Free Republic

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...