The Nation
A Fearsome Gang and Its Wannabe

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By CARA BUCKLEY
Published: August 19, 2007

HE grim execution-style shootings that killed three college students in a Newark schoolyard two weeks ago bore many hallmarks of gangland slayings, and the culprits clearly wanted it that way.

Three of the four victims, two women and two young men aged 18 to 20, were forced to kneel facing a wall before being shot in the head. Both women, one of whom survived, were slashed in the face with a machete or knife. And the MySpace page of one of the six suspects, a 16-year-old who is still at large, pays loving homage to one of the country’s most feared and hyped gangs: La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a Central American gang that has become synonymous with bloodthirstiness.

The authorities in Newark swiftly noted that they had found no evidence linking the suspects to MS-13, or any other gang. “There’s a difference between a gang member and a wannabe,â€