Thread: Gang Violence in Central Valley

I have included two stories that appeared in today's Mocesto Bee. This is some of the contributions to our society by the much needed Agriculture Workers and their Anchor Babies!! This is spreading throughout California.


Gang cops sweeping the streets for info

By ROSALIO AHUMADA
rahumada@modbee.com

last updated: May 04, 2008 04:00:07 AM

About 20 police cars with flashing red and blue lights clogged Bystrum Road, a narrow street just east of South Ninth Street and Highway 99 in a tough, unincorporated area between Ceres and Modesto.

It was about 11:30 p.m. Friday, and the multiagency law enforcement effort organized to solve four recent gang shootings in Modesto and suppress the violence had converged on this small street between Sonora and Latimer avenues.

About 40 cops from various agencies got out of their cars and crowded around a small home on Bystrum where suspected gang members were having a party.

With help of information gathered on the street, the cops crashed the party and detained about 15 people, handcuffing and lining them up with their backs to the police cars.

A sheriff's helicopter circled, its spotlight aimed at the house.

As a group of officers searched the home, gang investigators took turns interviewing those who were detained.

The investigators asked for their name, age, weight, height, physical features such as tattoos, home address, where they work, if they have served time in prison or jail, if they use drugs, what drugs they use, what gang they belong to, where they hang out, when they joined the gang and other questions.

That's how investigators gain crucial intelligence on gangs. They talk to gang members.

"Most people think we don't talk to gang members, like we wouldn't," said Sgt. Jeramy Young, a supervisor with the Modesto Police Street Crimes Unit. "We actually talk to gang members. That's how we do it."

But it's dangerous work on any night. On this night, however, the risk was higher.

Three days earlier, two men were shot as they walked a dog in Modesto's airport neighborhood. A 51-year-old man died, and a 29-year-old man was shot in the leg.

The week before, the Street Crimes Unit was investigating two drive-by shootings on the same night in west Modesto that injured a toddler and a 15-year-old Modesto boy and killed his 14-year-old friend from San Jose.

Three weeks ago today, a 48-year-old Long Beach man visiting friends in west Modesto for the Cambodian new year was killed by stray gunfire from a gang confrontation.

Some suspects at large

The possibility of retaliation or the escalation of violence increases when multiple gang shootings occur in a short time frame, Young said.

"The potential for (gang members) to be armed is increased," Young said as he drove a marked patrol unit through west Modesto. "They'll have a gun on them to protect themselves. They're just as likely to use their weapons on us as they would on other gang members."

And some believed to be involved in the recent shootings were on the loose as of Saturday.

Modesto police arrested four suspects in connection with the Long Beach man's death, but investigators are looking for a fifth suspect.

A suspect believed by detectives to be the shooter in the airport neighborhood death has not been found. And investigators have not identified suspects in the two drive-by shootings that occurred in west Modesto a week ago Friday.

"The main thing is that we make sure we all go home at the end of the shift," Young said about his colleagues. "We're fighting this fight every day, and we need the help from the community."

Numerous agencies have been working the streets, including the Modesto police, Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department, Ceres police, Stanislaus County Probation Department, state parole agents and members of the Central Valley Gang Impact Task Force.

For more than a week, Young and the rest of the Modesto police Street Crimes Unit have been on duty.

The gang enforcement team handles investigations, gathers intelligence and carries out gang suppression in an attempt to keep gang members from confronting each other or retaliating. Members of the unit normally work four days of 11-hour shifts followed by four days off.

"This is supposed to be my day off," Young said, rubbing his eyes as he started his overtime shift from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. "The crew that's supposed to be working tonight had to work this morning, so we had to come to work."

The unit's members hit the streets at different times of the day, so gang members won't know when they're coming.

Young said it comes with the job: late hours, losing sleep, working seven consecutive days without a day off and last-minute changes to the work schedule.

And the work pays off, he said. Gathering gang intelligence during suppression efforts speeds the investigations of gang shootings. The gang investigators can help detectives and patrol units in finding the right people to talk to.

"We know who the (gang member) is, where he lives, where he works, who his girlfriend is," Young said. "That might be all it takes to get to him."

Police go high profile

Creating a highly-visible presence also was part of Friday night's operation, so Young suited up in black cargo pants, a black baseball cap, a long-sleeve black shirt with Modesto police insignias and a bulletproof vest underneath.

His baseball cap was pulled down tight with the sides of the cap's bill folded down to cover his forehead, leaving his eyes barely visible. Young prefers a more subdued presence while he works, which sometimes involves surveillance.

Normally, Young cruises through Modesto in one of the dark-blue Ford Crown Victorias used by members of the Street Crimes Unit.

The dark-blue cars are well-known on the street and have received nicknames. Young said the Street Crimes Unit calls the cars "Metros," but the kids in west Modesto call the cars "Blue Dragons."

"I really don't know why they say 'Blue Dragons,' " Young said.

A few "Blue Dragons" were out Friday along with other unmarked cars, including the vehicles used by the members of the sheriff's Special Team Investigating Narcotics and Gangs, also known as STING.

Young caught up with the STING investigators after they made a traffic stop in the airport neighborhood also called "the port."

The STING crew pulled over two men in a pickup, and they were photographing the tattoos on one with a digital camera.

"Those tattoos tell us a lot," Young said. "What his moniker is, what 'gang set' he's in."

'Hey boss, hey boss'

Large gangs are sometimes divided into "gang sets" that differentiate smaller groups within the same gang, Young said. Take the Norteños, or Northerners, for example. The gang has members spread throughout the city and the region, but there also are the Vernon Block Norteños, named after west Modesto's Vernon Avenue.

All that information is crucial in identifying suspects, and one of the men in the airport neighborhood traffic stop wanted to volunteer some information to Young.

"Hey boss, hey boss," the man called out to Young while sitting in the back seat of a sheriff's vehicle. The man was a parolee and was caught with a knife.

The man claimed he had some information about the recent violence, so Young and STING Detective Sam Green leaned into the back seat to listen.

Green and his STING crew were wearing bulletproof vests and baseball caps with sheriff's STING insignias, but Green was wearing his cap backward with the words "The Bull" stitched on the cap above his forehead.

Green's no-nonsense demeanor is necessary for gang investigators sorting tips from career criminals and gang members.

Young and Green lowered their voices, making sure passers-by couldn't hear. They brought the parolee out to look at his tattoos before Green tells him "get back into the car. I don't want anyone to rat you out that you're a snitch."

They decide to take him to jail and verify the information later.

"These gang members act all hard, but all of them roll on each other," Young said. "They'll snitch on their friends; anything to get out of trouble. That's actually the best thing we have going for us."

It makes a big difference to have parole agents and probation officers out with the gang investigators because they know who is just out of prison or jail, Young said. The investigators don't have to spend time searching through computer databases if the agents and officers know their faces and names.
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/288491-p2.html


Turlock plots anti-gang fight
Mayor's task force focusing on education, teen activities

By MICHAEL R. SHEA
mshea@modbee.com

last updated: May 03, 2008 04:49:50 AM

TURLOCK -- Last weekend a suspected Sureño gang member walking down South Soderquist Road was shot in the belly with a .45-caliber handgun.

Ten days earlier on South Rose Street, a home known to police for gang activity was riddled with bullets. Eleven shell casings were found in the road. One bullet missed a toddler's leg by less than two feet.

Three days before that, on an unusually warm Saturday, two brothers from Newman with suspected Sureño gang ties were shot in the arm, hand and neck at the Regal Turlock Stadium 14 cinema on West Main Street.

When it comes to gang violence, the same violence that has gripped Modesto in recent days, Turlock is at a tipping point.

"We're on the cusp of being very bad or controlling it," said Mayor John Lazar. "My goal is to get a grip on the problem and move these people out of the community."

Last summer, Turlock saw an unprecedented number of shootings. June, July and August averaged about 20 shootings each month, said Police Chief Gary Hampton. From that gunplay, only three people were injured. This year, tallying three gunshot injuries in April alone, police and politicians are bracing for summer with some trepidation.

Jokes about Turlock gangsters having terrible aim no longer seem appropriate.

"They're not targeting cars parked on the street anymore," Hampton said. "They're targeting people, they're targeting each other."

If last year's frequency matches last month's intensity, the city is in for a long, violent summer. But police, the school district, Modesto Junior College, business leaders, psychologists, nonprofits, and state probation and parole departments are battling the trend. They're working together on the daunting task of neutralizing gang activity.

The Mayor's Gang Task Force, which has been meeting regularly since May, will present a package of programs to the City Council in June aimed at educating parents and providing youngsters with alternatives to gang life.

"We can turn up the heat on gang members," Hampton said, "but alone it isn't a very sophisticated approach."

For two weeks, the task force has been meeting with parents on Turlock's Westside. Another meeting is scheduled for Thursday. At-risk families, identified through the school district, have been asked into the closed-door sessions to answer survey questions and discuss ways the city and police can help.

"It's not a law enforcement event," said Turlock police Capt. Rob Jackson, "it's a community event."

Latinos make up an estimated 87 percent of gang members in Stanislaus County, and the bulk of the violence stems from tensions between the Norteños and Sureños, the Northerners and Southerners, which started as factions in the state prison system.

But Latino communities, such as Turlock's Westside, no longer bear the sole burden of gang influence. Property crimes such as auto thefts and gang-related graffiti have crept across the city. Hampton said stealing a car is part of gang initiation in Turlock and the affluent northeast side of town is no longer free of gangland taggings.

By working with parents who, Lazar said, often are single, holding down more than one job and fighting to pay the rent, the city hopes to tailor existing parks and recreation programs to better suit at-risk kids. A teen center and boxing program will help, the mayor said. Job training and after-school work opportunities are essential. So is remedial gang education, to answer questions as basic as 'What is a gang?'

"The gangbanger who wants to buy them a Slurpee at the 7-Eleven -- we need to teach that 8-year-old the gangbanger doesn't necessarily want to be your friend and that Slurpee isn't necessarily free," Hampton said.

The programs will target junior high school kids, who have the fewest programs up and running and are the prime age for gang recruitment, he said.

In the same three weeks that Turlock saw three people injured, Modesto had three people injured and three people killed. Gang enforcement officers have saturated half the city since April 25, when a 14-year-old San Jose boy was killed and his 15-year-old friend wounded, and a 22-month-old boy seriously injured in a separate shooting.

Education, an abundance of programs geared for teens and close work with at-risk families are the only ways to stem the tide, according to Turlock officials. Gang living is a deep-rooted problem that requires a deep fix.

At one of the first Mayor's Gang Task Force meetings, a picture of another small boy, about 10 months old, circulated through the room. The infant was dressed in a red shirt with a Norteño logo, sunglasses and a red bandana. Resting on his stomach was a .45-caliber handgun.

"That," Lazar said, "is what we're dealing with."

http://www.modbee.com/local/story/287728.html

I have been doing gang research and found that the biggest Hispanic gangs in the United States are due to migrant farm workers be it legal or illegal ones. In fact one gang was involved with the agricultural union in fighting for higher wages for the workers in California. In Florida gang problems usually are in agricultural areas. This show you who these gang people are. MS 13 came here thanks to migrant workers who brought their teens with them. Speaking of MS 13 they have a homicide which is unsolved in the City of Miami where MS 13 gang members killed a homeless man. They are showing it on A&E on the First 48 as I am typing this. To date this murder has not been solved and the gang members took off elsewhere. The murder victim was killed using a machete. This is nothing new here.

Would like to see if we can get some states on these gangs to go along with these stories. like how many might or are illegal. Some time back I saw that some 60% of Mara Saltrucha was made up of illegal Hondurans.

A suspect believed by detectives to be the shooter in the airport neighborhood death has not been found.

In an earlier news article this one was listed as a National.

Originally Posted by caasduit

Would like to see if we can get some states on these gangs to go along with these stories. like how many might or are illegal. Some time back I saw that some 60% of Mara Saltrucha was made up of illegal Hondurans.

Most MS-13 gang members are actually from El Salvador. It is hard to get stats on them as they are transients. That is many many murders committed by them are never solved. I will try to find stats from law enforcement data bases. What I do know is that when you read about the ICE raids the gang members are included under the criminals apprehended but they never give a break down on the crimes committed by those being deported.