Free Republic

A Santa Cruz-area MS-13 gang member pleaded guilty in court Friday. According to the Department of Justice, Tomas Rivera (aka Profugo, aka Caballo, aka Jonas Portillo Escobar) pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, and conspiracy to commit murder and extortion for his role as a Santa Cruz Salvatrucha Locos gang member. Advertisement The Santa Cruz Salvatrucha Locos is an MS-13 subset operating in the Santa Cruz area. Law enforcement officials said Rivera was second-in-command of the Santa Cruz gang. He was alleged to have used violence and murder to enforce MS-13 rules. Chief Andrew Mills of the Santa Cruz Police Department...

A 17-year-old MS-13 gang member will serve 50 years in prison for his involvement in the murder of a 14-year-old girl in Maryland last April. Josue Fuentes-Ponce pleaded guilty on Oct. 30 to charges of first-degree murder, participating in the crime as part of a criminal gang, and conspiracy to commit murder, according to NBC Washington. Prosecutors said gang members lured Ariana Funes-Diaz into a tunnel in Riverdale, Md., where they beat her to death with a machete and baseball bat on April 18, the outlet reported. "These individuals had demonstrated violent criminal behavior before, and because they were released...

A new study breaks down those most vulnerable to firearm violence. Originally published on November 25, 2019 5:03 pm Overall crime in the United States has been declining since the early 1990s. But the same cannot be said for gun violence, which has seen a slight uptick in recent years. A new report from Boston University found that uptick has been led by an increase in homicides of young people — particularly of young black and Hispanic men. Gun Violence Is A ‘Complicated Problem’ Researchers at Boston University, led by Dr. Bindu Kalesan, looked at national gun violence data...

The details were chilling. On Friday, the Suffolk County district ­attorney’s office handed down charges against 96 members and associates of the MS-13 gang. The allegations included brutal murders using machetes, assaults, rapes, a large-scale drug-selling operation and widespread intimidation of immigrants on Long Island. The indictments represent a significant step forward in bringing this group of transnational thugs to heel. They will also go some way toward stopping MS-13’s push to expand its efforts to the East Coast from its home bases in El Salvador and California. Kudos to the federal, state and local law-enforcement personnel who teamed up...

Authorities dealt a staggering blow to Long Island’s murderous MS-13 gang — busting 96 members and associates in the largest takedown of the notorious criminal group in New York state history, prosecutors announced Friday. The arrests, all in Suffolk County, are the result of a nearly two-year county, state and federal investigation — and include nine cell, or “clique” leaders of the violent gang — virtually the gang’s entire presence in the county, officials said. The investigation also thwarted seven Long Island-based murder plots, officials said. And perhaps most importantly, the investigation prevented the El Salvador-based gang from getting a...

The Suffolk County district attorney’s office announced on Friday that it had brought a sweeping indictment against 96 members and associates of the violent MS-13 street gang that included charges involving seven murder conspiracies. The authorities said it was New York State’s biggest crackdown ever on the group. “The goal of this investigation was to deliver a major blow to the gang’s leadership, operations and recruitment in the our region,” Timothy D. Sini, the district attorney told reporters at a news conference. Among those charged in the sprawling case were nine top leaders of the street gang who were part...

The notorious MS-13 street gang in Suffolk County, New York, has been declared "inoperable," law enforcement officials told ABC News. Authorities plan to announce at a Friday afternoon press conference charges against 100 MS-13 gang members and associates in what's described as the largest take down of the violent street gang in New York State history. The 2-year investigation has thwarted seven alleged murder plots, prosecutors said. Originally founded in Southern California by gang members from El Salvador, MS-13, known in Spanish as La Mara Salvatrucha, has been accused in recent years of brutal murders and assaults on eastern Long...

Time magazine's Person of the Year is starting to sound a little bloodthirsty: Greta Thunberg told cheering protesters today 'we will make sure we put world leaders against the wall' if they fail to take urgent action on climate change. *snip* Against the wall? It's kind of in line with Bernie Sanders's vow to put bankers in jail, except that it sounds more like something a totalitarian fanatic like Hitler or Lenin or Castro would say. Line 'em up and shoot 'em if they don't do what young Greta says? No disagreement, no civil discourse, no talking things out, no...

When Mario Arreola-Botello was pulled over, he didn't understand much of what the Oregon police officer was telling him. Botello, a Latino, non-native English speaker, was stopped for failing to signal a turn and a lane change, his attorney, Josh Crowther told CNN. What happened next sparked a years-long court battle that landed at the state's supreme court. In a November ruling, the court decided officers in the state were no longer allowed to ask questions that were irrelevant to the reason of the traffic stop. It's an issue that's often been tackled in courts across the country, but a...

The Inspector General’s Report on 2016 FBI Spying Reveals a Scandal of Historic Magnitude: Not Only for the FBI but Also the U.S. Media

BEDFORD -- A small gasp cut the tension in Bedford Circuit Court Wednesday as a member of the MS-13 gang was pronounced guilty of capital murder. The case of 22-year-old Kevin Josue Soto Bonilla has played out over the course of eight days. His charges stem from the March 27, 2017 death of 17-year-old Raymond Wood. He's the second of his co-defendants to stand trial: Victor Arnoldo Rodas was convicted last year of first-degree murder among other charges and was sentenced to 55 years in prison. Two others, Lisandro Antonio Posada-Vasquez and Juan Martin Hernandez, have pleaded guilty to capital...

My home county of Fairfax, Virginia was once a safe suburban area with some of the best performing public schools in the nation. It's now a blinking warning sign to America as it hangs on the edge of complete disaster thanks to unchecked immigration and Democrat takeover of the government. Even with the high concentration of government workers, Fairfax County was once a Republican bastion before it became a political battleground. The Bush/Cheney ticket won the county in a close race in 2000 and then lost it badly in 2004 due to a significant increase in Democrat votes. Fairfax's descent...

FAIRFAX, Virginia — Immigrants who fled Central American countries to get away from transnational criminal organizations such as MS-13 have come to the United States only to find the exact same gangs terrorizing northern Virginia communities. Five federal and local officials who work on gang matters in the region told the Washington Examiner that while they do not have a way to calculate exactly how many people — asylum seekers, temporary protected status recipients, immigrants, and those without documents — have been victims of crimes committed by MS-13 and others, the immigrant community in Fairfax County, Virginia, is often on...

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, November 18, 2019 MS-13 Gang Member Sentenced to 20 Years in Machete Attack Case An MS-13 gang member was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for his role in a brutal machete attack at a park just outside Dallas, Texas, announced Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox for the Northern District of Texas.Manuel Amaya-Alvarez, 22, pleaded guilty in May to four counts of violent crime in aid of racketeering (VICAR).  U.S. District Judge Jayne Boyle...

... Street gangs and other criminal rings have even abandoned an implicit moral code that prohibits targeting “civilians”—women, children and others not directly involved in their “beefs.” In more than 40 years of working with local anticrime groups and documenting their solutions to youth violence, I have never witnessed the depravity that is occurring today on the streets of black neighborhoods around America. Nationwide, the tragic number of unsolved murders was documented in a 2018 study by the Washington Post that mapped nearly 55,000 homicides in 55 cities. The study identified inner-city areas “where murder is common but arrests are...

Source: HSI Walter Martinez, a 37-year-old El Salvadorian national, was sentenced to 42 months in federal prison on Tuesday for illegal re-entry into the United States. Martinez has previously served time in U.S. jail for assault as well as felony charges of sexual misconduct with a minor. The MS-13 gang member is sentenced for deportation upon release from federal custody. "Walter Martinez is a known MS-13 gang member and convicted felon who was removed from the United States only to resurface and be arrested – and convicted, for sexual misconduct of with a minor," Field Office Director Robert Guadian,...

Remarks by President Trump at Hispanic Heritage Month Reception Issued on: September 28, 2019 East Room September 27, 2019 7:04 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: That’s very nice. Thank you. AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years! THE PRESIDENT: A lot of spirit. (Applause.) A lot of spirit. How are you? Well, thank you all for being here today. And I’m delighted to once again celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with you at the White House. Right? (Applause.) This evening, we come together to honor the devotion, and the drive, and the faith, and genius, and exceptional achievements of...

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) took to the floor of the House of Representatives to blast his Democratic party colleagues over their lack of interest in protecting Americans from dangerous illegal aliens. In an epic speech, Brooks told the story of a young girl and her grandmother, killed by illegal MS-13 animals last summer in his hometown of Huntsville: In July, 2018, in my hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, two drug cartel-related illegal aliens took Oralia Mendoza and her 13-year-old granddaughter Mariah Lopez from their home in the dark of night. Oralia was stabbed to death, while her teenaged granddaughter Mariah was...

Introduction Montgomery County, Maryland, is experiencing an illegal alien crime wave. In just a little over a month, eight illegal aliens have been charged with committing sex crimes in Montgomery County: - Salvadoran national Rodrigo A. Castro-Montejo was charged with raping an intoxicated woman.[i] - Salvadoran nationals Mauricio Barrera-Navidad and Carlos Palacios-Amaya were charged with serially raping an 11-year-old girl.[ii] - Honduran national Kevin Mendoza was charged with the rape and attempted murder of a Silver Spring, Maryland, woman.[iii] - Nestor Lopez-Guzman was charged with sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl and her brother over a six month period.[iv] - Honduran...

The 18-year-old accused of kidnapping a Nashville high school student and beating him for refusing to join a gang had previously been deported according to the Department of Justice. U.S. Attorney Don Cochran for the Middle District of Tennessee reports Franklin Pineda-Caceres will face federal charges for entering the country illegally after being deported in 2018. According to the charging documents, Pineda-Caceres was arrested in Nashville in October 2017 on drug charges. Agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) determined he had illegally entered the country in 2014 and an order for his removal was issued in 2016.