Free Republic

MEDFORD, Ore. -- Law enforcement officials have taken more than 6 pounds of methamphetamine off the streets. On July 13, agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations contacted Miguel Angel Rebolledo-Aviles, 23, on a commercial bus line that was passing through Medford. They found one unclaimed bag that had 6.6 pounds of methamphetamine, according to a press release from the Medford Area Drug and Gang Enforcement. Federal law enforcement officials asked MADGE officers to help in the investigation. Once the investigation was complete, police arrested the suspect on the suspicion of unlawful distribution of a controlled...

Julio Chavez is charged with emptying his revolver into Maurice Parker on May 18, 2007, in Flushing. Chavez then hopped into a SUV, flashed gang signs and yelled in Spanish, former MS-13 gang member Jose Molina said in Brooklyn Federal Court. " 'Yeah, homie, that's how you're supposed to do it,'" Chavez said, according to Molina. "'You see the blood coming out of his head?'" Molina said Chavez then uttered, "The beast has eaten!" Assistant U.S. Attorney Ali Kazemi asked the witness to translate the meaning of Chavez's rant. "That he had just given a soul to the devil," Molina...

YAKIMA, Wash. -- A Lower Valley man was smacked Friday with 83 years in prison for a drive-by shooting that injured a rival gang member in Sunnyside.It was the longest sentence handed down in Yakima County under a 2008 state law that allows extra time behind bars for crimes found to have been committed for the benefit of a criminal street gang.For 30-year-old Anthony Deleon, the 1,002-month sentence means he will likely die in custody.His sentence was about 30 years higher than those imposed against his two co-defendants because he had more criminal history, including a 1997 manslaughter conviction from...

When a gang member was released from jail soon after his arrest for selling methamphetamine, friends and associates assumed he had cut a deal with authorities and become a police informant. They sent a warning on Twitter that went like this: We have a snitch in our midst. Law enforcement officials say gangs are making greater use of Twitter and Facebook, where they sometimes post information that helps agents identify gang associates and learn more about their organizations. And gang members sometimes turn the tables, asking contacts across their extended networks for help identifying undercover police officers. Gang use of...

More than two dozen youths and advocates gathered in front of the criminal courts building in downtown Los Angeles to support two young males who were sentenced today to 50 years to life in prison for a fatal drive-by shooting. A jury convicted Steven Menendez, 17, and Jose Garcia, 19, of murder in July in the March 2007 death of 16-year-old Danny Saavedra. Saavedra was playing basketball in the 500 block of 82nd Street in South Los Angeles when he was shot in what police described as a gang-related attack. Afterward, officers pursued a vehicle matching the description of the...

On Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Fernando Campoamor told a judge in D.C Superior Court that accused murderer and gang member Ingmar Guandique, 28, along with members of the MS-13 gang threatened to kill a witness and his family, if he testifies at Guandique’s January trial.A Salvadoran national in this country illegally, Guandique was arrested last April for the murder of missing intern Chandra Levy, who disappeared in 2001. Her skeletal remains were discovered a year later in D.C.’s Rock Creek Park.At the time of his arrest for the Levy murder, he was already in prison for the assault of two...

The more I read about the aftermath of the horrific gang rape in Richmond, the more it becomes clear to me that this entire town is one big toilet bowl. Instead of focusing the rage on the attackers, whomever they may be, and calling for these lowlife animals to be strapped to a good old fashioned electric chair as soon as possible, I am hearing excuses.

RICHMOND, California — Four teens were charged Wednesday in the gang rape and beating of a 15-year-old girl outside her high school homecoming dance in Northern California, in an attack that has generated widespread outrage. All four — ages 15, 16, 17 and 19 — were charged with rape and enhancements that they acted in concert, which could make them eligible for life in prison.

For those interested in exploring one of the greatest internal and transnational threats to the United States, there is a new book out this week by Samuel Logan, This is For the Mara Salvatrucha: Inside the MS-13, America’s Most Violent Gang. The book traces the history of Brenda Paz, a young Honduran who joins MS-13 and eventually becomes the most effective police witness against the organization, before she was killed. But besides the individual story, the book shows just how powerful and ruthless the MS-13 has become. Given that it now has chapters in thousands of cities across the United...

Slaying of Deputy Jerry Ortiz triggered four-year investigation HAWAIIAN GARDENS - Almost 1,400 law enforcement officials converged on Hawaiian Gardens in a series of pre-dawn raids Thursday as part of the largest federal indictment against a street gang in United States history. Varrio Hawaiian Gardens, Hawaiian Gardens' oldest and most notorious gang, waged a racist campaign to eliminate black people from the community via attempted murders and other crimes, according to the federal racketeering indictments that werei unsealed Thursday. A total of five indictments charged 147 members and associates of the gang, and federal, state and local law enforcement officials...

HAWAIIAN GARDENS, Calif. (AP) - A Latino street gang waged a racist campaign to eliminate the city’s black residents through attempted murders and other crimes, according to federal racketeering indictments unsealed Thursday. Five indictments charged a total of 147 members and associates of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang, and federal and local agencies arrested 63 of them by early Thursday, U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien said at a news conference. Another 35 defendants were already in custody on unrelated charges. Weapons and drugs worth more than $1 million also were seized in what O’Brien called “the largest gang takedown in...

Federal authorities said they would announce today a huge sweep of Latino gang members allegedly responsible for violence against law enforcement and racially motivated attacks against blacks. The announcement followed the arrests of dozens of suspected gang members during raids early this morning. A news release from the U.S. attorney's office called it the "largest gang takedown in United States history." The indictment is the latest of several investigations that found gangs participating in race-based violence. Federal prosecutors two years ago charged members of a Latino gang with a violent campaign to drive blacks out of the unincorporated Florence-Firestone neighborhood...

The law finally caught up with an alleged gang member who police say held down his 7-year-old son while a fellow gang-banger tattooed the boy's belly with the group's insignia. Police say 26-year-old Enrique Gonzales held down his 7-year-old son while another gang member tattoed the group's insignia on his belly. Fresno cops arrested Enrique Gonzalez, 26, at hotel in the Sierra foothills and booked him for investigation of mayhem, child abuse, false imprisonment, battery, participating in a criminal street gang and committing a crime for the benefit of a gang, Police Chief Jerry Dyer said. Gonzales, a member of...

WEST PALM BEACH — A federal jury this afternoon convicted two men in the 2006 murders of a family of four along Florida's Turnpike. The verdicts mean either life in prison or death for Ricardo Sanchez and Daniel Troya, both 25. The 12-member jury after four days of deliberations also convicted Danny Varela, 28, and Liana Lee Lopez, 20, on charges related to the drug ring the four ran from a luxury Briar Bay home in 2006. Jose Luis Escobedo worked as a drug connection for the group. He, his wife Yessica and their 3 and 4-year-old sons Luis Damian...

A Watsonville gang leader accused of murder is being held on $1 million bail after the district attorney told a judge that Jose Velasquez and other gang members stabbed a man 80 times, then left his bloody body near a Pajaro Valley berry field. District Attorney Bob Lee gave new details about the gruesome killing during the first court appearance for Velasquez, 25, one of two Watsonville men who have been arrested and charged with murdering Oscar Avalos Sanchez, 35, and dumping his body off Carlton Road earlier this month. "The facts of this case include 80 stabbings," Lee said....

Mayors Villaraigosa of Los Angeles and Newsome of San Francisco both want to become California's next governor. Both men, moreover, have granted "sanctuary" to all illegal aliens -- even gang members like those who shattered the lives of the Shaw Family, the Bologna Family, and Heaven only knows how many other families. Should these two Mayors be elected governor, or should they instead be indicted for aiding and abetting illegal immigration? Let's look at the law: Entering the country illegally is a crime, punishable by up to six months' imprisonment. (8 U.S.C. 1325.) Aiding and abetting illegal immigration, moreover, is...

In the aftermath of a prison riot in southern Guatemala, the eyes that peer out amid the tattoo of a skull covering half his face are contorted in pain as fellow inmates care for his bleeding shoulder. They are members of gangs, whose stories began in Los Angeles and then were exported to Central America. There the gangs grew, became more violent, and now they head back to the United States. Known as maras, the gangs formed in the 1980s, when immigrants fleeing brutal civil war in El Salvador settled in Los Angeles. To protect themselves from already established L.A....

Mon Mar 13, 11:17 PM ET SANTA ANA, Calif. - Seven gang members and three female associates were charged Monday with raping a woman as the mother of one suspect allegedly watched and encouraged the assault, authorities said. The 23-year-old victim was targeted because her boyfriend had angered members of the Anaheim gang, authorities said. The woman was lured into a hotel room by a female gang associate at a Feb. 23 party and sexually assaulted over a seven-hour period, Anaheim police Chief John Welter said. Each defendant, including the mother, was charged with multiple counts of forcible rape in...

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...

For years, Sheriff Lee Baca has known that the L.A. County jails are a powder keg. Overcrowding and understaffing, and the increased tension that those two factors bring, have created a situation potentially so volatile that everyone inside — inmates and deputies alike — is unsafe. Last week, dilapidated, outmoded facilities provided the fire that ignited the fuse. Despite what you may be hearing, race is not the issue. Sure, racial tensions carry over from the streets and into the jails. If a major fight breaks out, street gang and all other affiliations are pushed aside and inmates join with...