Thread: Newark execution murders update- MS13 Connection

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Please post the entire story for our readers. Some do not like to click on a link and some have slow computers.
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In quiet complex, trouble was brewing
Triple-slaying suspects worried tenants of Newark's Ivy Hill Park for months
Sunday, August 12, 2007
BY KASI ADDISON AND MARK MUELLER
Star-Ledger Staff
The 10 towers that make up the Ivy Hill Park apartments soar above western Newark like a city within a city. Home to 10,000 people, it is New Jersey's largest privately owned apartment complex, an affordable haven for working-class families since the 1950s.

Residents call it a "little United Nations," a place where kids from Central America play with kids from Sri Lanka, where Bangladeshis mix with Jamaicans, Ukrainians with Brazilians, whites with blacks.

It's the kind of place, residents say, where serious trouble is still rare enough that it stands out.

José Lachira Carranza and his small band of friends stood out.

Residents say the group, which included at least three teenage boys, drank beer and smoked marijuana in the hallways of the 14-story towers and in the playground of the nearby Mount Vernon School.

In recent months, they turned to strong-arm robbery, ordering passers-by to hand over cash, residents said.

A week ago yesterday, that same group is alleged to have done far worse, shooting four college-bound friends in the back of their heads behind the Mount Vernon School. Three of the four died.

Carranza, 28, and two of the teens have already been charged in the killings.

Yesterday, as the victims were laid to rest and as authorities continued to hunt for others involved in the case, residents described how Ivy Hill Park became the tie between the disparate suspects, the place where they met and allegedly forged a bond through crime.

The residents portrayed Carranza and his cohorts as chronic troublemakers with apparent ties to MS-13, a Central American gang with a growing foothold in Ivy Hill Park.

An illegal immigrant from Peru, Carranza had moved with his wife to Orange from Ivy Hill years ago, but he kept returning, first to see a woman, and when that ended, to see friends, the residents said.

He tended to grow belligerent when he'd been drinking, and he seemed to drink all the time.

"He wasn't on the rent roll, but we knew of him in the area," said Joe Catano, the apartment complex's administrator. "We knew he had problems."

Two Newark police officers who moonlight as security guards at Ivy Hill Park said Carranza was ejected from the grounds several times in recent years because he was violent and drunk. The guards spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to address the media.

Carranza had even more serious problems. Last October, police charged him with aggravated assault and other counts in connection with a bar fight in West Orange. Then, earlier this year, he was charged in a 31-count indictment with repeatedly raping a young girl. He was out on bail in both cases at the time of the killings in Newark.

Residents of Ivy Hill Park didn't know details of the cases, but they knew to steer clear of Carranza, bushy-haired and brawny.

Carranza ran with another tough character in Rodolfo Godinez, 24, who had amassed arrests for robbery and weapons possession. Yesterday, police issued a warrant for Godinez's arrest in the schoolyard killings. He remained at large last night.

Like Carranza, Godinez was a former resident. He lived nearby, in an apartment on Midland Avenue. And like Carranza, Godinez was believed to be associated with MS-13, considered one of the most violent gangs in America.

Rooted in the Salvadoran civil war of the 1980s, MS-13, also known as La Mara Salvatrucha, spread to the United States with immigration. Though smaller than other national gangs such as the Bloods and Crips, it is known to have a strong presence in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

Jason Toomer, a 20-year-old resident of Ivy Hill Park, stated flatly that Carranza and Godinez were in the gang.

Yader Barrera, 25, who has lived in the complex for 16 years, said he had been on friendly terms with Godinez but had a falling out when he noticed the man spending more time with known members of MS-13. Godinez soon became prone to long absences, he said.

Barrera said that when he last saw Godinez, about two weeks ago, he asked him how he had been. Godinez replied he had recently been in Miami but was forced to flee after his involvement in a stabbing, Barrera said.

Miami-Dade police said yesterday they would look into the claim.

Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow has said the Newark killings, apparently motivated by robbery, were not gang-related. Residents at Ivy Hill Park don't seek to counter that argument, but they said they noticed a change in the teenagers at about the same time they claimed membership in MS-13.

"When they were kids, they were nice, but when they got to a certain age, I guess they got exposed to things they shouldn't have gotten involved in," Barrera said.

Authorities have not released the juveniles' names.

One of them, a 15-year-old resident of Ivy Hill Park, was arrested Wednesday night. A second 15-year-old, a former resident who recently moved to Morristown, was charged Friday. Police continued to hunt for Godinez's 16-year-old brother, who is also a former resident.

Friday night, Dow said investigators believe a sixth person was involved in the attack. Two law enforcement sources with knowledge of the probe said that suspect also is a juvenile male. The officials were not permitted to speak for attribution.


EXTOLLING THE GANG

Toomer said Godinez's brother and the Morristown teen were especially close.

"Like this," he said, holding his fingers together. "Like Bonnie and Clyde, basically."

Both youths have MySpace pages that glorify gang life and marijuana.

In one picture, Godinez's brother wears a bandanna across his face and flashes a gang sign. He claims loyalty to G.L.C.S., or Guanacos Little Cycos Salvatruchos, an MS-13 faction.

The MySpace page for the Morristown teen, known in Ivy Hill Park as "Shotgun," contains messages from more than a dozen friends extolling the gang.

All three of the youths attended Mount Vernon School through the eighth grade, as did three of the four schoolyard victims.

The Newark 15-year-old, who graduated in June, was known as a popular but troublesome student.

"He had a lot of discipline problems," said Lois Greene, president of the local PTA.

Residents said the teens had long been friends, and they sometimes would be seen drinking beer or smoking marijuana. Toomer said that behavior grew worse -- and more violent -- about six months ago, when they were more frequently seen in the company of Godinez and Carranza, known in Ivy Hill Park by his nickname, "Shaka."

That's when they started to rob and occasionally beat other residents.

"They wasn't robbing people until Shaka and Rodolfo was in the picture," Toomer said.

Authorities have said robbery appears to be the motive in the Newark attack, which killed Terrance Aeriel, 18, Dashon Harvey, 20, and Iofemi Hightower, 20. Aeriel's sister, 19-year-old Natasha Aeriel, remains hospitalized.

Three of the four were students at Delaware State University. Hightower was expected to enroll in Delaware State next month.

http://www.nj.com/starledger/stories/in ... xml&coll=1

No surprise here. The MS-13 is a gang of savages with a total disregard for human life. The epitome of evil.

controlledImmigration, welcome to Alipac and the fight to save our great country.