OKAY SO WHAT IS IT?
Tarso Luis Ramos, Director of Research of a group called Political Research Associates has recently taken me to task at newamericamedia.org for using the term "ethnic cleansing" to describe the scores of racially motivated attacks against Blacks committed by Hispanic gang members.

The gist of Mr. Ramos' critique is that my analysis of the situation is colored by my "apparent right wing leanings." His evidence of my political orientation is that some things I've written have appeared in "rightwing culture warrior David Horowitz’s Web magazine Frontpagemag" and that my publisher also published Victor David Hanson's "Mexifornia."

Ramos calls me "the most persistent purveyor of the ethnic cleansing frame." Maybe it's because I was the first to notice. The simple truth of the matter is, I didn't go looking for that particular story. When I started doing research some ten years ago, I had no idea such a thing existed. I first started hearing about it from my interviews with active and retired gangsters and from street cops. I clearly remember back in 1999, a cop told me that in his reporting district, black citizens (not gangsters) were safe on one side of the street but put their lives at risk if they crossed over. And when I heard the same thing from other sources in other parts of the county, it was clear that a pattern existed.

And as explained to me by people in the neighborhoods, they didn't want their V(B)arrio (take your pick) to "turn into Watts." When asked what they meant by that, I leave to your imagination what they said. It would make a Klansman proud.

Then I collected about a dozen court cases documenting racially motivated violence and murder and I shotgunned a bunch of query letters and phone calls to the usual media. At the time, even I wasn't calling it ethnic cleansing or a race war. To me, it was just a new development on an old problem.

Regular readers already know the response I got. Some flat out refused to accept that this was happening. Some were afraid that running the piece would stoke a race war. Or I had an agenda. Or I was trying to make Mexicans look bad. From Los Angeles Magazine, LACityBeat, LA Weekly, the Daily News, OC Register, NY Times Magazine, Atlantic Monthly - you name it - there were lots of excuses not to run with the story.

During that slog to get the facts out, I called the NAACP, Rainbow Push and other Black civil rights groups repeatedly. I asked for comments on the phenomenon. They told me, "Someone will get back to you." No one ever did. The only Black group to respond was Islamic Hope. And they, meaning Najee Ali, were already aware of the situation. And Ali minced no words in telling me why the "established" Black groups had plugged their ears and covered their eyes to the realities on the street. He was running into the same stone wall with them and the media. Clearly I wasn't alone.

There was another group that ran into a media and "activist" stone wall -- the families of the victims. Nobody wanted to touch it because when it came to choosing between ideology and speaking out for those who can no longer speak, ideology won out in this case. Unlike the ideologically blinded, the families had no illusions about the nature of the forces that took away their loved ones. Perhaps Mr. Ramos would like to speak to them directly.

It was the survivors and the attitudes of people on the street that finally got me to thinking of the situation in terms of ethnic cleansing. What was the point of the attacks and homicides? In the words of one perp, it was to "keep them from infesting the neighborhood." Whether the words come out of a Latino, a white guy with a hood, a Hutu, a Tutsi or a Bosnian, it is the language of intolerance. So excuse me for pointing that out.

Does it rise to the level of ethnic cleansing? Certainly it's not on the same scale as Bosnia. Or Darfur. I came to the conclusion, however, that in terms of INTENT, there's no difference between killing one guy or a thousand. After all, what's the threshold? Is ten dead guys enough to qualify? A hundred? The intent is to intimidate, frighten and drive off anyone else thinking of living where they choose to live or drive where they want (Wilson) or carry a boom box (Bowser) or rent an apartment (Prudhomme). Because the perps didn't succeed to the extent they desired does not lessen their intent to drive innocent people out of the hood. So what do you call it?

The question Mr. Ramos raises in his piece is "Who Gains From Framing Gang Attacks in LA as "'Ethnic Cleansing'"? Bluntly speaking, the question itself is obscene. I never once framed the issue in terms of immigration or a battle between conservative or liberal politics. I never articulated the issue as anything other than what it was.

And "gain?" What is that? As if the murder of innocents is some kind of political chess match? I don't even know that math.

It's hard to figure out if Mr. Ramos is in favor of suppressing news or just making sure to spin it in a way that doesn't give anyone some kind of "gain." He quotes Sheilagh Polk, the media relations manager at the Community Coalition that the media, “have played a significant role in escalating gang violence.”“When you have Fox news broadcasting about racial violence inside prisons, that creates pressure outside to retaliate.” I've heard a lot of reasons for escalating violence but news stories about it have never been at the top of the list. Or anywhere on it. If media coverage is a causal component of violence, then does non-coverage lead to peace? Based on her premise, let's stop reporting gang violence altogether so gangs won't feel the need to retaliate. Ignore them and maybe they'll go away.

Mr. Ramos also quotes Aqeela Sherrills, a gang expert. Sherrills believes that the Mexican Mafia is run by businessmen who find "no advantage in a generalized conflict with African Americans." Which is why the two groups get along so well in prison. But at least he got the businessmen part right. His comment underscores a certain naivete about the nature of that business and the dictum that "In chaos, there is profit." And a destabilized competitor is a weak competitor.

I could spend the rest of the day going through Mr. Ramos' assertions and conclusions. But it's tiresome.

The bottom line is that we've got serious social issues to handle and we're not getting anywhere by worrying about what part of the political spectrum is gaining or losing ground. Call me a liar, call me a Troglodyte, tell me I'm full of crap, an alarmist, sensationalist or a right wing whack job. It won't stop what's happening on street. Over to you Tarso.

WORTH READING
Here's a link to one of the most revealing articles I've ever read about a dropout. It ran in today's Whittier Daily News and underscores few salient points about the generational nature of the gang culture and the seduction of false power. It's clear the writer, Sandy Mazza has been following this story for some time. Nice work.

http://whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_6049497

WEASEL WOBBLES AND FALLS.
As a lot of cops have been warning for years, Hector "Weasel" Marroquin has finally been exposed as gaming the system and working both sides of the street. As LA Times and LA Weekly articles this week reported, Marroquin has been arrested in an ATF undercover buy operation. He allegedly sold full auto weapons and suppressors to an ATF agent at his Marrokings restaurant in Cudahy.

The founder of No Guns, a gang intervention program funded with public money, Marroquin has basically been shoved down the throats of gang cops by their commanders for years as a person they should work with to quell gang violence and divert young people from the life. Even though these street cops knew full well that Weasel was a phony and reported it to their superiors, the brass hats and politicians disregarded the warnings and continued to bring Hector around to lecture cops on how to do their jobs.

According to the LA Times article by the energetic Sam Quinones, it wasn't just gang cops that suspected Marroquin of less-than-virtuous intentions. The Times quoted Connie Rice,"I never for a moment believed he ever left the life. I always thought he was using the system." Rice was on the Police Commission at one time and if the city fathers paid no attention to her, for sure they wouldn't take the word of street cops. The LA Weekly article has ten photos of Marroquin and his son and in almost every picture, Hector is flashing 18th Street. He could not have made it more obvious.

In the same article, Tom Hayden stated, "These guys perform a service. If they backslide, well, who doesn't?" The difference in attitude betweeen Rice and Hayden could not be more dramatic. Rice obviously isn't blinded by ideology. Hayden, a friend and supporter of Marroquin's, is still whipping that dead horse in an effort o reanimate it. For one thing, in order to backslide, someone must abandon the old life. Hayden still can't recognize the fact that Marroquin never actually abandoned his ways. He's been an operator for the Meros since day one and Hayden can't or won't admit that he's been played, suckered and hung out to flap in the breeze. Loyalty is a fine thing. But carried too far there's the danger it could turn you into a collaborator and enabler.

For Hayden to actually consider the possibility that Marroquin did "backslide" is in itself an indication of progress. When Ernie "Chuco" Castro was arrested on weapons charges and flipped in 1992, Hayden suggested in his book that the guns were planted on Castro to turn him as an informant. So far, Hayden hasn't raised the possibility of an elaborate conspiracy to bring Marroquin down.

Unfortunately for our city and county, No Guns isn't the only questionable program receiving public funds. There are some out there still operating and doing a better job of deflecting scrutiny. Maybe in the fullness of time, our elected officials will catch a clue.

BACK IN THE SADDLE.

I know you've been wondering what hole swallowed me up. Contrary to speculation that I've been on a drunk or in WIT SEC, the truth is more prosaic. I've been hammering down the final details on the long-awaited book. Here's what the cover will look like. Look for it in bookstores around mid-July. If you absolutely can't wait, you can pre-order online at the usual places. But you'll still have to wait until July to have it in hand.

The worst of the pre-pub drama is over so I'm hoping I'll have more time to post.

As with most books, there was more manuscript than there was room between the covers. So a lot of stuff had to be pruned away. But I've been assured that if the book sells well, future editions will provide more room for expansion and elaboration. Here's hoping.

If it doesn't do well, it's back to sweeping floors and selling oranges at the off-ramps.

G-RIDE GOING UPSCALE.
You know you're doing something right if your G-ride is a Mercedes. While going through some recent documents, we came across an incident in which a Reseda SS was busted in the act of tagging a wall by undercover West Valley cops. What surprised the cops was the twenty-something tagger's ride -- a three-year-old Mercedes 320 SUV. Very clean. Freshly detailed. And not stolen. It was registered to the tagger. The giant RSS he hit the wall with exceeded the $400 threshold of misdemeanor vandalism so the Mercedes owner/tagger is facing felony vandalism. Apparently the tagger already had an I-card on file and was not a wannabe.

This incident has to tell you something about 1) The state of the economy when even local G-Sters can afford rides the average citizen cant't 2) The amount of money available on the streets or 3) Poverty may not be a significant causal component of illegal activity. Take your pick. I'm confused.

TWO YEARS IN THE SHU AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT.
If there's any doubt that the gangster mindset has become a bankable commodity, you don't need to look any further than the record business and the clothing industry. I won't mention the name, but there's a clothing line based in the greater LA area that markets what they call "authentic jailhouse street wear." The T-shirts, jackets and hats sport the label's logo in addition to things like "186.22" (the California Penal Code section that covers gang membership), "LA County Jail 1750" (the High Power Module) and "P-Bay SHU" (Pelican Bay's Security Housing Unit).

While I fully understand the concept of wearing something ironically and the idea of reverse cool (hip young mothers, for instance, dressing like Doris Day and Lucille Ball) there doesn't seem to be any ironic content in this clothing line. It appears to be a flat out glorification of jail life and gangsterism. I don't know who's buying this stuff, but I can almost guarantee that nobody who's been in the SHU or the high power module would wear a T-shirt to fondly commemorate the event.

I would bet that this clothing is aimed at the wannabe fringe, young people who probably haven't got a clue what prison life is really like. And frankly, it's a bad message.

Unfortunately, this bad message isn't restricted to wannabe gangsters. Some gang cop groups are also marketing clothing that looks an awful lot like classic gang wear. These guys should know better. When the good guys and the bad guys start looking the same, it's time to re-examine your premise and figure out who you really are.

MAYBE WE NEED A CORRUPTION CZAR TOO.
As if on cue, the LA WEEKLY and the LA TIMES published stories of local political corruption right after the issue was raised here in connection with gang cops and disclosing their personal finances. The Weekly story focuses on Bell Gardens Councilman Mario Beltran, his connection to the 740 Club's owner Ralph Verdugo and La Puente City Councilman John Solis. According to the accompanying piece in the Weekly, Beltran is a protege of State Senators Gil Cedillo and Ron Calderon.

In the Times piece, Lynwood Mayor Louis Byrd and Councilman Fernando Pedroza were charged by LA DA Dave Demerjian with misappropriating city funds by taking personal trips on Lynwood's dime. Pedroza apparently even charged lap dances in Guadalajara to the city. A year ago, Paul Richards was sentenced to 16 years in the Feds on charges of public corruption. Former Lynwood council members Armando Rea, Arturo Reyes and Ricardo Sanchez are also named in Demerjian's filing.

The Weekly story was written by the same Jeffrey Anderson who wrote the pieces on corruption in Cudahy and the Marroquin/No Guns scandal.

There's obviously a pattern of illegal behavior and corruption in these little cities. It looks like they're being run like Medieval fiefdoms with the guys in the castle raking in the booty and the Dukes in Sacramento backing their play. While it appears that the legal system is working to put these bandits in suits out of business, the big question is, "Where's the public outrage and the big media coverage?" The Weekly's coverage, while excellent, isn't exactly big media. Where's the call for Federal supervision of these towns? Maybe we need another Christopher Commision to ride herd on these people complete with compliance certification from Kroll just to make sure the lap dances aren't paid for with public money.

WHO'S GOING TO BLINK FIRST?
Gang cops are apparently showing no inclination to have their personal financial information open to public scrutiny. On the other side of the issue, the opposition also shows no indication that they'll abandon efforts to require that gang cops reveal their financial records. A number of veteran gang cops have already asked for and gotten reassignment and the rest are ready to do the same if they're ordered to reveal their records.

This looks like a classic standoff with neither side willing to compromise. This also appears to be a case of double, triple and quadruple standards. The rationale for revealing a gang cop's records is the suspicion that they may be more likely than the average patrol officer to be corrupted by access to dope and large quantities of cash in the course of their daily work. As we've said before, that rationale of potential corruption could apply to thousands of civil servants, elected officials, recipients of public funds and virtually any private entity that does business with local, state or the Federal government.

Why focus on gang cops for this selective scrutiny? The simple answer is Rafael Perez. While on the face it it appears to make sense, you can also point to dozens of cases of corruption and nefarious backscratching much further up the food chain. Just to review, there's the DWP and cozy deals with PR firms and massive overtime fraud, elected officials hiring their girlfriends who have no campaign experience as campaign advisors, others exchanging guns for dope with known street gangsters, others getting hit with huge fines for illegal campaign financing, flying around the country on private planes owned by companies doing business with the city, others buying cocaine and using it in their own offices, others looking the other way when pet intervention programs are infiltrated by an organized criminal enterprise -- need we go on?

If you aren't going to trust cops because they "might" get corrupted conducting their business, then we shouldn't trust anybody who might be exposed to the possibility of corruption. Whether they do it with a gun screwed into a drug dealer's ear or by cutting a purchase order for a new construction project, using the yardstick for the pontential of corruption is a huge club that could be swung at a lot more people than gang cops.

PUBLIC SERVICE OPPORTUNITY.

The message below is fairly typical of a lot of the comments that get bounced. It was always a policy to keep this blog from turning into a netbanging site and over time I rejected thousands of these. I thought I'd try an experiment and run this one.

I'm assuming this commenter is genuine. If he isn't just yanking my crank, maybe somebody out there who's been there and back and lived to tell the tale may want to compose a few thoughts to set this guy straight on the realities of where he appears to be headed. Think of it as your good deed for the day.

THIS IS BIG BAD ASS BLYTHE STREET GANGX13 RIFANDO HASTA LA MUERTE LEVAZ!!!...FUCK ALL PINCHE ENEMIGAZ OUT THERE!!YOU FUCKEN LENGUAS FUCK YOU LAME ASS CHAVALAZ!!...TRYING TO BE ALL HARD CON NUESTRO BARRIO N SHIT THIS PURO BLYTHE STREETGANG X13 REPRESENTANDO HASTA LA MUERTE LEVAZ!!!!FUCK ALL PINCHE ENEMIGAZ!!!AND Q'VO TO ALL THE HOMIESAND HOMEGURLS FROM THE BARRIO!!! THERE'S NOTHING SWEETER THAN A BLYTHE STREETER QUE NO??...THAT'S RIGHT LEVAZ!!!...PUES ALRATOZ AND DON'T FORGET THAT THIS IS BIG BAD ASS.....BLYTHE STREET GANG X13

ROCKY SHUTS DOWN ANOTHER ONE.
Making good on his promise to dismantle local gang "headquarters" and dope emporiums, Rocky D. shut down a dope house in Pacoima yesterday and forced the owners to take down hardened and soft covers that were erected to prevent visual observation. The last one he took down on Drew Street seemed like a PR stunt and some of you wondered aloud if that take down was one-time phenomenon. Apparently not. The Harvard grad and former resident of HP who grew up being regularly robbed and tormented by Avenues seems to be dead serious about his job. It looks like Rocky wants to acquire his cape and utility belt the old fashioned way - he wants to earn it.

While Rocky is getting the face time in the media, you have to wonder about the total absence of DA Steve Cooley. Traditionally, felony prosecutions are generally the domain of the DA's office, not the City Attorney's office. After doing a little snooping, there appears to be a revolt in the DA ranks. Cooley has been missing in action and the deputy DAs, according to some, have been actively discouraged from filing cases. One rumor is that Cooley issued orders to DAs to reduce their filings by 20 percent. In addition, Cooley and his minions are encouraging DAs to plead cases down to absurd levels, essentially giving good cases away just to get them off their desks. This is not only making DAs crazy, it's also demoralizing cops who see their work in putting strong cases together vanish in a weak plea agreement. The only people who seem happy with this trend at the DA's office are the public defenders.

We've heard some incredibly strange tales coming out of Cooley's office that we can't report on until they're verified but they sound scary. More on this later.

On an unrelated topic, many thanks to the commenters who are maintaining an elevated level of discourse. For the disgruntled who are seeing their comments bounced, please reflect not on what you say, but how you say it. Telling somebody that he has his head up his ass is not an argument. It's an ad hominem attack that does nothing to advance the discussion. Also, we're getting sharper on detecting people posting under other people's handle. We're getting wise to that and bouncing those too.

ANOTHER ONE FROM THE VAULT.

In case anyone still has lingering illusions about the power projection out of the jails and into the streets, here's the first greenlight list ever uploaded to the web. It's quite old and most of the information is no longer valid, but you can get a sense of how these things sound. It's puzzling how after all the information made public and boatloads of evidence presented in thousands of court cases, some people still refuse to acknowledge the influence of prison gangs on street gangsters. Here you see nothing less than assassination orders on the unfortunate individuals and gangs that got on the wrong side of the brothers. These lists are generated on a daily basis and sometimes you'll get two or three revisions a day. Sort of like a morning, afternoon and evening edition of a newspaper. The changes reflect the latest available intelligence fed into the prison and jail system by operators on the outside by means of third party calls, mail, legal documents and personal visits.

On another topic, some of the commenters are get out of control. If I reject your comment, go to your corner, think about what you said and see if you can say it in a less disrepectful way. I'm getting tired of being a referee and Miss Manners. I'm instituting a MANO DURA policy and if you can't play nice, don't play.

IT CUTS BOTH WAYS.
So now it appears that gang cops have to produce their financial records if they want to stay on that assignment. The officers concerned are indignant because they feel it infringes on privacy rights and frankly makes them feel like the department and the city doesn't really trust them. On top of which, they're only allowed to stay on gang assignments for three years and then rotate out to other assignments. Which in itself is counterproductive because it takes about that long for a gang cop to get to know the players in the division. So just when a gang cop gets good at it, he's gone.

There appears to be a double standard at work here. Without mentioning names, the city has been giving money to less than completely trustworthy gang intervention programs with virtually no oversight. Even after red flags began waving in the wind, these programs were never investigated and oversight was virtually non-existent. And the money kept flowing. It was only when the "questionable" behavior became egregious that investigations were launched. We haven't seen the last of them, by the way.

Partisans on the side of the questionable programs are quick to point out that "one bad apple doesn't spoil the barrel." Fair enough. It isn't fair to tar everyone involved with the same smut brush. But couldn't the same thing be said about bad cops. One Rafael Perez doesn't spoil the entire department. If you're going to cut the questionable programs that kind of slack, the same reasoning, it would appear, could apply to cops.

And in truth, the same reasoning could also apply to our elected and appointed officials. When Mike Hernandez got nailed for dope use, he apologized, kept his job and was re-elected. We didn't see a full throttle investigation into the financial records of all the city's elected officials. Was there a Christopher Commission type of investigation and consent decree to make sure the rest of the city fathers weren't more Mike Hernandez' waiting in the wings?

If you're going to look into gang cops' bank accounts, let's make it fair and look into the bank accounts of all our law enforcement people and all our city and state stewards. After all, isn't it just as likely that a government functionary in charge of public spending be corrupted by sweetheart deals and kickbacks as a working gang cop?

WELL, THAT WAS UGLY.
As predicted, the freaks came out and demonstrated to the world how truly screwed we are. The language was bad enough, but the spelling was atrocious. It would be easy to blame the school system, but you can't educate a kid who doesn't even show up. And clearly a lot of the comments were from school dropouts and unfortunately, life dropouts. Apologies to all who had to endure the hate fest but we're back in the saddle and moderating again. Call it censorship if you will. I call it the crap filter. While I believe in free speech, very little of what appeared could be characterized as speech. It was more like Tourrette's syndrome. Glad it's over.

COMMENT AMNESTY.
Starting right now until the middle of next week, I'll be away from the computer. Therefore, I can't post or even moderate comments. But since I don't want to leave you voiceless or cause a spleen backup, I turned off the comment moderation. I know for sure this will turn the comments section into a freak show. So be prepared. Before I return next week, please put the funiture back where it belongs, throw out the beer cans, clean up the ashtrays and wipe the blood off the walls. To the readers who aren't completely insane, accept my apologies. The comments do not reflect the opinions of this blog and the opinions expressed are strictly those of the commenters. See you next week.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE LA MEDIA.
Since I already had something in mind about this issue, I'll start off with a comment from one of our many anon. commenters. I wish you guys would invent some interesting handles so I can keep you straight in my head, but whatever.

"To Wally,You used to tell us how the L.A. times did not cover gang news or racial motivated shootings but lately it seems they are giving a lot of coverage to all these topics. I’m not sure if it is because Mayor V., Chief Bratton, and Rocky D. are all trying to make gangs high priority and profile."

The commenter goes on to link the latest Times pieces on crime and gangs. Obviously, it's not just me that's noticing an increase in crime and gang coverage. And it's not just the Times. It's all the media in LA. I still stand by what I said back when this blog started. There was precious little coverage of the subject. There were stories (like the racial killings, the Eme's vertical integration initiatives, neighborhood expansions and various beefs) that were totally below the radar. This was one of the reasons I started blogging. It was to publicize stories that were being ignored.

When the city was looking for a new police chief, Rick Caruso said that addressing the issue of gangs and crime should be the new cheif's first priority. Dead silence. When Chief Bratton was hired, he said in one of his early public announcements that his first priority was addressing the same issue. Some of our local papers derisively started calling him Bill "War on Gangs" Bratton. As if trying to reduce the body count was something bad.

Now those same papers are writing stories about the Mexican Mafia being the 400-lb. Gorilla in the room, greenlight lists, taxation, regulation, shot-callers and, of course, ethnic cleansing. Big turnaround in attitude.

What happened?

Several things, the most prominent being the Federal hate crime indictment of Bird, Lucky, Sneaky and Dreamer from Avenues 43. Regular readers will recall that prior to that indictment, this blog was the only source of information about the Wilson, Bowser and Prudhomme murders. And it was the only source on similar events in Pomona, the SF Valley, Compton, Watts, Long Beach etc. When I approached some of the local papers about these homicides, I was given a less than enthusiastic reception. They basically showed me the door. That's a long story that will eventually be told.

It's easy to ignore one guy. It's impossible to ignore a Federal indictment. The media was frankly overwhelmed by events. When a release from the US Attorney's Press Office hits an editor's desk, you can't pretend you don't know. And you suddenly have to start caring.

Honest to God true story. I was sitting with a Northeast Homicide cop one day soon after the Avenues indictment came out. This cop knew I'd been trying to sell the thing to the media for years. It was somebody from a local free paper wanting to know about the Avenues case. He chatted with the person for a few minutes and when he hung up he looked at me and said, "Where they f*** have they been for the last three years?" Good question and rich irony. I'd been in the caller's office a month earlier in a futile and what proved to be my last ditch effort to get that paper to run my piece.

The truth is, I wasn't alone in banging on doors and rattling media cages. The families of murder victims were doing the same and getting the same "Not interested" response. Tony Prudhomme's mother got herself knocked silly having various media doors slammed in her face.

Over the next week, this cop's phone started ringing and wouldn't stop. The LA Times, Newsweek, CNN, Fox News, CBS, BBC, the local free papers (natch), and various freelancers all wanted in on the Avenues case. Then in the last week of the Federal trial, a Hispanic football player was shot and killed defending his black teammate on Avenue 40.

By then of course, after the world learned that "Avenue 43 Kills for Thrills," the media had given itself permission to go ahead and write about the thing that could not be named. In rapid sequence we had the Connie Rice report, the spike in gang crimes, four Hispanics executed Sadr City style on Harvard by black shooters with AKs, Kaytlin Avila wantonly shot in the chest by a guy who went out of his way to come back and kill her, the cop conference with LE from south, way south and way, way south of the border and then there was Cheryl Green. And after that we got Najee Ali with the phony truce, Bob Mueller, a Task Force, Feinstein asking for $1 Billion for gang suppression/intervention, Rocky sort of wanting and not wanting a gang Czar, the Drew Street dope house slamdown, Shadow Cambero from 43 making it to the Ten Most Wanted list, Garcia extradited back to the US, LA Bridges under scrutiny, Weasel getting shot, Tony V. lobbying the AG for money and bodies and now the Guv and Rudy G. meeting to get something done. That's not the exact order, but you get the picture. This confluence of events resulted in what the commenter has accurately assessed as increased coverage of the subject. "Holy cow, Batman. We got a real problem."

Is all this coverage a good thing or hysteria? I say it's about time.

SAM'S THE MAN.
I have to publicly credit Sam Quinones at the LA Times for single-handedly re-orienting my attitude about the paper. In the previous post, I expressed some concern regarding Jill Leovy's take on the significance of the racial component to the homicide rate. While I agree that the racial aspect isn't "driving" the homicides to a huge degree, her opinion leaves one wondering what's the bodycount threshold for starting to take the racial aspect seriously? Is ten percent not enough? At what point in the stats does race homicide become worthy of James Byrd or Matthew Shepard levels of public outrage?

In the Sunday edition, Quinones revisits Harbor Gateway, digs deep, and comes up with the real goods. Unlike a lot of what we see in print, it's clear Quinones didn't phone it in. Having been there and done that, I know you can spend a week working your jaw and knocking on doors to come up with one good quote. And he's got lots of them.

Clearly, the staff at the Times is not monolithic in perception and attitude and I can only assume, based on these dissimilar stories, that there's some healthy dialogue happening on Spring Street. All the for the better. Quinones, by the way, is the first reporter I can think of that makes an unequivocal connection between Eme policies and the race homicides. Read the story, download it and save it. This one is a seminal piece of reportage that, in light of the inevitable future events, will prove to be spot on the money.

RACIAL KILLINGS NOT TOO BIG A DEAL.
Jill Leovy, the LA Times crime reporter and homicide blogger, made what has to be one of the oddest observations I've ever read in our hometown paper of record. Her claim is that racial animosity is not driving the homicide rate up to any significant degree. Leovy made a calculation based on homicides in four LAPD Divisions - Shootin' Newton, Southwest, Southeast and 77th. The murders in those Divisions totaled 236. Of that number "just 22" were between Blacks and Latinos as either shooter or victim. That represents roughly 10% of the total. The other 90% involved shooters and victims of the same race or ethnic group. In her opinion, that small percentage really doesn't amount to a huge problem.

While no one would want to accuse the LA Times of cherry picking facts, a more accurate barometer would have included not only other LAPD Divisions such as Northeast, West Valley and Mission but also other towns in the greater LA area like Pomona, Colton, San Bernardino, and Riverside. An even finer tuning of the data would also include not just homicides, but hundreds of assaults, intimidation and what the Penal Code calls terrorist threats. A close look at the court documents in the Avenues Federal trial would reveal that there were dozens of assaults and/or threats against Blacks in Northeast but they only resulted in two homicides -- Wilson and Bowser. There was a third homicide, that of Anthony Prudhomme, but that one is still hanging and waiting for more evidence to be developed.

The attitude of the Times on this hometown issue stands in stark contrast to its attitude during the James Byrd truck dragging death in Jasper, Texas. The Times ran a handful of stories on the Northeast killings, but only after the Federal filing. The original homicides and the Superior Court cases that ensued were almost totally ignored by the Times. It only became a story when the US Attorney entered the scene.

Compare this to the 56 stories that the Times ran on the Jame Byrd homicide. The paper covered the initial homicide, the investigation, the trial and then the verdicts. That coverage was fleshed out by a number of Op-Eds and columns. Those 56 stories in the Wally files don't include the articles that ran in the Times calling for more hate crime laws in the wake of the Byrd homicide and the issue that it became in the 2000 presidential election. If those were included, the stories would run into at least 100. In re-reading some of those pieces that ran in the Times, I never came across one that said the Byrd homicide was "marginal" as Leovy states of the LA homicides. Statistically, of course, the Byrd case was far more marginal than the LA race killings. That was an isolated murder committed out of personal racial animosity, not part of a pattern of assault and intimidation sponsored and mandated by an organized criminal enterprise. Once Byrd's killers went away, they didn't have a group of associates to continue their work.

Strange are the ways of the Times. In the case of James Byrd, one racial homicide is apparently one too many. In the case of the LA race homicides, 22 is apparently not enough.

CUDAHY IS NOT UNIQUE.
Now that the cat's out of the bag on Cudahy, I guess it's time to elaborate on the dynamics as explained in the excellent article in the LA Weekly. We can thank the new editorial management at the Weekly for the straightforward delivery of facts without the usual navel gazing and spin.

If you haven't read the piece, do it.

To put it bluntly, Cudahy has been thoroughly corrupted by criminal forces from south of the border. And it wasn't an accident. It was an organized and well-planned campaign to take control of the city government, neutralize the police force and create legitimate front businesses for illegal activities. It's a model that, over the decades, has been field-tested, refined and honed to perfection in Mexican border towns. The goal is to spawn replicants of those towns on this side of the border, create safe havens for the importation of drugs and organize launching pads for other forms of illegal activity. Weasel's presence in Cudahy is no mere coincidence. In the fullness of time, the moves behind the attempt on his life will probably reveal some interesting connections.

In addition to Cudahy, there are a few other municipalities that need to be closely scrutinized. If their offices don't get fired bombed first, maybe the Weekly can be induced to publicize more of these cartel outposts.

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.