HIGHLAND PARK GETS AN INJUNCTION.
The LA Times reports today that Highland Park (aka HLP) got slapped with a gang injunction. According to the article, this brings the total number of injunctions in the city to 50 and we can see how well that's been working. In its own way, Avenues has had an injunction against HLP (which stands for Helpless according to Avenues) for years. The difference is, Avenues enforces its injunction with bullets.

ANOTHER ONE FROM THE VAULT.

Due to popular demand for more pictures from the Fortress of Solitude here's one for your files. What we have here was taken in 1994, ancient history by some standards. The subject is Alex "Pee Wee" Aguirre standing on the balcony of a motel in La Mirada doing some counter-surveillance on the parking lot. In the background is the room where he and other carnales were holding one of the many meetings that were videotaped and recorded by the Task Force. Those meeting tapes served as the backbone of the US Attorney's case against Aguirre, Cowboy, Huero Shy, China Boy and the other defendants in the first of three RICO cases. According to people on both sides of the issue, Pee Wee was probably one of the smartest operators ever to come out of Avenues. There wasn't one drop on ink on him and he never dressed down. He was also a phenomenal earner and knew how to keep the troops happy. Had he directed his talents in a different direction, he could have made of himself anything he wanted.

FAIR WARNING.
Some commenters are getting dangerously close to being banned. Healthy discusssion about ISSUES is always welcome, even if the opinion is over the top. I'm drawing the line at personal attacks. Some of you are walking the fine line and scrapping in the dirt. It's okay to disagree strongly with an opinion as long as you keep the comment above the personal level. Within those limits, there's plenty of room to call a person's sanity into question in a creative or humorous way. By now you should know where the line is. I've let a few wobblers get through and I'm regretting that decision. Since I started moderating the comments, the hits are steadily increasing because the non-participant visitors are genuinely interested in the topics discussed here. They're not here to witness digital bitch slapping. Many of the regulars, of course, deserve huge credit for maintaining the elevated tone and for responding to outrageous comments in a clever, non-confrontational way. You know who you are, so thanks very much. End of Sunday morning sermon.

HAZARD GRANDE BACK IN THE NEWS.
Today's LA Times carries a story about the legendary Ramona Gardens Housing Project, also known historically as Big Hazard or Hazard Grande. It's your typical piece about the residents being stuck between a rock and a hard place - gangsters on one side and the cops on the other. What prompted the story was the recent death of Mauricio Cornejo, a resident of Ramona who died while in police custody. The cops are under suspicion that they beat the guy to death but the prelim autopsy doesn't show evidence of blunt force trauma. So we'll have to wait to see the cause and manner of death in the final Coroner's report.

The Times piece leaves a lot to be desired for those hungry for information and context. There's a little timeline at the end of the piece that's titled, A History of Tensions. This "history" is way short of definitive. There are only three items in that "history." So for the benefit of the reading public, here's what you're not getting from our leading urban newspaper.

For decades, Hazard was an R&R stop for paroled felons, even if they didn't originally come from that neighborhood. It was a place where the newly returned decompressed, kicked back and got their marching orders. Hazard had an on-and-off relationship with the Carnales. Some Hazard alumni include "Charlie Brown" Manriquez, "Sluggo" Pineda, Manuel "Rocky" Luna, Roy "Sonny B" Balesteros, Daniel "Danny Boy" Pina and Richard "Chico" Cruz. This is not a definitive list by any means, but noteworthy players.

Some of these names are still in good standing while others have met their end for various transgressions.

Charlie Brown, Rocky and Sluggo all went down. Rocky was a tecato collecting without authority and allegedly consulted with Edward Olmos in American Me. Charlie Brown apparently got his for also consulting on the film. Sluggo was found near the train tracks stabbed 40 times with a screwdriver and his throat ripped open with a torn up beer can.

In February 1992, Juan "China Boy" Arias (from Artesia) and David "Smilon" Gallardo got into a big shootout right in the middle of the projects over Hazard's failure to regulate four of their own. Taxation and all that. Arias took one in the chest but survived and Smilon was arrested soon after in Vegas. Both of them were rolled up in RICO case number one in 1995.

Then on May 13, 1992, Ana Lizarraga was machine gunned on Lancaster by Jose "Joker" Gonzalez. Joker claimed Hazard. Lizarraga in her own way also claimed Hazard as a gang intervention and drug rehab worker. She too allegedly consulted with Olmos on the film. A year later, Joker was sentenced to life for her murder and is apparently still in up status.

Now you know, so there you go. You'd think with all the resources at the Times they could maybe dig a little deeper.

THAT DIDN'T TAKE LONG.
It appears the LAPD is making good on its promise to bring down the hammer. Last week Chief Bratton and the Mayor released its list of the top eleven gangs targeted for suppression and a list of Most Wanted fugitives. Yesterday, they put teeth into the initiative by scooping up 110 suspects in the San Fernando Valley and arresting 64 of them on various charges. According to the Daily News, there's a 50-member Task Force roaming the Valley and that's the entity responsible for these arrests.

Careful readers of the gang initiative will realize that the gangs they swooped in on yesterday - notably Blythe and Van Nuys - are NOT on the list of top eleven gangs. So what's the story?

If history is any indicator, the people scooped up yesterday are the easy fish. The point is to get these guys off the street and in front of investigators who will probably press them for information. Out of any population of recently arrested, you will invariably bag a few who are looking at a second or maybe even a third strike. Those are the folks more likely to give up a little information in exchange for certain considerations.

That information of itself isn't all that useful. But what it does is provide enough probable cause for a judge to agree to wiretaps and other forms of surveillance to go after the shot callers and multi-jurisdictional operators. Keep in mind that the Valley Task Force includes Federal agents. The Federales have a lower threshold than local judges for obtaining wiretap orders. Not to mention more money for assigning bodies and using better gear.

The track record for this type of Federal and local cooperation is spectacularly good. Diligent students will recall the three big RICO cases of the mid and late 1990s that started precisely with this scenario. Sweeps of the low hanging fruit that yielded intel followed by surveillance and ultimately followed by Federal indictments.

Just to round things out, another sweep took place further east in Chino Hills, Fontana, Bassett, West Valinda, Pomona and West Covina. The sweep netted six arrestees, dope, guns and over $30K in cash. Coincidence? You be the judge.

SHOULD WE BRING BACK THE CODE DUELLO?
A round of interesting comments from some of the more thoughtful commenters set me off on a train of thought. The question bouncing back and forth addresses the issue of street shootings involving non-players and civilians. I was going to post some thoughts on the LA Times' recent addition of a Homicide Blog to its web page. This is a good idea that's been long overdue. It was something I wanted to do here, but as a one-man-band lacking the resources of the Tribune empire, it was beyond reach. The Homicide Blog, as some readers have pointed out, underscores the vile nature of kids shooting kids based on the question to which there is no correct answer - "Where you from?"

The son of an old friend of mine was shot and killed in front of a movie theater ten years ago after two guys rolled up on him and his girlfriend and asked that infamous question. The kid said, "I don't bang." It was the last thing he ever said. Trust me. I watched this kid grow up. He learned to swim in my pool, I cooked him and his friends burgers and we watched my Monty Python videos. He didn't know one end of a gun from the other and he was walking the straight and narrow.

His girlfriend said that when the two guys pointed the gun, he didn't run. He threw himself on the girl and they back shot him. Not real sporting. It doesn't take much courage to shoot an unarmed non-player in the back. It takes even less to shoot girls in Highland Park or Harbor. Ultimately, it's this type of episode that has finally motivated our politicians and law enforcers to bring out the heavy hammer and start using it. Even Barbara Boxer is calling for a nationwide anti-gang Task Force. And she wants enforcement, not midnight basketball.

My sense is, if you want to play at being a gunslinger, go find another gunslinger to play with. Don't ruin innocent lives and shoot the defenseless. That's not courage. It's slaughter and it brings shame, not respect.

When Jimmy "Character" Palma shot and killed the 5-year-old and 9-month-old Moreno children after he took care of Tito Aguirre and Lido Moreno, the Brothers had no stomach for that. Character got his in SQ as soon as they could get their hands on him. The outrage over killing innocents obviously isn't reserved strictly for the law abiding. Unfortunately, that message isn't being sufficiently enforced.

In the old days, some people invented logical ways of dealing with personal or factional enemies. In Europe, they even published books and manuals on how to do it right -- the Code Duello. They met at dawn with loaded pistols and settled problems face to face at 25 paces. May the best man win.

According to those old manuals, the choice of weapons was up to the challenger. It was guns, knives, swords or whatever. One of the wierdest duels ever took place inside a moving horse-drawn coach. The challenger chose knives and the opponent accepted. The terms were that the two would climb in and stab it out for the length of time it took the coach to circle a small park.

The coach went around once and stopped. Neither of the bloodied combatants had achieved satisfaction, so they went around once more. Second time around, still no satisfaction. So they went around a third time. At the end of the third trip, both parties had bled out and died. Sure it's crazy, but hey, it was their beef and they both had the courage to handle it mano a mano.

You've got to at least respect them for settling it man to man and having the brass balls to do it without dragging innocent people into their problem.

In the not too distant past, cowboys handled their business at high noon on Main Street with Peacemakers. First hit wins the fight. They had terms like "Bushwacker" for those who didn't handle their business correctly and the citizens strung them up not so much for killing, but for not doing it right.

So you have to ask yourself, is it possible that pasty aristocrats in frilly shirts and powdered wigs had more balls than a backshooting gangster who takes out people who have no part in a neighborhood or personal beef? Just something to think about.

EXPORTING INMATES.
It looks like nobody except the Governor wants to export CDC inmates to other states. Because of overcrowding and the threat of a Federal takeover of the State prison system, the quick solution seems to be sending inmates out of state to privately owned prisons. The activists like the Prison Law Office don't want it. And neither does the correction officer's union. It's rare when those two bodies find themselves in agreement on anything.

The CO's union, naturally, wants California to build more prisons and hire more COs, something that will naturally swell the ranks of the union and make it even more powerful than it already is. The CO union has a lot of juice in Sacramento and calls a lot of shots that shape policy. The activists don't want it because they claim it's runs counter to the State constitution.

And then, of course, the inmates and their overlords don't like it either because it erodes some of their power. A quote from the LA Times article this morning:

"Many others [inmates] were dissuaded from volunteering [for transer out of state], officials said, by prison gang leaders and rumors that a court-ordered prison cap could force the early release of thousands of convicts.

One of the weird wrinkles is that the owners of these out of state prisons played some CDC inmates a 20 minute commercial on how nice their prisons are. The commercial showed the good food, recreational activities, cable TV and other amenities. The pitch sounds so good, you have to wonder if they'll start selling time shares in the tiers. "It's not just prison, it's a vacation." "Tennessee prisons: more than doing time, it's an adventure." "The cells of New Mexico: a land of enchantment." I think we should put our heads together to come up with some catchy headlines and send them to the Governor.

ROCKY KNOCKS ONE OUT.
It looks like Rocky D. meant it. Today's LA Times carries a story about Rocky D. and the LAPD shutting down one of Drew Street's many dope retail and wholesale outlets. For years that particular street was a 24/7 open air drug bazaar. It's also a street that was a center of gravity for Avenues and a thorn in the side of Northeast. The station is just a few blocks away. The king of Drew Street was sentenced on several murder charges last year along with some of his Avenues associates in Superior Court and all the carnales that graduated from AVES are in custody. One of the laws of physics, however, is that nature abhors a vacuum. One irony is that while Avenues takes the PR hit, a lot of the slinging on Drew wasn't even done by Avenues members. Most were BBs and some were pure independents operating under the umbrella. Looks like Rocky is bucking for a cape and a utility belt.

HEADQUARTERS AND UNIFORMS?
Sometimes, you just gotta wonder. In today's LA Times, Rocky Delgadillo says that the wants to put all students in LAUSD in uniforms and shut down the "headquarters" of the ten worst gangs in the city. I'm not sure how he defines the term "headquarters" but in the accepted definition of that word, neighborhoods don't have headquarters. Not sure where he gets his information. Anybody out there have a clue what he's talking about? A public park? Somebody's back yard? Some guy's living room? Beats me. My feeling is that these are announcements made for public consumption addressed at the average citizen who doesn't know any better. It sounds reasonable in a press release but it's totally divorced from reality.

NOT JUST NATIONAL NEWS.
In answer to a comment, I'm assuming it's going to make national news because I already fielded several emails from the heartland as well as NYC media. The BBC and Swedish Broadcasting has contacted me as well. I can only surmise those people are interested as well and that means International news. That's all I know.

EASE UP.
In reference to comments regarding eating cheese and walking that shadow line in the middle of the boulevard, the fact is I catch it from both sides. Two quick examples. I had a Detective 2 tell me I was figuratively performing an act on a guy from the other side of the street. Too friendly with the opposition, according to him. Then a week later, the older brother of a guy I was talking to pretty much accused me of the same thing. Happens all the time. Occupational hazard. I've learned not to jump to conclusions until all the facts are in. Those who know, do know. Those who don't, will guess. Have a great weekend.

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.