MORE GANG PHOTOS:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?o=7&f=/c/a/2006/04/02/INGGTI0B3I1.DTL
Posted on 04/02/2006 2:19:44 PM PDT by dennisw
In the aftermath of a prison riot in southern Guatemala, the eyes that peer out amid the tattoo of a skull covering half his face are contorted in pain as fellow inmates care for his bleeding shoulder. They are members of gangs, whose stories began in Los Angeles and then were exported to Central America. There the gangs grew, became more violent, and now they head back to the United States.
Known as maras, the gangs formed in the 1980s, when immigrants fleeing brutal civil war in El Salvador settled in Los Angeles.
To protect themselves from already established L.A. street gangs, these immigrants banded together and formed their own. They began flooding back to Central America in 1996, when the United States began to deport immigrants convicted of felonies here. Many returned to a country they hardly knew. But in the chaos and desperation of post-war El Salvador, gangs found fertile ground, and their ranks swelled.
From there the gangs spread, following the stream of immigrants northward into neighboring Honduras and Guatemala, and into southern Mexico.
Now they can also be found across the United States. In February 2005, a nationwide sweep by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies netted 103 Central American gang members in several states. Another sweep in August made hundreds of more arrests. Estimates put the number of Central American gang members in the United States at more than 25,000 in as many as 33 states.
And gangs are blamed for much of the violence that plagues Central America.
The existence of the gangs and their facile migration back and forth across the southern U.S. border is a seldom considered aspect of the current immigration debate going on in this country, but the gangs carry ramifications for whatever legislation is eventually approved by Congress.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The gangs are doing a job Americans won't do.
They'll be in the circus coming soon!
Look how they've mutilated themselves! I know they're diabolical criminals, but do they give a thought to their family's feelings? Imagine being the parent of one of these young men : (
I don't get the purpose of those tattoos. Wouldn't the gang members want to pass as normal people instead of sporting huge neon signs advertising their criminal status? Wouldn't their criminal behaviour be easier without the attention those tattoos would draw?
Intimation, advertising the fact that they are cold blooded killers.
I dont think they pick strawberies or veggies. I would guess they only pick up guns. We need that wall ASAP!!!!
Just sporting the tattoos that American gangs won't sport.
The state can not deal with them until after they do their killing, often after numerous killing, because they often don't get caught.
Time was when we had confidence in law enforcement and they could tell such skum never to appear again in their community. (And they could enforce it with unfortunate accidents for slow-learning punks.)
Now we have these sociopaths protected by a huge, anti-law enforcement coaliton (ACLU and such) that thinks the cops are the criminals.
The day could come would citizens would revert to an older time when they took their protection in their own hands. Vigilante justice is very rough (approximate) justice and a huge step backward for civilization. But I, personally, would not be unsympathetic toward undoucmented lawmen who could take one look at such characters and have all the probable cause they needed to start the justice process.
Family values don't stop at the border. We need these guest workers.
undesirables....
"Intimation" implies a bit more subtlety than these characters evince. Intimidation, perhaps?
bump
A sick BTTT
......speaking of gangs....
Those crazy tatoos show what pagans they are
No kidding. Maybe I should have left a better reply, up the thread, but all I could think of was how shameful it must be to have a family member like that. OMG, tattoing yourself like that : ( Of course not to mention that they're murderous sociopaths...
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