Yep, serves him right! Gangmembers are domestic terrorists and should be treated/punished as such.
Darn right! Hang 'em high!
Guest worker
"They are making him look as if he was this cold-hearted person, and he is not like that."
Murder is murder. Period.
'Nuff said.
I wonder if 10-year-old Melanie Mendez would agree that "Gang violence and terrorism are two different things"...if she were still alive, that is
Like the Interstate Commerce Clause.
Congress has used this clause to circumvent the limitations placed on its powers by the Constitution. That body has taken the phrase---“to regulate commerce…among the several States,” and transformed it into the “constitutional” basis for a multitude of federal regulatory schemes for everything from civil rights to gun control. It has also been used to unconstitutionally expand the federal government’s criminal jurisdiction over the people of the several States. In addition, the expansion of federal power through the Commerce Clause has all but nullified the Tenth Amendment
But, as always I can find the cloud behind any silver lining, I see a downside to this. If gangs are now prosecuted as terrorists this may allow the further militarization of the police.
Wasn't there a thread here earlier about how drug dealers and gangs have "taken over" Camden New Jersey? Sure sounds like they could use this application.
In my view, that state of affairs certainly qualifies as terrorism...
"Local store manager Lidia Chavez added: "Gang violence and terrorism are two different things." "
I disagree. I think they're exactly the same thing.
RICO updated for the modern gang element.... something sort of comforting about that.
"Terrorism" = Crimes Against the State. Scary.
The violent acts of terrorism are already covered by existing law. Even RICO plays against terrorists, but we knee-jerk emotional reactionaries want new laws, as thought we believe laws alone will protect us such that any level of terrorism must mean we didn't have the right laws in the first place.
At what point will any person accused of a crime be prosecuted as a terrorist...?
Murder is murder, and terrorism is terrorism. Many gangs do have a sense of honor. They may kill members of rival gangs for offenses they are deemed to have committed, but they don't go around blowing up innocent women and children at random. It takes a certain amount of courage to go up against someone who is as armed and dangerous as you are, not the kind of cowardice that blows up kindergartens and Bar Mitzvahs.
There is a difference, and it's wrong to use a terrorism statute for crimes against which it was never intended. It gives ammunition to the ACLU, which has said that these laws would be abused, and thus it undermines the fight against genuine terrorism--which at the moment is Islamic terrorism, not Hispanic youth gangs.
As it happens, one of my good friends was formerly the warlord of a Hispanic gang in the South Bronx. That was the way he grew up, that was what he knew, and with his abilities he was bound to reach the top. He later became a High School principal in the Bronx. He has great talents at keeping problem kids in line and seeing them through their educations. He is a man of considerable intelligence and honor.
Sure, if someone is a murderer, the law has every right to go after him--but as a murderer, not as a terrorist.
If these are illegal aliens (which mahy of them are), why shouldn't they be classified as foreign terrorists and treated as such? They are a threat to our society, government, culture, you name it. These gangs go well beyond mere murder and mayhem.
"They are making him look as if he was this cold-hearted person, and he is not like that."
He killed a ten year old girl. Thats pretty cold-hearted.
Several years ago I came across an article that I kept because I thought it was insightful: "Street Gangs-Future Paramilitary Groups?" (Published in The Police Chief magazine, June 1996, pp. 54-58). It's a very interesting article (written in 1996) about how street gangs might "morph" into terrorist groups. Clearly folks were thinking about this scenario long before 9/11.
intead of being life without the possibilityo f parole anyonethat kills a child under 13 should be facing a mandatory minimum sentence of death by lethal injection then maybe the civilians in these neighborhoods can at long last be sentenced to a long life but of course this is new york where even the republicans are bleeding heart liberal democrats ala mayor loonberg and the sissyboys in the state senate that say they have an r after their name on the ballot but have never in thier lifes voted like it