Friday, July 3, 2009

FBI DIRECTOR Small towns in CA taken over by BIG GANGS

SMALL TOWNS, BIG GANGS TAKE OVER CENTRAL VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA

"Gang members do not heed borders," he said. "Gang members move here but do not cut their ties." ................................................................ FBI DIRECTOR:

Law enforcement officials are trying to crack down on the urban problems that have begun to spread into the Central Valley.
By Tim Reiterman Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 24, 2008 DELANO — Here in the birthplace of Cesar Chavez's nonviolent farm labor movement, a 14-year-old who aspired to become a policeman is cut down by gunfire on his front porch. In the farm town of Merced, billed as the gateway to Yosemite, an armed gang member shoots an officer after a vehicle stop -- the first police slaying in the city's 118-year history. And in Red Bluff, which prides itself on its Victorian homes, rodeos, hunting and fishing, a teenage gangster pumps seven bullets into another high school student outside a party. Along the 450 miles of the Central Valley, an explosion of gang violence in recent years has transformed life on the wide, tree-lined streets of California's agricultural heartland. As jobs and relatively affordable housing in the fast-growing region have attracted families from the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas, law enforcement officials say, some have brought gang ties with them, aggravating the valley's home-grown street crime. "What we are seeing is a migration of gangs from larger cities . . . to more rural areas," said Jerry Hunter, who oversees state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown's anti-gang units. "The gang activity . . . is a huge crisis for those communities." The spread of gang violence has strained police resources and rendered some playgrounds and streets off limits. Bullets have shattered the peace in parks and strip malls. Some graffiti cleanup crews in Stanislaus County have bulletproof vests or police escorts. Lifeguards in Turlock no longer sport traditional red or blue swimwear -- those gang colors might provoke gunfire. Schools in many places have adopted anti-gang dress codes, and rumors of impending gang attacks sometimes scare students from classes. Fear has silenced witnesses to gang crimes. Up and down the valley, task forces have been formed as evidence mounts that street hoodlums are committing homicides, robberies and car thefts and trafficking in drugs. Some communities have taxed themselves to pay for more police. Local, state and federal sweeps have produced thousands of arrests -- but tens of thousands more gang members remain on the streets, authorities say. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed former Sacramento U.S. Atty. Paul Seave as his anti-gang chief, hoping to improve the effectiveness and collaboration of state agencies that spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to prevent and combat gang violence. And Brown has declared the gang problem a top priority, likening it to domestic terrorism. His office is providing local agencies with expertise, intelligence and agents for raids. The Central Valley contains eight of the 22 counties that had the most gang-related homicides in 2005 and 2006, Seave said. And annual California Department of Justice figures show that the number of valley gang killings has accelerated, as has the number of law enforcement agencies reporting such crimes. In 1997, 50 gang-related homicides were reported, compared with 80 in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available. Gang violence came with startling brutality to the Tehama County town of Red Bluff, at the northern reaches of the Sacramento River. After a 17-year-old Sureño gang member repeatedly shot a 16-year-old Norteño gang member outside a house party, rumors of an attack on a local high school caused many students to stay home. The young gang member was sentenced last year to 25 years to life in prison for the 2006 shooting. "This is a small town, and . . . we're not used to those types of things happening," said Greg Ulloa, the county's juvenile probation chief. "But it is getting worse." The lower end of the valley has long been known as the Mason-Dixon Line of California's major Latino gang rivalry. But now clashes between the Sureños, or southerners, and the Norteños, northerners, have migrated through the state. "In the eastern part of the county, families are moving in from the L.A. basin," said Kern County Sheriff's Sgt. Mike Whiting. The gang members who come with them, he said, "are small fish there, but they can be bigger fish here." The North-South conflicts are particularly pronounced in Delano. It is territory claimed by the Norteños, whose traditional strongholds are farming communities and who have adopted as their insignia a version of the United Farm Workers Union's Aztec Eagle symbol. But the town has Sureños too and is only seven miles from that gang's turf in McFarland. One night last year, 14-year-old Steven Fierro, a freshman at Delano's Cesar Chavez High School, was standing outside his tidy tract home with his older brother and two of his brother's friends when they were strafed by rifle fire from a car. Steven was killed and the others wounded in what police say is an unsolved shooting rooted in the gang rivalry. Steven's mother Isabel keeps a small, candlelight shrine inside her front door to remind her of a son she describes as good-hearted, loving and not a gang member. He wanted to be a policeman, she said, and hoped to buy a bigger house and nice car for his mom, who works in a horticultural facility. She left Steven's room untouched -- with his video games, baseball photos and paintball gun. "Maybe this way I'm thinking he has gone off to school and will be back," she said, weeping. "The same night they killed my son, they killed me also." Police, school officials and community groups say gang violence cannot be curtailed without prevention and intervention. Some towns teach parents to be on alert for signs, such as red or blue clothing, shoes and handkerchiefs, that their children might be drifting toward gangs. Other towns have stepped up recreational activities to keep youngsters busy. Even when law enforcement agencies record successes against a gang, members often move elsewhere, as some may have done after crackdowns on Fresno's Bulldogs gang. It has an estimated 6,000 members. Police in nearby Selma are now seeing Bulldogs, with their dog-paw tattoos, standing on street corners literally barking warnings when squad cars approach. There have been drive-by shootings in midday, and police say one crime witness was wounded by gang members who shot through her front door. The rise of gang violence "has caught us off guard and shocked our community," said Selma Police Chief Tom Whiteside, noting that the town of about 24,000 had five gang homicides in the last three years. "Today, gang crime is probably No. 1 on everyone's radar screen in the valley." Selma voters overwhelmingly approved a half-cent sales tax in November that will allow its police force to nearly double in the next decade. The Bulldogs have adopted the red theme and menacing mascot of Cal State Fresno's athletic teams, sometimes blurring the visual lines between gang members and others. "An Hispanic group occasionally will be in a compromising position at a mini-market or walking down the street . . . because they are wearing . . . Bulldog-related clothing," said Fresno Police Sgt. Bill Grove. "It poses problems for law enforcement as well. . . . We come into contact with known gang members and they claim they are just fans of the teams." University officials say they will not surrender their mascot to gangs. "By changing our name, it would reward them," said Paul Oliaro, vice president for student affairs. A striking case of mistaken identity visited Atwater, 200 miles to the north. A Fresno State student, home for the weekend several years ago, was jogging in her red school T-shirt when someone yelled at her for wearing Norteño colors and fired five shots from a car, narrowly missing her. "Gang members do not heed borders," he said. "Gang members move here but do not cut their ties." ................................................................ FBI DIRECTOR:

"The violent MS-13 - or Mara Salvatrucha - street gang is following the migratory routes of illegal aliens across the country, FBI officials say, calling the Salvadoran gang the new American mafia. MS-13, has a significant presence in the Washington area, and other gangs are spreading into small towns and suburbs by following illegal aliens seeking work in places such as Providence, R.I., and the Carolinas, FBI task force director Robert Clifford said. "The migrant moves and the gang follows," said Mr. Clifford, director of the agency's MS-13 National Gang Task Force."
INS/FBI Statistical Report on Undocumented Immigrants 2006 (First Quarter)
INS/FBI Statistical Report on Undocumented Immigrants CRIME STATISTICS 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens. 83% of warrants for murder in Phoenix are for illegal aliens. 86% of warrants for murder in Albuquerque are for illegal aliens. 75% of those on the most wanted list in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Albuquerque are illegal aliens. 24.9% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally 40.1% of all inmates in Arizona detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally 48.2% of all inmates in New Mexico detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally 29% (630,000) convicted illegal alien felons fill our state and federal prisons at a cost of $1.6 billion annually 53% plus of all investigated burglaries reported in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Texas are perpetrated by illegal aliens. 50% plus of all gang members in Los Angeles are illegal aliens from south of the border. 71% plus of all apprehended cars stolen in 2005 in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California were stolen by Illegal aliens or “transport coyotes". 47% of cited/stopped drivers in California have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 47%, 92% are illegal aliens. 63% of cited/stopped drivers in Arizona have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 63%, 97% are illegal aliens 66% of cited/stopped drivers in New Mexico have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 66% 98% are illegal aliens. BIRTH STATISTICS 380,000 plus “anchor babies” were born in the U.S. in 2005 to illegal alien parents, making 380,000 babies automatically U.S.citizens. 97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid by the American taxpayers. 66% plus of all births in California are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers

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