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ALEXANDRIA - It took a violent machete attack and a brazen daylight shooting for the Mara Salvatrucha street gang to command the kind of attention police believe it deserved as it grew in Northern Virginia for more than a decade.In May 2004, a 16-year-old boy in Fairfax County had several fingers chopped off in an attack by a machete-wielding assailant. A week later, a 17-year-old youth was shot dead in Herndon by an assailant on a bicycle.
Police blamed both attacks on Mara Salvatrucha, the Latino street gang known as MS-13 that has grown from its beginnings in the barrios of Los Angeles into what is considered the fastest-growing and most dangerous gang in the country, its menacing presence now detected in more than 30 states.