Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Los Angeles Under MEX GANG OCCUPATION - OBAMA GONNA SUE THE GANGS?

Media Miss Cartels' War In U.S.
Posted 08/16/2010 06:58 PM ET
Media: As Mexico's drug war and Arizona's bid to defend itself take center stage, the growth of cartels in Los Angeles is another leg of the story. But to know about it you need to read Spanish.
Los Angeles and its suburbs are in grave danger of becoming outposts for Mexican drug- and immigrant-smuggling cartels, according to local law enforcement officials.
"We have detected the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas," Alvin Jackson, head of the Narcotics Division of the L.A. Police Department, said in a recent interview. "They are operating on a middle and street level."
In Mexico, the Gulf and Zeta gangs are among the most violent, known for beheading opponents, setting off car bombs and shooting up border cities from Tijuana to Matamoros. In L.A., they've set up "distribution centers" not just in the slums, but also the San Fernando Valley and on the well-heeled Westside near Santa Monica.
Five other Mexican cartels — Sinaloa, Beltran-Levya, La Familia, Arellano Felix and Carillo Fuentes — also operate in L.A. They're busy recruiting gangs to carry on the same mayhem they're engaged in south of the border, Jackson said.
Steven Martinez, who heads the FBI in Los Angeles, agreed with Jackson's observations.
You'd think this would be news that merits front-page coverage in, say, the city's newspaper of record, the Los Angeles Times. But it's not. Jackson's and Martinez's assessments were reported in La Opinion, a Spanish-language daily that has no English translation.
It's not that the Times doesn't cover the cartel war in detail from Mexico. But when it comes to what's going on in Joe Friday's precincts, something that might have some relevance to its readers, the paper is derelict.
Perhaps it has something to do with the Times' near-monopoly on news in a one-newspaper town. Or maybe it's the paper's historically cozy relationship with the city's political machine, which panders to the Latino vote.
As illegal immigrants inundate the city and cartels come in behind them, the City Council declares L.A. a sanctuary city and wastes time boycotting Arizona for trying to beat back the same problems.
This is going to create serious problems down the road. L.A. District Attorney Steven Cooley told the Washington (not the L.A.) Times that gangs and drug traffickers may create gang- and cartel-controlled city governments.
It's already evident, he said, along the 710 Freeway towards the Port of Long Beach — a corridor that encompasses illegal-immigrant-majority towns such as Bell, the city whose officials were caught feathering their nests with million-dollar salary packages. The 710, by the way, has seen actual cartel shootings.

No comments: