In 2005, among the ranks of a shadowy organization reigning the streets near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, a business decision was made. Building on an already highly profitable drug-dealing operation specializing in crack cocaine, they would tap a new revenue source -- extorting the vendors that crowd the streets each evening, selling everything from clothes to pirated DVDs to electronics, supplementing a hardscrabble existence. That was the...
Four alleged members of the Donna Street Crips, a criminal street gang in Las Vegas, have been charged with the theft, sale and illegal possession of firearms in connection with their burglary of a Henderson gun store on Aug. 13, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Nevada. Victor “V-Locc” Williams, 19, Demario “Lil-C” Edwards, 22, Frank “Frank-C” Freeman, 26, and Daryl “Nsane” Galtney, 24, all of North Las Vegas, were charged Wednesday with...
A Calgary gangster is about to get out of prison, and says he's headed out of the province and away from the city's gang scene. Daniel Andre Landry, who was involved in a shootout between FOB and FOB Killers members on a Chinatown street in 2008, is scheduled to be freed from a federal prison in Alberta next month and will be moved to a halfway house in another province. Landry, 27, was freed on statutory release, which is mandated by law for offenders...
A two-count indictment was unsealed today in federal court in Central Islip, New York, charging three alleged members of the Ñetas street gang—Luis Benitez, also known as “Lae”; Alvaro Cabral, also known as “Boobie”; and Jason Cabral, also known as “J-Live”—with the 2004 murders of Anthony Marcano and Fabian Mestres. All three defendants are in custody. Benitez will be arraigned this afternoon before United States Magistrate Judge E. Thomas Boyle...
Federal prosecutors on Friday filed racketeering charges against 17 people allegedly tied to a notoriously violent street gang as police agencies continued their crackdown against gangster crimes on Buffalo's West Side. The charges -- including allegations about two murders, six attempted murders and a robbery -- were filed against members and associates of the Seventh Street Gang, also known as Cheko's Crew, U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul Jr....
David Wilson Jr. drove a tan Nissan down Spatz Avenue one night this month, never expecting the sounds of gunfire that would soon erupt throughout the neighborhood. Caught in the middle of what turned out to be a gunbattle – witnesses said more than 50 shots rang out that night – Wilson was hit at least once and died at the scene, becoming one of Allen County’s homicide victims. Fort Wayne Police Chief Rusty York said this week that Wilson’s death...
A member of a transnational street gang wanted in his native country of El Salvador for aggravated homicide was deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this week and turned over to authorities in that nation's capital. Tarsis Dodamin Quintero–Sanchez, 40, was repatriated to El Salvador Wednesday aboard a removal flight chartered by ICE's Air Operations Unit. Quintero, a documented member of the 18th Street Gang, is named in a...
Three members of a Wilmington gang have been given lengthy prison sentences after a street war with a rival gang ended in at least 5 gun battles that left 2 dead in the spring of 2010. The 3 were charged with the crime of Gang Participation which allows prosecutors to present evidence demonstrating the overall scope of criminal activity that the gang is committing. Kevin Rasin was also charged with first degree murder and other offenses...
Pedro Espinoza, now 23 years old, was declared guilty on May 9 of first-degree murder for killing 17-year-old football star Jamiel Shaw in 2008. The convict came with a gang enhancement, for the killer's affiliation with the 18th Street Gang of West Adams. And today, the jury recommended he be sentenced to death for the crime. Espinoza's status as an illegal immigrant... ... made the shooting especially controversial. Shaw's parents even pushed...
Police have arrested a popular Jamaican dancehall deejay on a U.S. extradition warrant. Authorities say that Busy Signal is a fugitive wanted on decade-old drug conspiracy charges in the U.S. state of Minnesota. Agents with Jamaica's organized crime division arrested him at the international airport in the capital of Kingston. He had just arrived on a flight from London, where authorities first detained Busy Signal for allegedly traveling with...
Jermaine Cohen was a young slum-dweller in Jamaica when he says Christopher “Dudas” Coke drafted him into his drug gang by giving him a gun. The weapon came with strict instructions from the notorious kingpin: “Don’t lose this gun or you’ll lose your life.” Also: “Don’t shoot someone you’re not supposed to shoot.” 0 Comments Weigh InCorrections? Personal Post From that point on, Cohen says, “I belonged to the system.” Cohen, 37, detailed...
Police said about 10 people were hurt Saturday when an armed mob clad in black hoods stormed an Illinois restaurant and attacked patrons with hammers and clubs. The frightening assault occurred about 12:45pm at the Ashford House restaurant in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park, the Orland Park Patch reported. Between 15 and 18 people wearing black clothing and hoods burst into the restaurant and started attacking diners, according to police. ...
A gang fight in a prison for illegal immigrants quickly escalated into a riot involving as many as 300 inmates, some lashing out with sticks or homemade knives as the uprising spread through the sprawling prison, a sheriff said. A guard was beaten to death and at least 20 other people were injured. The riot began Sunday afternoon and lasted into the night, with inmates dragging mattresses and wood to an outdoor recreation yard to set ablaze, Adams...
reputed member of the Crips street gang pleaded not guilty Monday to second-degree murder in the stabbing of a woman who was embroiled in an argument with his girlfriend that began at the Salvation Army soup kitchen. Perry Miller, 34, faces six additional charges in the Jan. 30 death of 43-year-old Tammi Washington. The charges are outlined in an indictment handed up to Schenectady County Judge Karen Drago. Earlier this month, Miller's ex-girlfriend,...
Two men sitting in a car in Boyle Heights were shot today in a gang attack, police said. The shooting at First and Clarence streets was reported at 12:25 a.m., and police found the victims at Rosalind Avenue and Eighth Street shortly afterward, a Los Angeles police sergeant at the Hollenbeck Station said. One victim was shot in the upper body, the other in the an arm and a leg, he said. Their names were withheld, but the sergeant said both were in...
Two people were shot outside of a barbecue on the front steps of a Dorchester apartment building after an apparent driveby shooting tonight, and one person was found stabbed in a separate incident in Roxbury, Boston police said. Officers responded to Monsignor Lydon Way shortly before 8 p.m. on a report of two people shot. Two bullet holes were seen in two of the apartment building’s front windows after police had cleared the scene about an hour...
One person is dead and his alleged killer is on the loose after a shooting at a Murray party Saturday morning. Officers arrived at a home near 593 West and 6640 South in Murray at around 4 a.m. on reports that shots had been fired. They found 21-year-old Alvert Mike dead at the scene from apparent gunshot wounds. Investigators say two rival gangs had reportedly gotten into a fight at the party. A shot was fired inside the house or the garage,...
Peter Macdiarmid/Getty ImagesA gang member was found guilty yesterday of stabbing a young man to death outside a Halloween party in La Habra in 2009.Steven Salvador Hernandez stabbed 18-year-old Joshua Mora-Rodriguez in the neck with a knife while two co-defendants beat him during...
The blast went off around 7:45 am (0545 GMT) on Saturday as students were arriving at the Francesca Morvillo Falcone vocational school. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but the school is named after the wife of a famous anti-Mafia judge, Giovanni Falcone, who was blown up by the mob almost exactly 20 years ago. The prosecutor, his wife and their three bodyguards were killed on May 23 1992, when the Sicilian Mafia planted half...
As a result, Donald Bryce Lyons was transferred from minimum-security Ferndale Institution to medium-security Mission prison. Lyons, 39, challenged the move to administrative segregation in the more secure facility, but a B.C. Supreme Court judge this week sided with prison officials, saying public safety was paramount and that the move was done lawfully. "Given the serious nature of the threat, the perimeter security concerns and the risk to other...
As a result, Donald Bryce Lyons was transferred from minimum-security Ferndale Institution to medium-security Mission prison. Lyons, 39, challenged the move to administrative segregation in the more secure facility, but a B.C. Supreme Court judge this week sided with prison officials, saying public safety was paramount and that the move was done lawfully. "Given the serious nature of the threat, the perimeter security concerns and the risk to other...
A Mongols motorcycle club member was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday for the murder of the president of the San Francisco chapter of the Hells Angels, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Christopher Bryan Ablett, 39, killed 46-year-old Mark “Papa” Guardado on Sept. 2, 2008, outside a Mission district bar near 24th and Treat streets, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag said. Ablett had reportedly traveled to San Francisco to see a friend that day, Haag...
Police task force investigations reveal that many illegal weapons come from otherwise upstanding citizens Police indicated that a significant number of illegal weapons come from gun enthusiasts Investigations from the police unit Task Force East have discovered that many of the illegal weapons that end up in the hands of gangs stem from older, upstanding citizens without a criminal record. The task force is currently involved in three larger...
Dozens of U.S. Marines and sailors swiped nearly $2 million worth of government goods, according to reports, allegedly selling them to street gangs, foreigners and other big bidders. The stash has included assault rifles, night-vision goggles and $800 flashlights, investigators found as part of a two-year probe. “This is some damn fine police work,” Ed Buice, spokesman for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, told The Associated Press on Tuesday,...
TEENS linked to a savage gang battle were rounded up by police in early morning raids yesterday. A 13-year-old boy was among those arrested over the face-off which saw dozens of teens slashed, stabbed and beaten with clubs. Onlookers were shocked at the ferocity of the violence, which put three youths in hospital with knife wounds. Police confessed they were surprised no one was killed. Chief Inspector Craig Ritchie said: “In terms of the injuries,...
California Attorney General Kamala Harris says state and federal officials have arrested 12 people tied to a drug trafficking ring that was smuggling heroin from Mexico into the San Francisco Bay area. Harris says the arrests were made in East Palo Alto, Hayward and Oakland on Tuesday. Undercover agents had been tracking the targets for nearly three years, during which time they purchased more than three pounds of heroin. Among those arrested was...
Elizabeth Carroll, 49, said the court case that ended with the acquittal of Ross Monaghan was a joke and her murdered son had been put on trial after the jury was repeatedly told of his underworld reputation. She said: “Because he was a criminal doesn’t mean he deserves what he got and doesn’t mean people can trash him and make up lies and blame him for everything. “Some people seem to think what happened to him was a joke, something to laugh about....
The nephew of gangster and TV star Domenyk Noonan has been jailed for beating and kidnapping a man and threatening to blow off his kneecaps. Damien Noonan, 26, and two other thugs caught their victim in the street as children played nearby, then bundled him into a car and bound him with tape. Then the masked brutes threatened to shoot him in the knees and burn his fingers off with a blowtorch, a court heard. When armed police stopped the kidnappers’...
A jury found four “high-ranking” members of the Columbia Lil' Cycos clique of the 18th Street Gang guilty on racketeering and murder charges. “The results in this case are proof that the members and the leaders of the 18th Street Gang will be held accountable for the violence and intimidation they use in their efforts to terrorize the law-abiding residents of the city of Los Angeles,” United States Attorney André Birotte Jr. said. The four defendants...
federal indictment unsealed today alleges Norteno gang members in Dodge City, Kan., were involved in racketeering and murder, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said today. The indictment names 23 defendants, including four who are charged with the June 8, 2009, murder of Israel Peralta and the attempted murder of three other men. Peralta was shot to death as he and his friends were sitting outside in a trailer park on the south side of Dodge City. One...
A gang member has been convicted in the 2008 shooting death of a high school football star who was mistaken for a rival gang member because of a red Spider-Man backpack. Pedro Espinoza, 23, was charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw Jr., who was shot on the street three doors from his Arlington Heights home. Espinoza allegedly asked Shaw for his gang affiliation -- "Where are you from?" -- then shot him...
Gangbanger with a long gang history was convicted Wednesday of the mistaken-identity murders of a San Francisco father and his two sons, the culmination of one of the most notorious crimes in the city in recent years. Edwin Ramos, 25, at first was still as the San Francisco Superior Court jury returned guilty verdicts on three first-degree murder counts in the killings of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16. Soon, however,...
Charges have been filed against nearly two-dozen men who are reported to be a part of the Howard Boys street gang. U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade and Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton announced the 34-count indictment. According to the Detroit News, charges include racketeering, murder, conspiracy to commit murder and assault with intent to murder. The indictments follow an investigation by local and federal agencies. Authorities allege the...
Two teenagers have been arrested in connection with a Tuesday homicide that took place on a crowded downtown Stockton street. Stockton residents Angel Baca and Steven Baca, both 18, were arrested near Sierra Nevada Street and Harding Way on Thursday on suspicion of fatally shooting Randal Arthur Valdivia, 48, according to the Stockton Police Department. Valdivia was attacked at about 9:30 a.m. at Washington and Sutter streets. Police say the incident...
Jeremiah Guajardo, 24, pleaded guilty to attempted violation of the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act, the same as three of his co-defendants after a three-year investigation into the 18th Street Gang in Greeley. One other co-defendant was found guilty at trial of a host of criminal charges. He and four others -- Ramon Acevedo, 37; Rosendo Santa-Cruz, 34; Christopher Cox, 29; and Joseph Perez, 21 -- were indicted in March 2011 by the Weld County...
Yakima gang member known as "Little Maniac" will serve up to three years for shooting a grandmother and her grandson, and for a separate shooting incident involving a 6-year-old girl. The 54-year-old woman and her grandson were walking home from a grocery store on Sept. 27, 2011, when they were confronted on East F Street in Yakima by a group of four youths, police said. The pair told detectives one of the youths began shooting at them. The woman...
Four accused gang members could face the death penalty, more than a dozen others could spend decades in prison after a series of indictments targeting two South San Francisco Street gangs. Three federal agents suffered non-life threatening injuries after they were shot while trying to serve an arrest warrant in Petaluma in connection with the case, authorities say. "This indictment stems from an 18 month investigation into two South San Francisco...
Four accused gang members could face the death penalty, more than a dozen others could spend decades in prison after a series of indictments targeting two South San Francisco Street gangs. Three federal agents suffered non-life threatening injuries after they were shot while trying to serve an arrest warrant in Petaluma in connection with the case, authorities say. "This indictment stems from an 18 month investigation into two South San Francisco...
San Rafael gang member and his girlfriend were arrested on allegations of dealing methamphetamine with their two young children in tow, a sheriff's investigator said. Oscar Josue Arroyo, 22, and Deanna Izquierdo, 19, were charged Thursday with possession of methamphetamine for sale, said Deputy District Attorney Sean Kensinger. The case remains under review for more potential charges, he said. Arroyo and Izquierdo were arrested Tuesday evening...
28-year-old member of the West Coast Crips gang was sentenced in San Diego on Thursday to 19 years and eight months in federal prison after being convicted of forcing a 15-year-old girl into prostitution through violence. Jonathan Jamar Sanders, known as "Sincere," posted pictures of the girl on the Internet, along with the price list for various sexual acts. Sanders kept all the proceeds, according to court documents. He was...
Rival gangs operating in El Salvador have called for a truce as the Central American country confronts a plague of violent crime, according to a statement issued by the gangs. The document, signed by representatives of the country's two most powerful gangs, Mara Salvatrucha and the 18th Street gang (Mara 18), was delivered to the local media and has been endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador, according to local church leade...
Three Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were shot and injured Thursday while serving "high-risk" warrants during an early morning sweep of San Francisco Bay area gang members, authorities said. The agents suffered non-life-threatening injuries after being shot with an assault rifle and were hospitalized in stable condition following the incident in Petaluma that was in connection with the investigation of a 2010 gang-related triple...
Well-known Vancouver gangster Ranjit Singh Cheema has been confirmed as the victim of a targeted hit Wednesday morning at his parents’ home in East Vancouver. Neighbour Jimmy Sanghara said he heard six or seven shots just before 10 a.m. “There was blood everywhere. When I got there he was dead, slumped in the seat of the vehicle.” gang hit leaves one dead, another in critical condition Sanghara, who didn’t know the victim, said it appeared...
Thirty-six days in the fall of 2010 show how quickly street gang violence can sweep innocent victims into its path, federal prosecutors in Syracuse said Tuesday. A member of the Bricktown gang stabbed a member of the V-NOT gang Oct. 23 of that year at a North Geddes Street bar. That night, a V-NOT member retaliated by firing 21 shots from an AK-47 assault rifle into the home of the Bricktown member. Back and forth they went until Nov. 26, when V-NOT...
Two suspects arrested Monday night after shots were fired into a car in Simi Valley are gang members, officials said. The shooting and a stabbing Friday in Simi Valley stemmed from a conflict between local gang members and a former member of the gang, police said. The shooting occurred about 7:40 p.m. Monday in the 1200 block of Cochran Street. Three young men were driving in the area when another car pulled up beside them and someone fired rounds...
federal judge sentenced a convicted 18th Street gang member to a second term of life in prison Monday related to two homicides in 2009. Joel Yonathan Ventura-Quintanilla, 25, of Germantown was charged in 2009 with 10 other 18th Street gang members linked to the 2009 murder of Dennys Alfredo Guzman-Saenz, 15, of Langley Park. Ventura-Quintanilla and another co-defendant, Ysaud Flores, 33, of Gaithersburg, were also charged in the 2009 shooting death...
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