Posted on 11/16/2003 2:49:28 PM PST by CedarDave
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Police Say Taos Ripe for Gang War
By Kathryn Holzka
For the Journal
TAOS— Nestled in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, Taos is known worldwide for its celebrities, art galleries, scenery and one of the world's best ski areas.
But violence and gang warfare have descended on this county of about 30,000, which once attracted peace-loving hippies.
A State Police officer's recent affidavit after a string of burglaries and a triple homicide says an "active gang war climate exists in Taos."
Law enforcement agencies from around the state have helped in the crackdown on Taos County gangs and crime, authorities say.
A State Police investigation of criminal activity by gangs in Taos County has led to several arrests in the past six weeks, with more arrests expected, in a drive aimed at breaking the back of gang violence.
"We're working on the leadership on a couple of gangs and tying them back to earlier shootings," State Police Capt. Quintin McShan said Friday. "And we're hoping through these arrests to calm the situation."
The latest development in the investigation was the arrest Thursday in Albuquerque of 20-year-old Mark Romero, a suspected Taos gang leader who goes by the aliases "Shadow" and "Beast," police said. Police believe Romero masterminded a series of burglaries in Taos County over the summer.
References to gang warfare and the Mexican Mafia— a California prison gang linked to Mexican drug cartels— were revealed in an affidavit filed in state district court by State Police patrolman Patrick Oakeley. The affidavit is based on statements by a reputed gang member in custody after his arrest on burglary charges.
The informant told police the Mexican Mafia is "after" members of another gang in Taos because that gang robbed Jason Perea, one of their "primary drug dealers," according to the affidavit.
Perea, 26, has been charged with shooting three people to death at a Ranchos de Taos gas station on July 24.
McShan said the informant's story is being investigated.
"He said those things, and we're giving some of it credit and some of it not," McShan said. "We're giving credit to the things that we can collaborate independently."
Oakeley and Sgt. Adrian Vigil are heading the investigation into gang-related activity, which police say erupted this summer in a series of burglaries and homicides in and around Taos. They are also part of a newly formed gang task force organized by Taos District Attorney Donald Gallegos.
Drug control
Court records and police accounts of recent searches and arrests paint a dire picture of burglaries of homes and businesses targeting cash and guns reportedly in preparation for a turf war between the rival gangs Barrio Small Town and the South Side Locos, also known as Sur13.
Oakeley's affidavit includes descriptions of drug dealing, the stabbing of a dog at one of the burglarized homes and the involvement of the Mexican Mafia.
"The Mexican Mafia reportedly controls the narcotics activity in Taos, more specifically the south side of town," Oakeley said in his affidavit.
In an interview, Oakeley said suspects arrested in the latest wave were reluctant to talk about the Mexican Mafia in any detail. "But that is how it was related to me, that the Mexican Mafia is controlling the drug trade up here," he said.
"We are still trying to determine whether there is a Mexican connection here," Oakeley said, or if the gang member Oakeley interviewed for his affidavit meant the Syndicato Nuevo Mexico, a long-time New Mexico prison gang.
"But either way, there seems to be some outside influences at work in local drug dealings," Oakeley said.
Oakeley's affidavit suggests that the July 24 triple homicide at a Mustang gas station in Ranchos de Taos was committed by Perea in retaliation for a break-in at his home by members of the Barrio Small Town gang.
Bill Hubbard, chief investigator in the Taos District Attorney's office, said the burglary at Perea's residence "appears to be a motivator in the shooting."
"Jason felt like he had been disrespected," Hubbard said.
Three killings
Perea is accused of firing 19 shots from two Glock pistols, killing three young men in a car parked at the Mustang gas station, police records say.
Oakeley said in an interview that the man in the driver's seat of the car, 22-year-old Eric Tollardo of Ranchos de Taos, was reported to be the leader of Barrio Small Town. Tollardo was alleged to have broken into Perea's Ranchos de Taos home on N.M. 240, taking drugs and cash several days before the fatal shooting, Oakeley said.
Perea faces three counts of first degree murder in the July 24 shooting. He is being held on a $1.5 million cash-only bond and is scheduled for trial in February.
The affidavit says Oakeley was told that the Mexican Mafia continues to seek retaliation against Barrio Small Town for robbing Perea.
Alfredo Eagle Rael, 23, of Picuris Pueblo, and 14-year-old Nathaniel Maestas of Ranchos de Taos were the other two slain occupants of the car. Maestas was a half brother to Albert Trujillo, 19, , who was shot to death last June in a dispute over a keg of beer at an all-night party at his home in Talpa. The accused shooter, Earl Romo, 16, of Rancho de Taos is awaiting trial on first-degree murder charges.
South-side targets
Oakeley said Romero, who was arrested in Albuquerque on Thursday, took over leadership of Barrio Small Town after Tollardo was killed and "ordered gang members to commit burglaries or be killed or ranked out of the gang."
"There was a rash of aggravated burglaries over the summer throughout Taos County, but especially in the Ranchos de Taos, Llano Quemado and the Talpa areas," Oakeley said.
Those are the areas where the South Side Locos and the Barrio Small Town gangs are fighting for turf control in the southern part of the county, said Oakeley and Vigil, who both are assigned to the State Police Taos substation.
Romero was charged with aggravated burglary, conspiracy to commit burglary and receiving stolen property. He was arrested while leaving an apartment complex on Albuquerque's Chelwood Boulevard, Oakeley said.
The arrest of Romero was carried out by a regional task force of law enforcement personnel from the Albuquerque Police Department, the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department and the State Police, as part of a sweep to round up gang leadership, Oakeley said.
Missions ordered
According to Vigil and Oakeley, a major break in the unraveling of gang-related crimes came with the arrests of several burglary suspects, including Jonathan Rodriquez, 17, and his 16-year-old brother, Joseph Rodriquez, both of Los Cordovas.
Police and court records say Jonathan Rodriguez was one of the leaders of the South Side Locos gang and ordered gang members, including his brother, Joseph, on "missions" to obtain money and guns for use in a pending turf war.
In one of the aggravated burglaries police allege gang members committed, three guns— a .38-caliber revolver, a .22-caliber revolver and a .380-caliber semi-automatic handgun— were stolen from a house on Amor Lane in Taos in July.
Oakeley and Vigil said informants reported the .380 semi-automatic handgun was given to Eric Tollardo— the reputed gang leader killed in the July triple homicide— and was in the car with him when the fatal shooting occurred. Police believe a member of the Barrio Small Town gang took the weapon from the car after the shooting. It has still not been found.
Another gun taken in the Amor Lane break-in, the .38-caliber revolver, was involved in the killing of 16-year-old Lorenzo Maestas three weeks after the burglary when Joseph Rodriguez was showing it to a group of friends hanging out at a house on Adelmo Medina Lane and the gun accidentally fired, police said.
Joseph Rodriquez pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in Maestas' death in August and is awaiting sentencing.
He and his brother, Jonathan, pleaded guilty on Nov. 7 to multiple counts of burglary. Jonathan Rodriguez also pleaded guilty to three counts of receiving stolen property.
Among the burglaries Joseph Rodriguez admitted to was the Amor Lane break-in and another, also in July, where the house was trashed and the family dog stabbed.
Successful searches
In early October, State Police obtained a search warrant for the Rodriguez brothers' home in Los Cordovas and the home of 17-year-old twin brothers, Chevy and Robbie Martinez, police records show. The Martinez brothers live on Adelmo Medina Lane.
The stolen .22-caliber revolver was found at the Rodriquez home, police records show. It was turned over to police who served the warrant by Joseph Rodriguez Sr., who was a former Taos County Sheriff's deputy and currently works for the Taos Pueblo tribal police. Police said the elder Rodriguez told them he had found the pistol under his mobile home and didn't know what to do with it, so he locked it in a closet.
At the Martinez residence, gun holsters connected to the Amor Lane burglary were found, along with drug paraphernalia, police records show, and the brothers later admitted to buying two guns from Joseph Rodriguez taken in the Amor Lane burglary.
In the course of the search of the Martinez residence, Oakeley and Vigil said, prescription drugs belonging to patients at the Taos Living Center were discovered. The Martinez boys' father, Robert Martinez, 47, an attendant at the center, was arrested and charged with "neglect of a resident" in connection with the medications, police said.
Two younger children in the Martinez household were placed into protective custody and are now in foster care because of what police called "deplorable" conditions in the home.
According to Kay Ann Tyssee, assistant district attorney in the Taos DA's office, the Martinez brothers pleaded guilty Oct. 31 in district court to receiving stolen property— the guns. Their two-year prison sentences were suspended and they were ordered to participate in a community corrections program.
Oakeley said search warrants were also executed last week on the Llano Quemado home of Orlando Torrez, 18, and Alfredo Sanchez, 19, charged in the fatal shooting Halloween night of Danica Concha, 19, of Taos Pueblo.
Concha was killed in a drive-by shooting at a mobile home in Ranchos de Taos in which three other Halloween party-goers were wounded. Torrez and Sanchez are in custody and being held on $250,000 bail.
Oakeley said an estimated $20,000 in stolen property was recovered in the search, and the investigation is continuing. A prior search by Taos County Sheriff's deputies had turned up a half a dozen guns, police said.
"There is a lot more to the investigation," Oakeley said, "we expect to be following up on information with more arrests to come."
Gang links
Gangs in Taos County are nothing new, McShan said.
"At least one of those gangs has been there 10 or 12 years that I've known of, and another one for eight or nine," he said.
Lt. Andy Montoya, head of the State Police Taos office, said the gang investigation was launched as part of the department's community policing initiative after community meetings in early summer.
"We were able to identify certain crimes, see the commonality in the burglaries and link it to gang activity," Montoya said.
"It's a combination of good old-fashioned police work by patrolman Oakeley and Sgt. Adrian Vigil and others," he said. "With the help of the community, we can be that much more successful in making Taos County a better place to live."
Journal staff writer Andy Lenderman contributed to this report.Copyright 2003 Albuquerque Journal
So9
They were invited into the "Big Tent," and given a seat at "The Table." Guess what? They keep evacuating their bowels into the soup tureen!
Sounds good to me, FRiend. It always bothered me that illegals could come over here just in time to pop a kid, and get instant benefits, courtesy of us American taxpayers...
It's gratifying to see people coming in who are willing to do the work Americans are no longer willing to do!
California faces bankruptcy because it continues to try to care for Mexico's poor. The gangs that this invasion has created are known in the large metropolitan centers of California but now thay are emerging in rural areas of Arizona and New Mexico as well.
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