Texas Chicano Brotherhood responsible for crimes across Valley
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July 11, 2010 10:17 PM
By LINDSAY MACHAK/The Monitor

EDCOUCH — Sammy Solis allegedly fired four rounds from the window of his black Chevrolet Malibu into a family’s home Wednesday.

Nobody was injured, but that doesn’t mean the message behind the violent act went unheard, officials said.

Solis, a member of the Texas Chicano Brotherhood, targeted the Edcouch home because a family member there quit the gang and Solis was sending him a message that such betrayal of the Brotherhood is unacceptable, Edcouch Police Chief Eloy Cardenas said.

"You see all these bad things happening because of the gangs," Cardenas said. "They use these incidents as examples. They make examples out of one another."

The violence of drive-by shootings and other major crimes committed by members of the gang has plagued the Rio Grande Valley since it split from the Tri-City Bombers in the late 1980s.

The Brotherhood has grown since then and has been held responsible for many recent violent crimes across the Valley. One gang member, Ruben Moreno Jr., shot and killed a business owner in San Juan in January of last year. Another man, Gabriel Sepulveda, fatally stabbed a 48-year-old man in Lopezville in 2008.

Valley police departments have had widespread problems with the gang ever since its inception, Edinburg police investigator Robert Alvarez said.

"They are a major state prison gang right now," he said. "Their numbers are in the hundreds — easily over the thousands if you look at the reality of it and include the high school kids, neighborhood kids and kids that haven’t been to prison."

Cardenas can remember the gang’s violence in the early ‘90s. The extreme nature of the crimes connected to the Brotherhood hasn’t changed since then, he said.

"As time goes by, they’re committing the same type of crimes, but getting smarter," he said. "It’s obvious; they have to, otherwise they would all be in jail."

Jail is where 19-year old Solis apparently became a die-hard member of the gang, Cardenas said.

Alvarez said police have seen the Brotherhood recruiting members as young as junior high school age.

"They aren’t some little wannabe group," he said. "They are the real thing. They’re very organized."

Another member of the gang, Aaron Peña, was arrested by the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office the same day Solis was taken into custody.

Sheriff’s deputies were tipped off that Peña was allegedly selling marijuana out of his apartment. When investigators searched his home, they found a loaded AK-47 rifle in a bedroom. A .45-caliber Glock handgun was hidden in the living room couch in addition to more than 21 pounds of marijuana stashed in a bedroom closet.

Peña had served time in Texas prison for deadly conduct and burglary. He was on probation and wearing an electronic tether at the time of his latest arrest.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice considers the Brotherhood one of 12 security threat groups. Other prison gangs in that category include the Mexican Mafia, Raza Unida, Texas Syndicate and Barrio Azteca.


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