MS-13 in Your Backyard(George Putnam Opines)

NewsMax.com ^ | Friday, Aug. 19, 2005 | George Putnam

[kellynla]

It is this reporter's opinion that while the nation focuses on terrorism, we have all but overlooked the issue of gang violence. Over the past fifty years in Los Angeles we have covered many of the homegrown gangs: the White Fence gang, Boyle Heights gang, the Bloods and the Crips, and others.

These were child's play compared with America's most dangerous gang: the Mara Salvatrucha 13 street gang (MS-13).

The gang was organized in Los Angeles in the late '80s and was named for La Mara, a street in San Salvador. Its primary purpose was to defend Salvadoran immigrants from being preyed upon by other L.A. street gangs. Gang members sometimes wear blue and white – colors taken from the flag of El Salvador. They also sport numerous body and facial tattoos.

MS-13 has expanded from California to Alaska, Oregon, Utah, Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma ... from New York to Los Angeles and Alaska to Florida. MS-13 has also been exported back to Central America. It is estimated there are 36,000 MS-13 members in Honduras alone.

They are vicious, they are violent, they murder, rob, rape and behead their victims.

MS-13 appears to be in control of much of the Mexican border. To sustain themselves financially, they smuggle people, drugs and guns across borders. They collect money from illegals. Where MS-13 goes, violence goes. They stop at nothing.

MS-13 is becoming everyone's problem. It is a plague that has come to Long Island from El Salvador by way of the streets of Los Angeles.

[doc]

This gang has a zero tolerance towards informants. This is where it starts then they move on to intimidation of law enforcement, judges, and politicians. Stop illegal immigration now, the #1 issue facing America today. Vote Tancredo or the Constitution party before it is to late.

[doc]

What is amazing is during the Clinton administration they had the FBI focus on "right wing extremists" while ignoring the real threat within our borders, gangs.

[NRA2BFree]

BTTT

[F14 Pilot]

Militarize the border now !?!

[sport]

It probably already has.

[Black Tooth]

Now you've heard about America's most dangerous gang, the Mara Salvatrucha 13 street gang (MS-13). Remember the name. They are organized. They are deadly. And they're in your backyard!

I recall just a few years back, others thinking it was somehow funny that California seemed to be at the center of an invasion, that brought with it, gangs, drugs, crime and fraud and a lot of other unwanted things.

I guess those that thought it funny a few years back, no longer see any humor here.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Must be part of the Guest Killer Program

[Black Tooth]

What is amazing is during the Clinton administration they had the FBI focus on "right wing extremists" while ignoring the real threat within our borders, gangs.

The Federal Government, who's sworn duty it is to protect our borders, and are paid to do just that, have not met their responsibility. As a matter of fact, the current President of the United States has actually encouraged those from Mexico to enter our country illegally.

Who called American citizens "vigilantes" when they attempted to protect their own borders, on their own land?

[Stellar Dendrite]

Who called American citizens "vigilantes" when they attempted to protect their own borders, on their own land?

The same individual who told us "Family values don't stop at the Rio Grande!" (barf)

[bayourod]

"I live in Houston, and they are the pits here, committing very brazen, heinous crimes. "

What parts of Houston have you seen them in? I ran into two of them a couple months ago in the Spring Branch area. We locked eyes for a few seconds and they simply turned and left. I recently found out they think I'm DEA so I want to avoid ay area where they're active.

[cartman90210]

They're Just Hardworking Men Doing What They Can To Feed Their Families.

[lentulusgracchus]

I saw a very heavily tattooed Hispanic man about 24-25 sitting in a pizza parlor just inside the North Loop. The place he was in was getting progressively marked up in the men's room by gangbangers using gel markers and permanent markers, as well as etching logos into the mirrors with diamonds. The Gang Task Force has been to see that place before.

This guy was sitting in the main dining room in a "wife-beater" with his woman, advertising -- he was a walking graffiti display -- and showing his tats. Of course you're aware of the headlines the MS-13's have grabbed lately. Good shooting on nailing that little 2-year-old girl in her carseat, stuck up there where she couldn't duck. [</sarc>]

They're coming from Cottage Grove, down by Washington Avenue and moving into the apartment developments in the Shady Acres, Clark Pines, and Timbergrove areas between 11th and 27th Streets west of Durham (the Boys Downtown have thrown down about 2,000 new apartments along the Jester corridor in the last 18 months, targeting the whole area for dense-pack overbuilding and anything that isn't held by strong hands). Homeowners in Timbergrove Manor are getting their back fences facing thoroughfares tagged by the gangs, something that never happened before, as the invading young males begin to "claim territory" in Gringoland.....actually, the composition of the whole Heights was about 50-50 Chicano/white Texan, 15 years ago, with the Heights elders most interested in getting home ownership up (about 40% ownership rate, lots of absentee landlords who used to live in the Heights area renting to new residents), so this appears to be a new movement of raw young illegals, tagging and claiming as they spread out from the old gang turf, under the leadership of older gang members in their 20's returning from prison and upgrading their old gangs' criminal repertories. Or so HPD tells us. The same thing is going on in Galveston, according to an article from 2003/4 in the Houston Press, where the old boundary around 37th Street is now being violated.

[lentulusgracchus]

....they think I'm DEA....

If they decide you're a problem, they'll drygulch you. You'll wind up being one of those bodies someone finds in ditch out by the Beltway somewhere. If you've got one, carry. If you're carrying, grow eyes in the back of your head.

[lentulusgracchus]

I guess those that thought it funny a few years back, no longer see any humor here

Not me. I was seeing MS-13 graffiti 10, 12 years ago in parts of Houston Heights. The taggers would wander through, tagging street signs etc.....the MS-13's weren't the only gangbangers around back then. The local Black and Whites got more notoriety when they stomped, deflowered, and hanged Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena late one night in Oak Forest, in northwest Houston. The Chicano ringleader was executed, but the Supreme Court just set aside the convictions of a couple of Mexican-born gang members who were on Death Row for that caper, because they were Mexican citizens and because Texas justice had had the temerity to neglect to call in the Mexican ambassador before daring to try these punks.

The MS-13's Houston cops are picking up now are tougher, badder, and more experienced than those Black and Whites ever were.

[cartman90210]

Oh, the irony...

[lentulusgracchus]

I wasn't going to say anything.....

[seemoAR]

I have never understood people using Ghetto as another word for a slum. Ghettos were built to contain the Jews before and during the Second World War. They had high walls and the Jews were not allowed to leave. I have never seen a wall around any so called Ghetto in the US. I did not know the tenants were confined and could not leave whenever they wanted. I don't know, maybe it is PC to try to make things worse than they really are. Maybe people will pity them more.

[joesnuffy]

Grim News in Central America:
Wave of Gang Violence Grows

by Kari Lydersen
January 29, 2004

Murders involving mutilations and beheadings have become a chillingly common occurrence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Governments and the public place much of the blame on gangs.

In October, the head of a young girl was found in a burlap bag in Puerto Cortes, Honduras, along with a note saying the killing was in memory of a Mara 18 gang member killed by police. In Guatemala, five people were beheaded during a recent prison riot, where gang members forced other prisoners to eat the remains. In El Salvador, four women were beheaded earlier in the year.

While gangs have long existed in Central America, the number of members and their levels of brutality have skyrocketed in the past few years. Some media reports put the number of gang members in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador at 25,000. The Honduran police place the number at 35,000 in Honduras alone. Nicaragua and Panama are home to large gangs as well.

In addition to known gang violence, more than 700 young women and girls have been found murdered in Guatemala since 2001, many of them ritually mutilated and raped. This number is significantly higher than the epidemic of femicide in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where 300 to 400 women have been killed in a decade. While the Mexico murders have received increasing international attention over the years, the situation in Guatemala is mostly ignored. Police and the public blame most of the Guatemala killings on gangs who abduct women on their way to or from work.

---

From News Max





Honduran Official: Al-Qaida Recruits Central American Gangs

NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, Oct. 21, 2004

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – It's a U.S. Homeland Security Department nightmare, and Honduras' most outspoken Cabinet member says it's happening: al-Qaida operatives recruiting Central American gang members to carry out regional attacks and slip terrorists into the United States.

Yet U.S. and Central American officials say they have found no evidence supporting Honduran Security Minister Oscar Alvarez's allegations. And human rights groups accuse Alvarez of trumping terrorism reports to justify his crackdown on gangs, who in response have adopted terror-style tactics such as beheadings, 20 so far, and threatened the government.

Story Continues Below

Romulo Emiliani, a Roman Catholic bishop working closely with gang members in the northern city of San Pedro Sula, called the reports "an attempt to distract the public while the government puts thousands of youths in jail."

The U.S. government has long worried terrorists would tap into smuggling networks that move migrants and narcotics across Mexico's porous northern border and into the United States.

To combat those fears, Mexico has worked with the United States to keep a close eye on drug and smuggling activity. It also has made it much harder to enter Mexican territory legally if a person comes from a country with terror ties.

Alvarez, however, has stoked fears that terrorists are joining migrants crossing illegally into Mexico from Central America, then moving north.

Iranians and Iraqis Over the U.S. Border

A spokesman for Mexico's National Immigration Institute said officials have caught "a significant number" of people from the Middle East trying to sneak into the United States from Mexico, although he refused to release numbers. One smuggler was arrested recently for allegedly moving Iranians and Iraqis into the United States.

There has been at least one confirmed report of a suspected terrorist in Central America. U.S. and Panamanian officials say Saudi native and alleged al-Qaida leader Adnan G. El Shukrijumah stayed in Panama for 10 days in April 2001, five months before the Sept. 11 attacks.

There also are fears El Salvador could be hit by terrorists for supporting the U.S.-led mission in Iraq.

Recent reports of possible terror activity in the region have been more questionable.

In May, here in Tegucigalpa, the hilly Honduran capital, two witnesses said they saw El Shukrijumah at an Internet cafe downtown, sparking rumors he was recruiting gang members.

U.S. officials have been scouring the globe for the 29-year-old Shukrijumah, and have offered up to $5 million for his capture. But a senior U.S. official in Central America, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was no evidence he was ever here.

Alvarez, a former private security consultant educated at Texas A&M, acknowledges he sometimes releases information that isn't confirmed, saying the reports keep Honduras' population alert to potential threats.

Alvarez: Better Fearful Than Sorry

"I prefer that people live with the fear of possible danger than feel safe and have something happen," he told The Associated Press.

"Look at what happened in Spain. The people there felt safe, and they weren't," he added, referring to the al-Qaida-linked March 11 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people.

When pressed for details of al-Qaida's alleged ties to Honduras, Alvarez could not remember the name of the Internet cafe where El Shukrijumah was allegedly spotted. He ordered his office to find the information, but after an hour of searching, staff members said it was classified.

Alvarez, who is mulling a future run for president, was appointed security minister in 2002 to beat back rampant gang activity and has championed a zero-tolerance law that made membership in a street gang illegal and punishable by up to 12 years in prison.

Though the initiative has been popular with Hondurans tired of crime, gang members have responded by beheading victims and leaving brutal warnings for Honduras' government on notes left with the bodies.

One note this spring read, "Idiots, the end of the world is approaching." And a message early this year said, "The next victims will be police and journalists."

The decapitations began Aug. 20, 2003, 13 days after the zero-tolerance law took effect and outlawed the country's gang members, who use extortion and violence to control everything from the drug trade to the country's bus routes. There have been an estimated 20 terrorist-style beheadings in a little more than a year, about one a month.

$1 Million From 'Somewhere in the Middle East'

Alvarez said there also was evidence gang members might be joining terrorist organizations. He said three Honduran government informants told authorities that four suspects from "somewhere in the Middle East" had smuggled $1 million in cash into Honduras to finance a migrant-smuggling operation controlled by Mara Salvatrucha street gang, which has a strong presence in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and southern Mexico.

Guatemalan President Oscar Berger classifies links between gangs and terrorists as "rumor," and his Interior Secretary Carlos Vielmann said at this month's Interpol meeting in Mexico that "there hasn't been any indication that such ties exist."

The head of Interpol in Central America, Salvadoran police director Saul Hernandez, and Mexican Interior Secretary Santiago Creel also say they had no evidence supporting the theory.

One Mara Salvatrucha gang member, Jose Manuel Sarmiento, scoffed at the idea of teaming up with al-Qaida or other Islamic militants.

Mere 'Homies'

"We hang out with our homies on the street. How would we know how to make contact with terrorists?" the 19-year-old said in an AP interview from a sweltering jail cell in San Pedro Sula. "I've seen al-Qaida, but on television only."

Ernesto Bardales, a sociologist who founded a private rehabilitation program for former gang members, said exploiting jitters about terrorism was a way of keeping the anti-gang law popular.

"People were terrified of gangs, but now the streets are quiet," he says. "How do you scare people again? With terrorists."

'Everyone Will See'

Alvarez counters that constantly talking about terror ensured terrorists skip Honduras in favor of quieter destinations.

"When terrorists feel threatened or discovered, they look for other places," he said.

Asked if he believed his country and neighboring nations really were swarming with terrorists, Alvarez is resolute.

"Time will prove me right," he says. "In time, everyone will see."

© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[joesnuffy]

M-18 Honduran gang another 'up n comer'

"Know Gangs"

[PaRebel]

Can you say "corruption in high places". The problems happening in the US would, if we were observing it happening in another country, be attributed to corruption at the highest levels of government.

We are loathe to say that about our elected officials, but, "if it walks, talks, and sounds like a duck, it probably is.

We have been "sold down the river", the Rio Grande.

Can you spell d-r-u-g m-o-n-e-y?