More 'Mexico-style" kidnapping/gangbanging! There is no difference between the radical Islamic terrorists in Iraq, and the radical hispanic terrorists in the US....we need the military to fight the war on OUR soil...not Iraq!

Kidnapped man rescued from Reseda home

Police storm home minutes after death threats
By Brandon Lowrey Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 07/01/2008 08:40:24 PM PDT


RESEDA - Los Angeles police stormed a home Tuesday and rescued a 24-year-old man being held for ransom just minutes after his captors threatened to kill him, police said.
Officers arrested seven men and one woman and detained two others after the raid in the 18300 block of Schoolcraft Street.

The kidnapped man was found bound in the home's cluttered, graffiti-sprayed garage with cuts and bruises covering his face and one eye swollen shut, said LAPD Commander Patrick Gannon of the detective's bureau.

The man, whose name was not released, was hospitalized with non life-threatening injuries, Gannon said.

"We got a phone call that said, 'Enough's enough, we're gonna kill the guy,'" Gannon said. "They threatened to cut his fingers off at one point to show they weren't fooling around."

Investigators weren't sure why the man had been singled out for abduction and did not release details about his family other than that they live in the San Fernando Valley.

The scenario played out as follows, Gannon said:

About 7 p.m. on Monday, the victim phoned his mother's home - where he had stopped to shower just hours earlier - to say he had been kidnapped, and his captors wanted money.

His family called police, who secretly coached them through negotiations that lasted into Tuesday afternoon. The talks didn't go smoothly as the captors grew increasingly agitated and threatened to dismember and kill the man.
Somehow, detectives on Tuesday figured out the man might be at the house on Schoolcraft Street, where they set up a stake out. Negotiators had hoped to bring out the suspects for a money exchange to get the victim back peacefully.
But at 4 p.m., those hopes shattered when they said they would kill him. Within minutes, SWAT officers broke into the house - a risky tactic police use as a last resort. But Gannon said officers believed they would kill the man.

Throughout the ordeal, neighbors were not allowed back into their homes. Hours after the raid, dozens mingled outside the yellow police tape, still waiting to get home.

Some said residents of the home stormed by police were often rowdy. They said it was a gathering spot for twenty-somethings who crowded the street to play basketball and blast music late into the night.

"They have a lot of wild parties and stuff there," said Garth Carlson, captain of the area's neighborhood watch. "They have several gangs (in the area). I don't know if this was the result of that."
On the corner of Etiwanda Avenue and Schoolcraft Street, police took photographs of a knotted length of yellow nylon rope and some black fabric on the ground. A police note next to it said it had been cut off of the victim's right leg.

Beer bottle caps and empty soft drink bottles littered the dirt yard in front of the house where Gannon said the victim had been held. The garage door was left open, revealing walls covered entirely with graffiti.


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