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From Texas -

Officials warn of increased gang presence
Report: Central American gang seeks stake in region’s smuggling operations.
By Angeles Negrete Lares
The Brownsville Herald

BROWNSVILE, June 2 - Central America’s most violent gang is expanding its presence into Matamoros and the Rio Grande Valley to claim a stake in the region’s drug and human smuggling operations, U.S. and Mexican federal officials said Tuesday.

More than a dozen members of Maras Salvatrucha have been arrested in Tamaulipas since October, and reports indicate the gang has at least 200 active cells along Mexican border states, said Carlos Barba, deputy director of the Mexican National Migration Agency (INM).

Cells are groups of at least 20, Barba said.

“We’re not talking about the presence of a very small gang,” Barba said. “We’re talking about the Maras Salvatrucha — an aggressive gang here.”

Barba said the gang is attempting to create a partnership with drug and human trafficking groups in Mexico.

Some of the largest and most powerful Central American gangs — including the Maras Salvatrucha — were formed in Los Angeles in the 1980s and incubated in El Salvador and Honduras after gang members were deported from the United States, Mexican officials said.

Barba said Maras members are easily spotted because their heads, necks and arms are often covered with elaborate tattoos bearing symbols of the gang’s three main groups: “MS,” “13,” “18.” They also have tattoos depicting dice, crossbones or daggers.

José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, head of the organized crime unit of the attorney general’s office in Mexico City, stated in a press release that the Mexican government is treating the gang as a growing organized crime phenomenon.

“Right now, the Mexican government is very focused on any kind of activity this gang is producing in our country, and we expect that soon we can exterminate their presence in Mexico,” Vasconcelos said.

The gang’s presence has been reported as early as October in border cities such as Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros.

Officers with Grupo Beta in Matamoros, a Mexican organization that monitors the south side of the Rio Grande, arrested an alleged member of the Maras Salvatrucha last month for not having the proper immigration papers.

After the Honduran was transferred to the Gateway International Bridge, he admitted his ties to the gang and added that other members had already established drug and human smuggling operations in Matamoros and San Benito.

On April 4 Mexican officials arrested about 910 Central Americans in Nuevo Laredo; 11 were members of the Maras Salvatrucha, Barba said.

Tamaulipas lawmakers have requested assistance from the Mexican attorney general’s office in addressing the gang’s growing presence in northern Mexico.

Manuel Canales, president of the Commission on Social Safety for the Tamaulipas Legislature, said federal investigators are needed to combat the Maras.

“Only with an effective coordination among the three levels of government will we be able to combat the Maras Salvatrucha, a gang that seems unstoppable,” Canales said.

U.S Border Patrol officials said they have seen some presence of the gang in the Rio Grande Valley but would not say how many were detained.

“We haven’t seen many of those detained by Border Patrol agents, but we have seen few people that we identified as Maras Salvatrucha,” said Eddie Flores, U.S Border Patrol spokesman said.

Flores said that Border Patrol checks the criminal background of all detained Mexican immigrants with gang-related tattoos. Detainees are then questioned about their intentions in the United States.

“Like Mexican officials, we’re worried about their presence,” he said.

In the last two months, Border Patrol agents have detained about 4,804 undocumented immigrants from Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

For 2003, Mexican officials reported 4,302 arrests of Central Americans. From January to May 2004, the INM has detained about 2,386 Central Americans.

From Tacoma -

Summer surge on the streets
STACEY MULICK; The News Tribune

Signs of suspected gang activity, including two recent drive-by shootings less than four hours apart on Tacoma's East Side, have local law enforcement officials focusing on a problem they believe is ripe for a resurgence.

"There are components in place to give us real problems, and we need to be aware of them and counter them," Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor said.

Local law enforcement leaders are watching other cities around the country where gang activity has surged. They also are monitoring the gangs in Pierce County and talking to each other about what can be done to prevent violence from dominating the streets.

"They are not going to let it wait and get out of control," Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said of the department's commanders. "They are going to take a proactive approach."

Tacoma saw the worst of the problem in the late 1980s, after California gang members traveled north to get away from increasing law enforcement pressure and sell drugs on uncharted turf. Local youths learned the trade and started offshoots of the gangs in their neighborhoods.

Relying on support from the federal government and a violent crimes task force, police fought back and gang violence eased.

Residents of the Hilltop, the Tacoma neighborhood most blighted by gangs, rallied to take back their streets using block watches and citizen patrols. Some gangs moved to Lakewood, where they were met with stepped-up enforcement by sheriff's deputies.

Nevertheless, gangs remain despite hundreds of arrests, shootings and more than 120 gang-related homicides over the past 17 years. For the most part, they have been low-key in recent years, though law enforcement officials warn that gang-related violence soon could increase.

"A lot of that will depend on what happens this summer" when school is out, said Tacoma police detective Jack Skaanes, who's tracked the city's gangs for more than a decade. "A lot of (youths) do not have much to do. They get involved in activity they shouldn't be involved in."

Over the years, Tacoma police have identified about 1,300 gang members in the city. Investigators say about 100 to 150 are considered the most active and are responsible for the highest number of crimes.

Since the late 1980s, investigators have fingered 53 different gangs - defined as at least two people who commit criminal activity and identify with a gang. Not all of those gangs remain today, Skaanes said.

He's seen an influx of Hispanic gangs and violence associated with their members in recent months. One homicide from 2003 was connected to Hispanic gang members and some members are known to make methamphetamine in large quantities and distribute it, Skaanes said.

Police used to see 35 to 40 gang-related incidents a week. Now, there might be 10 a month.

Skaanes defines "gang-related" as any crime where the suspect or victim is a gang member. Local gangs primarily traffic in drugs and are involved in property crimes such as car theft and burglary.

"Any crime you can think of, they've been involved in," Skaanes said. "Any way they can make money."

Recently, Tacoma and Lakewood have seen sparks of suspected gang-related violence as well. The city's East Side has seen several drive-by shootings, including two homicides and at least nine others where people have been wounded.

On Tuesday, police investigated two drive-by shootings to see whether gangs were involved. One shooting about 9 p.m. Monday damaged a vehicle; the second, about 90 minutes later, pierced glass at a tavern on the edge of the East Side. Officers arrested two men and one youth suspected in both shootings.

Gang violence also might have been behind the deadly shooting of a 17-year-old boy on the Hilltop in late April, police say.

In Lakewood, sheriff's deputies have cracked down on the gangs after Keyaun Maurice Howell Sr. of Lakewood was shot and killed outside an Olympia tavern where he was celebrating his 24th birthday April 2. A rival gang member was arrested.

"It really seemed to come to the forefront with the Olympia shooting, with Howell's death," said Lakewood sheriff's detective Sgt. Andy Estes, who's monitored the gang activity for several years. "We had this huge upsurge of gangsters in cars with guns."

Law enforcement officials see an uptick in gang activity in other cities as a sign Pierce County needs to be on the watch.

"Nationwide," Pastor said, "there is a growth in crime, and in large jurisdictions there has been an increase in gang activity."

Los Angeles police again are putting pressure on their gangs. When that happened in the 1980s, several Los Angeles gangsters moved to Tacoma.

"There is a full-court press being put on in what they've seen as a resurgence in gang violence," said Pastor, who was in Los Angeles last month talking to law enforcement officials. "We need to be aware, cautious, and we need to work to be ahead of the curve."

Gangs from California still like to come to the Tacoma area, police say, because it's a metropolitan area right off Interstate 5, making it easy to sell drugs. They also believe it's a safer environment for them because they are away from rival gangs, Skaanes said.

In addition, law enforcement officials are wary of the gang members they locked up during the crackdown 10 years ago who now are getting out of prison.

"There is a very, very high recidivism rate for people who have been to prison," Pastor said. "Some of our former gangsters will revert to being gangsters again."

Estes said police believe Keith Gomez, the Lakewood man arrested and charged in the Howell homicide, is a prime example.

Gomez, 24, spent four years in prison for several gang-related assault convictions. A judge sentenced Gomez to prison after he pleaded guilty in 2000 to three counts of third-degree assault and unlawful possession of a handgun.

Gomez had been out of prison only a few months before the Olympia shooting, Estes said.

"He's spent more time in prison than out in the last 10 years," the detective said.

Gang activity also could increase locally because of the area's large number of residents in their teens and early 20s, Pastor said.

"The dangerous years for gang membership are midteens to mid-20s," the sheriff added.

Young teens are more vulnerable, need money or support and drift toward the gang life.

"The gang become their families," Skaanes said. "A lot of these kids unfortunately have no role models. The gangs can provide anything a normal family can."

Stacey Mulick: 253-597-8268
stacey.mulick@mail.tribnet.com