 In what's being called the “largest gang takedown in United States history,” federal and California authorities today arrested 147 suspected members of a Latino gang that waged "a war" against the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and conducted a "systematic" campaign of hate crimes allegedly to rid their community of African Americans.
Topics = Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, federal indictment, Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang, hate gang, Deputy Luis Gerardo
May 21, 2009
USA Today
The federal indictment, along with several related ones, charges members of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang with murder, attempted murder, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and witness intimidation. The Latino gang has operated in Hawaiian Gardens, a city of about 15,000 in southeastern Los Angeles County, for nearly 50 years, prosecutors said. The city is roughly 75% Latino and 4% African American, according to Census figures.
The 193-page indictment says "gang members take pride in their racism and often refer to the VHG Gang as the 'Hate Gang.' VHG gang members have expressed a desire to rid the city of Hawaiian Gardens of all African-Americans and have engaged in a systematic effort to achieve that result by perpetrating crimes against African-Americans."
Read the news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
More than 1,400 law enforcement officers, including 17 different SWAT teams, were involved in the sweep. The investigation began four years ago, after a gang member killed Deputy Luis Gerardo "Jerry" Ortiz and was sentenced to death.
"It was this hatred of African-Americans that may have spurred the attack on Deputy Jerry Ortiz, who was killed trying to arrest a gang member suspected of trying to shoot an African-American man in the back," U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien said at a news conference.
Hawaiian Gardens Mayor Michael Gomez welcomed the crackdown."Honest residents should not have to live in fear of lawless thugs who act like it's high noon at the OK Corral," he said.
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