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SOUTH MIAMI-DADEGangs had sex-and-guns hangout in S. Miami-DadeYards from a secure Air Reserve runway, investigators have found what appears
BY DAVID OVALLEdovalle@MiamiHerald.com
Posted on Mon, Jan. 30, 2006

SOUTH MIAMI-DADEGangs had sex-and-guns hangout in S. Miami-DadeYards from a secure Air Reserve runway, investigators have found what appears to be a meeting place for street gangs from around the country.

Authorities believe members of nationally recognized street gangs turned two largely abandoned warehouses in South Miami-Dade into a sprawling meeting place that included rooms designated for sex, beatings, interrogations and even gun target practice.

Investigators are particularly vexed because the warehouses sit just yards from the secured runway of the Homestead Air Reserve Base.
Inside one warehouse, investigators found wall after wall adorned with colorful graffiti associated with gangs more typically found in Chicago and New York.

Hardly any of the graffiti in either warehouse appears painted over by rivals -- a sign investigators worry may show members meeting for some sort of unity conference.

Sources close to the investigation say the discovery was first made on Jan. 17 when military police reported a fire at a warehouse situated on Miami-Dade County property just north of the air base's runway.
Miami-Dade firefighters extinguished the suspicious blaze. Five people were arrested for arson and burglary, and police are checking to see if they have any gang links.

A couple of days later, a Miami-Dade officer noticed signs of gang activity and notified Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Prosecutors were soon called in from the Miami-Dade State Attorney Office's gang strike force, detectives from Miami-Dade's street gang unit and a multi-agency High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area violent gang task force.

The following is what they found, according to sources close to the probe.
The two warehouses, just yards apart, are sprawling buildings used by Miami-Dade County for storage. Only one was damaged by fire. The federal government apparently turned the land over to Miami-Dade within the last year.

One investigator characterized each building as ``like a maze.''
In the fire-damaged warehouse, one room has a couch topped with green padding. Above it on the wall is a blackboard scrawled with the words ``The Beating Couch.''
In that room, police found remnants of marijuana joints and plastic drug baggies.

Written on a wall there, nicknames such as ''Jarhead,'' ''Batboy'' and ''Onyx.'' A date and a time found scrawled on the wall seems to document the warehouses' recent use: ''1-15-06'' and ``2:30 p.m.''
Investigators also found two separate rooms featuring one sole mattress each -- and discarded condoms on the floor.

Another room appeared to be for interrogation: It had a large cage with a single chair behind the wire.

Several yards to the southwest sits the warehouse undamaged by fire.
A main room has walls covered in colorful graffiti art, more commonly seen in cities with entrenched gang culture such as Chicago and New York. This type of graffiti suggests a link to gang alliances such as Folk Nation and People Nation, which includes Latin Kings.

Names spray-painted on the walls include unfamiliar groups such as ''Chicago United Project.'' Images of the unfamiliar graffiti will be sent to a national gang intelligence center for analysis.

One room appears to have been turned into an indoor shooting range. Torn paper targets were found attached to walls. Bullet casings and BB pellets were on the floor.

Another room appears designated for beating people up. The floor is splotched with what appears to be dried blood. A yellow skull-and-crossbones is spray-painted on the wall and floor.
It's unclear who, if anybody, was actually hurt there -- but gangs often beat up new members for initiation.

It's also a mystery how long gang members have been congregating at the warehouses. Also unclear: how activity -- traffic, noise, even possible gun fire -- went unnoticed so close to the tarmac of a military runway.
Nearby is another large warehouse and parking lot most notably used as a staging ground by the Federal Emergency Management Agency during hurricanes. Also in the area: a warehouse used by Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue as storage.

On Friday night, members of the county's Multi-Agency Gang Task Force, surveilling the warehouses, arrested two teenagers for trespassing. Their connection to the warehouses was unclear. Sources say one had a BB gun.
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