Thread: LA: Huge sweeps: Latino gangs that allegedly attacked blacks

Originally Posted by ShockedinCalifornia

Huge sweeps target Latino gangs that allegedly attacked blacks

8:38 AM | May 21, 2009

Federal authorities said they would announce today a huge sweep of Latino gang members allegedly responsible for violence against law enforcement and racially motivated attacks against blacks.

The announcement followed the arrests of dozens of suspected gang members during raids early this morning. A news release from the U.S. attorney's office called it the "largest gang takedown in United States history."

U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O'Brien, along with officials from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, is scheduled to speak at a news conference at 11 a.m. at the Lakewood sheriff's station.

The indictment is the latest of several investigations that found gangs participating in race-based violence. Federal prosecutors two years ago charged members of a Latino gang with a violent campaign to drive blacks out of the unincorporated Florence-Firestone neighborhood that allegedly resulted in 20 homicides over several years.

In the Harbor Gateway district of L.A., police launched a crackdown last year on another Latino gang accused of targeting blacks, including 14-year-old Cheryl Green, whose death became a rallying point. In 2006, members of the Avenues, a Latino gang, were convicted in federal court for a series of assaults and killings in the early 1990s targeting blacks in Highland Park.

-- Scott Glover

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2 ... lacks.html

Seems to me what I saw on TV one time (can't remember where) this is a gang thing. The Latino gangs are taking over the black gangs. No doubt these idiots take down some innocent blacks in the mean time.

While I could care a less if Latino and Black gangs completely wipe each other out I think its more than time that black and Latino communities unite with the rest of us and let congress know we have had enough of this chaos. Supporting these bleeding heart liberals like they tend to do is only making things like this happen.

Just heard Assistant U.S. Attorney and Lead Prosecutor Mike Lowe (sp?) admit on the Doug McIntyre show (KABC) this morning (5/22) that there are illegal aliens in this gang, and that they are using immigration status to go after these gang members, some of whom had been previously deported after committing felonies in this country.

This may seem like a no brainer, but do you notice how much of the MSM is ignoring or burying this important part of this story??

---
---

Even this is buried in the DOL press release:

[i]Robert Schoch, Special Agent in Charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Los Angeles, stated: “Today's operation should leave no doubt about our collective resolve to attack and dismantle the street gangs that are terrorizing our neighborhoods. ICE will continue to use its unique immigration and customs authorities to target these organizations and combat the violence and intimidation they use to hold our communities hostage to fear.â€

A story posted above - 'SoCal gang members indicted in racist shooting' has updated the story:

SoCal gang members indicted in racist shootings
By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, May 21, 2009


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(05-21) 16:08 PDT HAWAIIAN GARDENS, Calif. (AP) --

A Latino street gang waged a racist campaign that included attempted murders and other crimes against the city's black residents while flooding the area with guns and drugs, according to federal racketeering indictments unsealed Thursday.

Five indictments charged a total of 147 members and associates of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang, and federal and local agencies had arrested 63 people in a sweep early Thursday, U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien told a press conference. Another 35 were already in custody on separate charges.

Dozens of guns including semiautomatic assault rifles and drugs worth more than $1 million were also seized.

More than 1,400 law enforcement officers, including 17 different SWAT teams, were involved in the sweep across the small city and the surrounding area. Citing the large number of suspects, O'Brien asserted the case represented "the largest gang takedown in United States history."

The indictments detail attempted murder, kidnapping, firearms, narcotics and other charges related to attacks by the gang, which primarily operates in Hawaiian Gardens, a city of about 15,000 people in southeastern Los Angeles County.

"(Varrio Hawaiian Gardens) gang members take pride in their racism and often refer to the VHG Gang as the 'Hate Gang,'" the main indictment states. "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."

The 193-page indictment alleges a string of attacks on black residents, including a shooting into a home with eight people inside. The indictment does not say if anyone was hit.

In another instance, two gang members allegedly chased a black man, yelled a racist epithet at him and then beat him with a garden rake. The same man was later repeatedly stabbed by two gang members, according to the indictment, which charges them with his attempted murder.

In the 2000 Census, the latest data available, Hawaiian Gardens was roughly 73 percent Hispanic and 4 percent black. The city was incorporated in 1964 and, according to local lore, was named after a bamboo snack shack built in 1927.

The area is rife with gang activity and Latino gangsters sometimes circle the city in cars and shout threats at black people, a Hawaiian Gardens resident told The Associated Press.

"They say, 'You better walk home before we shoot you,'" the woman said. She asked the AP to use only her first name, Kathy, for fear of reprisals.

"I see 12-year-olds dressed up like gangsters," she said. "It's pretty much everywhere."

Hawaiian Gardens Mayor Michael Gomez welcomed the crackdown, saying: "Honest residents should not have to live in fear of lawless thugs who act like it's high noon at the OK Corral."

The indictments mark at least the second time in less than two years federal authorities alleged Latino gang members in Southern California attacked black residents because of their race. In 2007, agents arrested dozens of members of the Florencia 13 gang in South Los Angeles and said the gang had, in some instances, killed black people purely because of the color of their skin.

The extent to which race is driving the area's gang conflicts last year sparked an argument between the region's two top cops, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton. Baca said racial bias was a significant factor in gang crime while Bratton, pointing to statistics showing cross-racial crime to be rare, downplayed any tension.

The investigation of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang has been under way for almost four years since the June 2005 murder of Los Angeles County sheriff's Deputy Luis Gerardo "Jerry" Ortiz. Jose Luis Orozco, a member of the gang, was sentenced to death in 2007 for the killing.

Ortiz, 35, died as he searched for Orozco, who had shot and wounded a black man while he did yard work. Orozco was later found guilty of attempted murder in that case.

"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," O'Brien said.

Following Ortiz's murder, the Sheriff's Department sought federal and local assistance to help destroy the Hawaiian Gardens gang, the U.S. attorney said. Authorities held Thursday's news conference in front of a memorial for Ortiz and other fallen deputies.

Contempt for law enforcement was commonplace and gang members would scrawl graffiti on deputies' patrol cars, according to the indictment. One gang member bragged the Ortiz killing had put the group "back on the map," and the murder earned the gang respect from other gangs.

Florencia 13 and Varrio Hawaiian Gardens aren't the only Latino gangs linked to racial attacks. In 2007, four members of The Avenues, a gang from the Highland Park area northeast of downtown Los Angeles, were convicted of hate crimes for killing a black man in what prosecutors called a campaign to drive blacks from that neighborhood. Authorities have also announced a crackdown on the 204th Street gang following the killing of a 14-year-old black girl.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, an author and racial commentator, said racial bias among gang members is high in transitioning neighborhoods where black residents are moving out and Latinos are moving in.

"There is a deep-seated animosity between some Latino gangs and African-Americans," he said. "There is no way around it, it is driven by racial animus."

Civil rights lawyer Connie Rice noted the violence can go both ways. She pointed to the Jordan Downs housing project in Watts that has historically been controlled by the Grape St. Crips, a black gang.

"They are still running Latinos out," she said.

www.sfgate.com

Added to Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/article-4236--0-0.html

Notice how the AP article above omits the important fact that at least some members of this "Latino street gang" as they call it are illegal aliens, some of whom were previously deported felons.

This baised, sloppy reporting is typical of the AP.

Besides these gang banging scums getting put in the clink, I hope the other silver lining in this is that more Blacks wake up and start taking thier country, cities and towns back. This insanity has got to end. Unfortunately, I think it will have to get a lot worse before it gets better....

Jesse Jackson & Al Sharpton are supposedly inspirational leaders of the African-American community. It would be great if they could make some kind of a public statement, heralding and praising the supreme effort of law enforcement to save and preserve the African-American community in Hawaiian Gardens, and everywhere else too.

Originally Posted by sunlandbob

Jesse Jackson & Al Sharpton are supposedly inspirational leaders of the African-American community. It would be great if they could make some kind of a public statement, heralding and praising the supreme effort of law enforcement to save and preserve the African-American community in Hawaiian Gardens, and everywhere else too.

dont hold your breath. it wasnt a gang of white people, it was hispanic and a minority

Originally Posted by sunlandbob

Jesse Jackson & Al Sharpton are supposedly inspirational leaders of the African-American community. It would be great if they could make some kind of a public statement, heralding and praising the supreme effort of law enforcement to save and preserve the African-American community in Hawaiian Gardens, and everywhere else too.

Jesse and Al, like many people on the internet, would never praise our hard working law enforcement officers and agencies.