Feds and local law enforcement target ‘MS-13’ gang in Fresno County CA.
Feds and local law enforcement target ‘MS-13’ gang in Fresno County
BY YESENIA AMARO
yamaro@fresnobee.com
August 30, 2018 11:58 AM
Updated 1 hour 30 minutes ago
Local, state and federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations were in the community of San Joaquin on Thursday interviewing people taken into custody following a raid against MS-13 gang members in Mendota, The Bee has learned.
San Joaquin City Manager Elizabeth Nunez told The Bee she was aware that Homeland Security was leading an operation against MS-13 in Mendota.
A teacher at an elementary school in San Joaquin, who asked not to be named, said staff received an email indicating the situation was related to MS-13, but staff didn’t know what to believe.
An emergency meeting was called before school started.
“We are not letting the kids go outside,” the teacher said. “We don’t want anybody to be on campus. We are protecting the kids.”
Fresno County Sheriff’s Office Spokesman Toni Botti said officials served search warrants as part of an ongoing investigation, although he did not elaborate further on details of the investigation, or whether MS-13 was involved.
An unspecified number of people are in custody being interviewed.
Some residents in San Joaquin and Mendota feared Thursday’s operation was an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid, but Botti said that’s not the case.
“It’s not an ICE raid,” Botti said. “It’s nothing targeting undocumented people.”
Law enforcement officials are operating out of the Sheriff’s Office sub-station in San Joaquin. There are at least two large buses stationed there.
“It’s not in fact ICE,” Nunez said. “The target is not residents of the city of San Joaquin. The target was the city of Mendota.”
Nunez said she wanted to get out the message that the operation wasn’t ICE, so people are not “concerned.”
Calls were placed to the U.S. Attorney General’s Office, but they have yet to comment.
Botti wasn’t able to provide more details at this moment, but the Sheriff’s Office will hold a news conference Friday morning where more information will be available. “Everything is kind of fluid right now,” he said.
Birthed in Los Angeles in the 1980s, MS-13 has been a target of the Trump administration, and was even mentioned in Trump’s State of the Union address in January.
The gang includes members who are Honduran, Guatemalan, Mexican and from other areas of Central and South America.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local...217590515.html
