Members of nationally infamous gang arrested in St. Bernard Parish

wwltv ^ | 03/08/06 | wwl

[Ellesu]

The FBI said members of the Mara Salva-Trucha, or the “MS 13,” one of the most terrorizing gangs in the country are in the New Orleans area and agents need law enforcement agencies to work together to help bring them down.

St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stephens said this tattoo was symbolic of a drive by.

Members of the Los Angeles-based gang were arrested last weekend in St. Bernard Parish and the FBI said it could simply be the beginning of something bigger.

Recognized by their MS 13 tattoos in Old English, some of the gang’s members have other, more elaborate tattoos that tell of a dark, criminal past.

“This is symbolic of a drive by,” said Jack Stephens, St. Bernard Parish Sheriff, pointing out a picture of a tattoo featuring a man riding in a car firing a gun out the window among pictures of gang-related tattoos.

These pictures, taken of the chest of an MS 13 gang member, have been used to give Parish deputies a crash course on the gang.

“We really haven't dealt with anything as organized as this,” Stevens said.

Deputies arrested 13 members of Latino gangs since Hurricane Katrina – at least four were MS 13 members.

“They are primarily Salvadorians that fled El Salvador around 1992 following the long civil war there. They wound up in the streets of L.A. and they organized themselves, really, to defend themselves against the Mexican gangs there,” Stephens said.

The gang has now spread out over 33 states it’s known for gory contract murders, drug trafficking and prostitution. James Bernazzani, FBI Special Agent in Charge, knew that Louisiana could be added to that list post- Katrina.

“MS 13 are skilled craftsman. They’re carpenters, they’re plumbers, they’re electricians; they follow the construction trade,” Bernazanni said.

St. Bernard Parish Sheriff’s deputies arrested three of the gang members over the weekend on Munster. The men were charged with drug possession and possession of stolen property, as well as a felon with a weapon.

Melissa Lopez, who heads a repair/construction crew from Indiana, said she knew exactly who MS 13 was.

“Where I'm from they've done a lot of bad things; they’ve hurt a lot of people. People are scared...I don't work with people that I don't know,” she said.

What makes MS 13 so dangerous?

According to the FBI, the gang does not place the same value on life and property that law abiding citizens do.

“...And it’s what makes them the most dangerous. You can’t hardly threaten them with their lives. They’d rather die than be deported,” said Stephens.

But so far, Bernazanni cautioned that the gangs, nor their violence, have made it into the area – only individual members who follow the work.

“They are not spotters. They are not assessing the landscape for this eventual organizational migration,” Bernazanni said, and reassured that the FBI was working with all local law enforcement agencies to make certain that a new population doesn’t bring with it a new wave of crime.

The FBI advised citizens to be aware of new graffiti around town and to call authorities if they witnessed any suspicious activity.

[caryatid]

Pre-Katrina gangs were all neighborhood and housing project outfits, not necessarily connected to anything bigger.

Help me out on this. I have been gone a long time. By gangs do you mean just the run of the mill hoodlums that roamed the city terrorizing every neighborhood? What about the drug dealers? Is that another story? I have long heard that they were big-time and very organized ... not just boyz from the hood at all ... Just wondering.

[caryatid]

... these guys are more likely to get into knife fights than gun fights, compared to the thugs we used to have here.

From what I have read ... it's not just knives ... they seem to favor machetes ... deadly, but easy to buy in any hardware store without raising eyebrows or the awareness of the authorities, etc.

[Gordongekko909]

The dealers operated independantly. Their distributors were connected to bigger operations, but those weren't necessarily New Orleans-based. From what I understand, most of the dope that come into New Orleans originally entered the country through either Texas or Florida. Distributors would pick up a shipment there, then run it across the Southeast, selling pieces of it to local distributors as they went, who would then pass it down the chain to street-corner dope peddlers.

The actual street dealers were, well, independant contractors. Any gangs they were protected by were neighborhood operations.

The closest thing to an umbrella "organized crime syndicate" that New Orleans had in the 20th century was the Marcello family, and they went legit a while ago. They're involved in video poker now.

Other cities have had massive, well-organized gangs; Chicago, New York, and LA come to mind pretty quickly. But the New Orleans hoods never quite managed to get their acts together to a sufficient degree to put something like that together.

[caryatid]

Perhaps they are looking for a fairly well destroyed place, thinking it will not be very organized and patrolled by LEOs yet ... to establish a base of operations. In the main, they probably do not require the level of goods and services that we ordinarily think of as "normal" ... a quiet place [virtually destroyed] where they won't attract much notice might appeal to them. On the other hand, if I had to guess I would say that St. Bernard, before Katrina, was probably 80-90% white ... not a racial gumbo like N.O., at all, and it seems that they would stick out like a sore thumb.

Welcome to the Louisiana Ping List, JDB.

[Gordongekko909]

*shrug* the cops that come into my dad's drycleaning shop say "knives." Kind of hard to sneak a machete into a bar, I imagine.

[Gordongekko909]

Definitely possible. But I don't even think that the MS 13 vatos have made this decision themselves yet.

[caryatid]

Yeah, I see what you mean ... I had just read generic descriptions of their activities in other areas in newspapers.

[Gordongekko909]

There is probably plenty of machete action going on, too. It's just that the cops I talk to probably aren't getting the calls for that stuff.

[Conservababe]

Last week, I saw a segment on Court TV Cops, about these gangs. The arresting officers found dozens of local high school rings in the car of one of this gang members.

He said the gang members stole and wore them to blend in.

[MonroeDNA]

We all know what to do when we see those tats.

[Schwaeky]

Sounds like law abiding citizens, the Minutemen, and a certain group founded by General N.B. Forrest might have common cause to rid that fair state of a new threat...