousands of young blue-wearing soldiers, there's still a chance to exercise the "what if" option.

MEXICO OUT OF CONTROL.
As if we needed any reminder that Mexico is about to achieve critical mass, here comes another story of multiple beheadings. Click on the link for the details.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4636533.ece

The Zs carved into the victims is the mark of the Zetas. Look it up if you're not familiar with that group. It's becoming clear that Mexico is a far more dangerous place than Iraq or Afghanistan if you're cop, citizen or a tourist. While the war it the Middle East seems to get the bulk of attention from politicians and the media, the homicide rates, kidnappings and general lawlessness in certain parts of Mexico make our troop presence in the Stans appear like a minor police action.

Unfortunately, the dope wars, violence and all the collateral problems that come with it are not longer confined to south of the border. Hospitals in Texas border towns are compelled to accept the all too frequent gunshot victims driven at high speed from Mexico. When that happens, local Texas cops have to drop what they're doing and create a cordon sanitaire around the hospital to prevent follow-up homicides. As reported in Mexican media, cartel operators will often follow an ambulance bearing their victims to the hospital and finish the job with high velocity lead right there in the operating or recovery rooms. And recently, there was the not well reported incident where rogue Mexican Army soldiers invaded a rival drug house in Phoenix, Arizona. The soldiers, armed with full auto weapons, were preparing an ambush for responding Phoenix coppers but luckily for the cops, the army dudes didn't bring enough ammo. They ran dry shooting up the house.

There have also been two cases of corrupt Mexican Army officers arrested here in the U.S. where they were living in safe houses. I was recently sent some unpublished photos of the aftermath of the big Tijuana shootout between Mexican Federal Police and some cartel shooters. At least two of the cartel guys appeared to have been shot in their vehicles while trying to blast their way out of the perimeter. It's interesting to note that both vehicles wore California license plates. That's a fairly clear indication that the cartels are operating freely on both sides of the fence and probably have allies they can count on to run whatever business needs to be run.

All the indicators are pointing to some troubling times ahead for local and Federal U.S. law enforcement.

KNOCK IT OFF, WHOEVER YOU ARE.
I've been alerted that some assbite is trolling the web, leaving idiotic comments and linking back to this site in an effort to discredit me. Be advised it's not working. This person is laboring under the illusion that the rest of the world is as stupid and gullible as he or she is. I urge you to come out of that dark place where you reside, step into the light of day and grow a spine. If you have problems whose only resolution is posting lunacy, you need to cowboy up and face life square on. You'll be amazed at how liberating it can be to stand on your own feet instead of kicking others in the shins and pointing to some other guy and saying, "he did it." Your vessel is empty. You'll never feel good about yourself by sucking others into your void.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NORTENO DROPOUT KILLED IN TC.
Robert "Huero" Gratton, the Norteno dropout at the center of a massive Federal RICO case against the NF was killed in a traffic collision on July 18, 2008. Diligent students of the subject will remember that the 44-year-old Gratton, a long time NF member, dropped out, flipped and testified against a legion of NF members and associates in what came to be known as Operation Black Widow.

Although he claimed to be a high ranking member, a number of law enforcement officials close to the subject believe that he pumped up his status and hadn't climb all that high up the corporate ladder. Nevertheless, he did provide sufficient valid information to send a lot of his former associates to Federal prison.

According to the scant information, Gratton was living in Palmdale. At 1:15 AM he was apparently backing up on the 14 Freeway near Aqua Dulce Canyon when he was struck from the rear by Rafael Hernandez. Hernandez only received minor injuries but Gratton was killed instantly. The CHP suspects that both drivers might have been under the influence. If we find out more, we'll let you know.

I NOW OFFICIALLY HAVE A STALKER.
It appears someone using my names Wally Fay (screen) and Tony Rafael (print) is posting comments on the Mayor Sam website (possibly other places) and trying to make me look like a racist goon. I was just made aware of this and the person who runs that site has promised to delete all comments coming from anyone using those names. I guess you don't need to be as visible as Brad Pitt or Madonna to attract stalkers. And, just like those two, I'll go to the legal mat if required. Will it be necessary to file suit? To paraphrase Claude Rains in Casablanca, "I'm afraid Colonel Strasser will insist." In this case, it's my publisher that will insist.

And just so you know, I'll be kept from posting until at least Feb. 4. Other projects cooking.

YEAH, THIS IS TERRORISM.
I've always been cautious about using the T word. And I'll still refrain from applying it to U.S. based street gangs and their associates in organized criminal enterprises. But what's happening south of the border absolutely qualifies as terrorism.

The difference between us and them isn't subtle. Criminal gangs and organized groups in the U.S. generally speaking are not trying to change institutions like LE agencies, the media and the authorized civilian authorities. There are exceptions like Cudahy that still need to be addressed.

The latest proof of the criminal cartels' intent of literally destroying civilian authority is the machine gunning of Tecate's recently appointed deputy chief of police, Jose Juan Soriano Pereira. He was shot fifty times while asleep in bed next to his wife. This is just one more step in Mexico's suicide spiral into total anarchy. When a dope dealer kills another dealer, it's just business. When they start killing cops, newspaper editors and writers, priests and entire families it's not just business anymore. It's an attempt to destabilize the entire edifice of civil order.

There are parts of Mexico where the local government is the drug cartel and no cop or politician who wants to remain breathing will do anything to stop it. The few that do end up like Soriano.

With our sieve-like border, it's only a matter of time before border towns on the U.S. side fall under the unchecked influence of the cartel terrorists. Twenty years ago, nobody would have imagined that the cartels would have their own highly-trained, well-funded and extremely well-armed military wing. By poking at the problem with a stick for twenty years, we now have the Zetas who are nothing less than the security and assassination arm of the cartels.

While we're sweating the small stuff like whether shooting a smuggler in the ass is out of LE policy, the cartels see it as weakness. They can't believe their good luck that this is what grabs headlines in the U.S. and what politicians spend their days worrying about. Severed heads rolled out onto a crowded dance floor? No outrage here. A Texas TV station ordering its reporters not to do any more stories on the cartels for fear of having their station bombed? No outrage from fellow journalists in less dangerous parts of the country.

When Tijuana Police Chief Alfredo de la Torre Marquez was assassinated in 2000, Senator Dianne Feinstein issued a press release deploring the murder and that "We must bring these criminals to justice." This time around, the latest press release from her office deals with the pressing problem of global warming. We're taking our eye off the ball.

If we keep poking the problem with a stick, twenty years from now, we'll be looking back at 2007 as the time when things weren't so bad and fondly recall the days when all we had to worry about were streets and prison gangs.

YAGMAN GETS THREE YEARS.
Stephen Yagman, the attorney who claimed he didn't know it was illegal to not pay taxes, got three years in a Federal prison and two years of supervised release once he serves the time. As his case proved, Yagman put his money and house in his girlfriend's name, claimed he was broke and then filed for bankruptcy. During the penalty phase, this paragon of morality and cop-baiting ambulance chaser claimed the government went after him because of his years of bringing cases against the LAPD's SIS and the US government over the Gitmo prisoners. Then, talking out of the other side of his mouth, his lawyer apparently told the judge that due to his "experience" in trying to defraud the government out of tax money, Yagman should be allowed to teach ethics in a law school. Who better to teach ethics than someone who tramples them? So on the one hand he's innocent but on the other, he's suffiently familiar with ethics violations that he should teach a class. Using that logic, Yagman would no doubt endorse sentencing Sheriff Carona to a tenured professorship at the Orange County Sheriff's Academy teaching - what else - how to be an honest cop.

THE YEAR OF THE RICO.
This year has to be some kind of record for Federal gang prosecutions. Following on the heels of the F13 and 18th Street indictments we now have a major MS-13 case dropping. The entity behind the MS-13 case is the Metropolitan Task on Violent Crime, a group we haven't seen officially credited with an investigation in a very long time. This was the same group, but clearly different people, that put together the three big Eme RICO cases in the mid and late 1990s. The guy behind all these indictments is US Attorney Tom O'Brien who without question qualifies for a cape and utility belt. For the completists, O'Brien was briefly in charge of prosecuting the four Avenues shooters who killed Chris Bowser, Tony Prudhomme and Kenny Wilson in Highland Park. He promoted up and the court phase of the case went to Alex Bustamante and Barbara Bernstein.

Putting together these Federal/local PD task forces is remarkably cheap in the overall picture of law enforcement spending. The way these things work is that local cops assigned to the task forces are paid their usual salary by their departments and the Federal authorities pay for overtime, cars, equipment etc. This task force also had the cooperation of Salvadoran cops working right here in LA. Accordng to Chief Bratton, the MS-13 task force worked flawlessly. In the US Attorney's press release, Bratton once again stated that gangs are the "number one problem facing our city."

Ironically, the cost of paying public defenders will probably dwarf the cost of the investigation and prosecution. In the F13 case alone, each of the 102 named defendants will no doubt have his own lawyer. String that out over the two years or so the case will last and you can see how the public cash register will start smoking.

After 9/11, there was apprenhension among local cops and pols that the Federales would divert all their resources to fighting the terrorists among us, especially here in LA. As these cases have demonstrated, when the political will is in place, the government can walk and chew gum at the same time.

FRANKIE B. - 1947 - 2007.
Legendary Emero Frankie "Chivo" Buelna, usually known simply as Frankie B has apparently died by the sword. It was all over Pomona from the minute it happened Tuesday night but we held off on posting it until it became official. He and another man, Enrique Sanchez were shot and killed in Characters Sports Bar on 1st Street in Pomona. Born on 9/29/1947, Buelna rose up through the ranks to hold the keys to El Monte, Pomona and Ontario. While on the street and from prison, Buelna was a key player in getting his part of the world assembled under the blue flag and fall in line with various policy innitiatives.

What's behind his killing? Too soon to say. It may be politics eating up the old-school shot callers or maybe it was a personal. We know that in the space of a week there's been a spike in shootings and assassinations in the area and those may be related. There's more to this, but we may not know for a long time. Or maybe never.

SOME F13 CONNECTIONS.
If you've been reading the indictments filed on F13, the observant student will notice some interesting connections. The person named as AC, an unindicted co-conspirator turns out to be Arturo Castellanos, a Mero doing all day. Known variously as "Tablas" and sometimes "Spider," Castellanos is (was) a close associate of Tigger Salinas (Avenues), Salvador "Mon" Buenrostro (Jardin) and Daniel "Spider" Arriega (Maravilla). While he was on the street, Salinas paid regular tribute to Tablas, Mon and Spider but apparently fell out of favor after he got rolled up in murder case (a personal, non business-related beef) and sentenced to LWOP.

Just to backfill some history, Mon was stabbed up in the attorney's room by Rene "Boxer" Enriquez and Ben "Topo" Peters during the first RICO trial in 1995. Mon survived. Boxer, as we all know by now, has debriefed and PC'd up some years ago. Arriega was killed in Chino (the town, not the prison) by some Border Brothers behind some deal gone sideways. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Enjoy.

CAN YOU TRUST THE POLS WITH YOUR MONEY?
It's ironic that former police chief and current council member Bernard Parks wants to divert that trash pickup tax money away from hiring more cops to providing other city services. When that tax was put before the citizens, we were told it was going directly to hire more cops for the most under-policed city in the country. Parks imperiously figures now that they have the money they should be able to do anything they want with it. This is nothing less than betrayal of trust. The rationale he uses is that the LAPD has exceeded its budget and has to live within its means. Considering the almost weekly revelations of foolish and/or criminal spending on the part of LAUSD, DWP, the foster care system and LA Bridges, to name a few, Parks should be directing his energies at brooming the deadwood and firing the miscreants in these organizations. But that would take some hard work and maybe stepping on toes of the politically connected. To this day, we don't know the name of the person that blessed the shower of money that poured on No Guns and Hector Marroquin. Maybe we can start there.

To provide some numbers, the LAPD's annual budget is around $1.8 billion according to the LAT. Jackie Goldberg's money pit known as the Belmont Learning Center has already cost roughly $750 million. It's been reported that it could wind up costing right around $1 billion. That's a significant chunk of money, even by drunken sailor political standards. If someone with the guts to start cutting out the waste, fraud, featherbedding and outright thievery I'd bet they'd find enough loose change to keep the garbage money from being poured into places it was never meant.

ORANGE COUNTY NEEDS SOME HOUSECLEANING.
After reading all that's been released about Orange County's top law man, it appears that Sheriff Carona is well and truly busted. Even if half of what's been alleged turns out to be true Carona has no business being in charge of a police organization. The guy should resign immediately, take his lumps and turn the department over to someone less morally, ethically and legally challenged. Anything less than resignation, or dismissal if he refuses to step down, will make the department and Orange County look like some Third World rogue republic where you can't tell the difference between the good guys and the criminals. Even at this early stage of the investigation it looks like this will turn into some very ugly muckraking.

DID HISTORY BEGIN THIS MORNING?
The first documented gang in Los Angeles dates back to 1909 according to the people who keep track of these things. I'm not betting the farm on this, but I'm guessing the first gang intervention program followed not too long after that. So here we are almost 100 years later and the city is just now getting around to "defining" just what gang intervention is supposed to be about. According to a piece in the Daily News, the mayor and city councilman Tony Cardenas have figured out that "some prevention programs have been getting money under the banner of intervention when those programs don't actually intervene in gang activity." Cardenas has declined to identify those programs. Stop the presses!

You'd think that after dealing with these issues for - let's be generous and say only 50 years - there would have been some kind of manual or maybe even some typed up notes laying around in an office somewhere that spelled out this kind of stuff before handing out money. Clearly, the implication here is that the givers weren't exactly sure what the receivers would do with the money.

According to Bernard Parks, deciding which programs deserve city dollars is, ". . . a major step forward for the City of Los Angeles." There was no indication in the Daily News story that Parks uttered these words with anything other than a straight face. These guys are supposed to be the smart ones. The leaders with a firm hand on the big wheel steering the ship of the city. The major step here would have been to actually solve the problem, not figuring out that money was being pounded down various rat holes. Meanwhile, back on the moons of Jupiter, Janice Hahn is busy trying to stick her hands deeper into your pocket. She's trying to hit every LA homeowner with an additional $40 per year parcel tax to fund intervention programs.

So let's see, with no definition in hand of what a gang intervention program should be, and Laura Chick sorting through the paperwork to figure out why the millions they're spending aren't doing any good and Connie Rice putting her head in her hands muttering "You've wasted every nickel of it so far," Ms. Hahn is merrily putting the cart before the horse. Memo to Janice. Wise stewardship of other people's money behooves you to intelligently use the money you already have before you ask for more. This is like telling your boss, "I know I'm never on time and I'm always screwing up and you're losing business on account of me. But if you give me a raise, I'll do better. This time I mean it." Nobody ever achieved success by rewarding failure.

TVR GANGSTER CONVICTED.
Timothy McGhee was convicted of homicide yesterday after years of sitting in County waiting for his trial. Variously know as "Huero" or "Eskimo," McGhee, a former Criminal Justice student at Cal Poly Pomona, was decribed as being something less than a traditional gangster and more of a spree or thrill killer. Unlike his former associate, the King of Drew Street who was all about business, McGhee's assaults and homicides often had nothing at all to do with business. A lot of his capering didn't make him, TVR or the Meros a nickle.

THEY'RE COMING THICK AND FAST.
Last week, the US Attorney indicted a whole bunch of F13 operators. Today, a couple dozen CLCs got rolled up in another Federal beef.

We haven't seen this level of local and Federal LE activity since the mid to late 1990s when three giant RICO cases blew through town like a freight train and rolled up dozens of Emeros, Associates, shot-callers, key holders, tax collectors and soldiers. You can bet there may be one or more investigations hanging fire somewhere in SoCal.

I don't generally dispense advice but this is a golden opportunity for gang intervention activists to mobilize and start hitting those streets most impacted by these cases. With the leadership and mid-level managers taken out of circulation, now's the time to do some serious gang diversion and intervention. If Jeff Carr, LA's invisible gang czar would maybe hit those streets with a big chart showing who got arrested, why and what kind of time they're facing, there may be an opportunity to turn the young guns around. A "This Could Be You In Five Years" presentation might reach a few hearts and minds and get these kids on the right track. LA has somewhere between $82 and $100 million to dispense on programs. Once the Scrooge message of the Ghost of Christmas future sinks in, use some of that money to get the at-risk kids into programs.

BACK FROM THE ROAD.
Just to dispel some rumors, I haven't gone into PC, gotten whacked or retired to a Malibu mansion. I have, however, spent a lot of time doing radio, TV and print promotion for the book, most of it out of town. Believe it or not, this is my first full week back in the Fortress of Solitude since July 25 when the book hit the streets. Not that I'm complaining, but there's a monumental shift in your life when you go from being a hermit scribe to a creature of promotion.

One of the big changes is that I haven't been able to stay up to date on what's happening on the street. Once you start talking way too much about what you're doing, you actually stop doing it and you're just talking about it. That make sense?

I've got a three-foot stack of stories and documents that need reading and about fifty phone calls to return. Once I whittle through the stack and get on the phone, I'll be back in the loop and get some fresh information on the site.

Stay tuned for more.