Bentley is considering the launch of an armour-plated car range as customers in Latin America, the Middle East and Russia seek to travel in bulletproof comfort.

The Bentley EXP 9 F concept car at the Geneva Motor Show. The company has not yet decided whether the SUV will go into full production. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

The Crewe-based car manufacturer is exploring ways to tap into a growing market for secure vehicles in emerging economies where the threat of kidnap and assassination is constant.

Jan-Henrik Lafrentz, Bentley's finance chief, said there was demand in Latin America in particular. "We are growing in more and more markets there. For these markets, security is an issue. We are looking at the business case of doing armoured cars.

"There is also demand from Russia and the Middle East. We cannot do this for just one country. There are other countries where there is need for this."

More than eight of 10 Bentley sales are to customers outside the UK. As the vehicle of choice for James Bond in the Ian Fleming novels, Bentleys are used to hair-raising encounters, although the film versions have tended to portray 007 behind the wheel of an Aston Martin.

Bentley does not make armoured vehicles at its Crewe factory and refuses to discuss whether it has made armoured models in the past, although Prince Charles reportedly uses a bulletproof version of the Turbo R. Jaguar Land Rover, another UK-based premium carmaker, already sells armoured versions of both its key brands, produced by specialist manufacturers.

Bentley, which is owned by Volkswagen, sold just under 4,000 vehicles in the first half of the year, up 32% year on year, with US sales increasing by a quarter and Chinese sales climbing 55%. In the UK, 557 Bentleys were delivered to customers, an increase of 4.5% on the first six months of 2011.

Lafrentz said Bentley aimed to more than double car sales to 15,000 a year by 2015, boosted by new concepts such as the Bentley SUV unveiled this year at the Geneva Motor Show. He said Bentley had yet to make a final decision on whether the SUV prototype would go into full production, but it had been well received in trials with potential customers around the world.

gang member and gunslinger who explains exactly how easy it is for he and his fellow gang members to obtain firearms

The weekend, Chicago Sun Timesreporter Frank Main published an interview with “Chris,” a Chicago high school student and gang member and gunslinger who explains exactly how easy it is for he and his fellow gang members to obtain firearms, even if they have criminal records:

“I will make a call and say I need a gun. I will ride down the street on my bike and get it — five minutes.” . . . Chris calls them the “gun guys.” The cops have another name for them: “straw purchasers.”

“Gun guys” have clean records allowing them to obtain Illinois firearm owner’s identification cards. With FOID cards, they can legally buy guns at stores in the suburbs.

Then they illegally sell them to gang members banned from owning guns because of their criminal backgrounds.

Most of the guns recovered in crimes in Chicago were bought in suburban gun stores, according to a new University of Chicago Crime Lab study of police gun-trace data.

As Chris points out, many of these straw purchasers’ full-time job is trading on their clean criminal record to buy guns and then resell them at a markup to dangerous felons. Such professional straw purchasers should be easy to catch. Because federal law requires most gun purchasers to undergo criminal background checks before they can buy a firearm, it should be an easy matter for law enforcement to check whether the same person is purchasing guns over and over and over again.

Except that the so-called “Tiahrt Amendments” thwart such checks by requiring the Justice Department to destroy the record of any gun buyer whose purchase was approved within 24 hours. As a result, law enforcement is often blind to straw purchasers who are flooding the streets with guns right under their noses.

Nor is this the only aspect of federal law that “gun guys” can take advantage of. An estimated 10 percent of all guns used in a crime by juveniles were sold at a gun show or flea market where many of the dealers do not have to conduct criminal background checks on their customers. Indeed, federal officials are often forced to charge straw purchasers with paperwork violations due to the absence of an appropriate law criminalizing unlicensed gun trafficking.

As ThinkProgress reported on Friday, 19 people were shot in Chicago last Thursday evening. The night after we published that post, 17 more people were shot — 4 of them fatally.

Miguel Angel Trevino Morales new leader is emerging at the head of one of Mexico's most feared drug cartels.

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  This undated image taken from the Mexican Attorney General's Office rewards program website on Aug. 23, 2012, shows the alleged leader of Zetas drug cartel, Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, alias âZ-40.â (AP Photo/Mexican Attorney General's Office website)

Mexico's Violent Zetas Cartel Sees New Leader Miguel Angel Trevino Morales A split in the leadership of Mexico's violent Zetas cartel has led to the rise of Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, a man so feared that one rival has called for a grand alliance to confront a gang chief blamed for a new round of bloodshed in the country's once relatively tranquil central states.

Trevino, a former cartel enforcer who apparently has seized leadership of the gang from Zetas founder Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, is described by lawmen and competing drug capos as a brutal assassin who favors getting rid of foes by stuffing them into oil drums, dousing them with gasoline and setting them on fire, a practice known as a "guiso," or "cook-out".

Law enforcement officials confirm that Trevino appears to have taken effective control of the Zetas, the hemisphere's most violent criminal organization, which has been blamed for a large share of the tens of thousands of deaths in Mexico's war on drugs, though other gangs too have repeatedly committed mass slayings.

"There was a lot of talk that he was pushing really hard on Lazcano Lazcano and was basically taking over the Zetas, because he had the personality, he was the guy who was out there basically fighting in the streets with the troops," said Jere Miles, a Zetas expert and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent who was posted in Mexico until last year.

"Lazcano Lazcano, at the beginning he was kind of happy just to sit back and let Trevino do this, but I don't think he understood how that works in the criminal underworld," Miles said. "When you allow someone to take that much power, and get out in front like that, pretty soon the people start paying loyalty to him and they quit paying to Lazcano."

The rise has so alarmed at least one gang chieftain that he has called for gangs, drug cartels, civic groups and even the government to form a united front to fight Trevino Morales, known as "Z-40," whom he blamed for most of Mexico's violence.

"Let's unite and form a common front against the Zetas, and particularly against Z-40, Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, because this person with his unbridled ambition has caused so much terror and confusion in our country," said a man identified as Servando Gomez, leader of the Knights Templar cartel, in a viedo posted Tuesday on the internet.

A Mexican law enforcement official who wasn't authorized to speak on the record said the video appeared to be genuine,

"He is the main cause of everything that is happening in Mexico, the robberies, kidnappings, extortion," Gomez is heard saying on the tape. "We are inviting all the groups ... everyone to form a common front to attack Z-40 and put an end to him."

Trevino Morales has a fearsome reputation. "If you get called to a meeting with him, you're not going to come out of that meeting," said a U.S. law-enforcement official in Mexico City, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.

In two years since Zetas split with their former allies in the Gulf cartel — a split in which Trevino reported played a central role — the gang has become one of Mexico's two main cartels, and is battling the rival Sinaloa cartel.

Now the Zetas' internal disputes have added to the violence of the conflict between gangs. Internal feuds spilled out into pitched battles in the normally quiet north-central state of San Luis Potosi in mid-August, when police found a van stuffed with 14 executed bodies.

San Luis Potosi state Attorney General Miguel Angel Garcia Covarrubias told local media that a 15th man who apparently survived the massacre told investigators that both the killers and the victims were Zetas. "It was a rivalry with the same organized crime group," Garcia Covarrubias said.

The leadership dispute also may have opened the door to lesser regional figures in the Zetas gang to step forward and rebel, analysts and officials said.

Analysts say that a local Zetas leader in the neighboring state of Zacatecas, Ivan Velazquez Caballero, "The Taliban," was apparently trying to challenge Trevino Morales' leadership grab, and that the 14 bullet-ridden bodies left in the van were The Taliban's men, left there as a visible warning by Trevino Morales' underlings.

The Taliban's territory, Zacatecas, appears to have been a hot spot in Trevino's dispute with Lazcano. It was in Zacatecas that a professionally printed banner was hung in a city park, accusing Lazcano of betraying fellow Zetas and turning them in to the police.

Trevino began his career as a teenage gofer for the Los Tejas gang, which controlled most crime in his hometown of Nuevo Laredo, across the border from the city of Laredo, Texas, officials say.

Around 2005, Trevino Morales was promoted to boss of the Nuevo Laredo territory, or "plaza" and given responsibility for fighting off the Sinaloa cartel's attempt to seize control of its drug-smuggling routes. He orchestrated a series of killings on the U.S. side of the border, several by a group of young U.S. citizens who gunned down their victims on the streets of the American city. American officials believe the hit men also carried out an unknown number of killings on the Mexican side of the border, the U.S. official said.

Trevino Morales is on Mexico's most-wanted list, with a reward of 30 million pesos ($2.28 million) offered for information leading to his capture.

Raul Benitez, a security expert at Mexico's National Autonomous University, said that the Zetas are inherently an unstable cartel with an already huge capacity for violence, and the possibility of more if they begin fighting internal disputes. "I think the Zetas are having problems, and there is no central command," he said.

The Zetas have been steadily expanding their influence and reaching into Central America in recent years, constructing a route for trafficking drugs that offloads Colombian cocaine in Honduras, ships it overland along Mexico's Gulf Coast and runs into over the border through Trevino Morales' old stomping grounds.

Samuel Logan, managing director of the security analysis firm Southern Pulse, notes that "personality-wise they (Trevino Morales and Lazcano) couldn't be more different," and believes the two may want to take the cartel in different directions. The stakes in who wins the dispute could be large for Mexico; Lazcano is believed to be more steady, more of a survivor who might have an interest in preserving the cartel as a stable organization.

"Lazcano may be someone who would take the Zetas in a direction where they'd become less of a thorn in the side for the new political administration," Logan said in reference to Enrique Pena Nieto, who is expected to take office as president on Dec. 1. "In contrast, Trevino is someone who wants to fight the fight."

Referring to Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, a member of the rival Sinaloa Cartel who died in a shootout with soldiers in July 2010, Logan noted, "Trevino is someone who is going to want to go out, like Nacho Coronel went out, with his guns blazing."

Gang Member with Stolen Gun Arrested

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The Walnut Creek Police arrested a 20-year-old Walnut Creek resident, identified as Mauricio Cerventas, on several weapons charges after police say he had a concealed stolen gun inside Wendy’s on North Main Street.

The following information is from the Walnut Creek Police:

Crime Description / Code:

• Gang member with concealed firearm/ PC 25400(3)
• Carrying a concealed firearm/PC 25400(a)
• Possession of a stolen firearm/PC 25850(a)(2)
• Gang member in possession of a stolen firearm/PC 25850(a)(3)

On Wednesday, August 22, 2012, at approximately 3:51pm officers responded to Wendy’s restaurant located at 2955 N. Main Street in Walnut Creek for a report of a man with a gun inside of the restaurant.

For the public’s safety officers temporarily closed N. Main Street between Treat and Sunnyvale during the incident.

Cevantes was arrested for the above charges. Cervantes was booked into the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department Martinez Detention Facility on a $120,000 bail. No one was injured during the incident..

Police think Ogden drive-bys are tied to gang's power struggle

Police believe drive-by shootings at an Ogden home Tuesday night and Wednesday morning may be related to a violent power struggle within a street gang over control of leadership, drugs and money. Ogden Police Lt. Scott Conley declined to identify the gang, but said members are not affiliated with the Ogden Trece. On Monday, 2nd District Judge Ernie Jones issued a permanent injunction against Trece members, banning them from associating with each other in public and being in the presence of guns, drugs and alcohol. The injunction also places Treces under an 11 p.m. curfew. The drive-by shootings at a home in the 500 block of 28th Street are signs of in-fighting among members of a local gang who are attempting to resolve their differences through escalating violence, Conley said. “They are in the same gang and are arguing back and forth,” he said, noting police have gathered intelligence on the dispute. “We are taking enforcement action to eradicate the problem or get the individuals involved incarcerated.” Six to eight gang members are believed to be involved in the dispute.

Two people employed at the US embassy in Mexico have been wounded after their car was mistakenly fired on by police south of Mexico city

Pictures from the scene showed the Toyota vehicle riddled with bullet-holes [AP]

Two people employed at the US embassy in Mexico have been wounded after their car was mistakenly fired on by police south of Mexico city, officials have said. The Mexican government said federal police shot at the vehicle as they were chasing criminals on a main road to the city of Cuernavaca. "Today at 8:00 am, a diplomatic vehicle belonging to the US embassy was hit by multiple bullets from personnel of the federal police in the Tres Marias-Huitzilac highway," the public security ministry and navy said in a joint statement on Friday. The statement said the police were conducting anti-crime operations. 'Evasive manoeuvers' A Mexican marine who was travelling with the two US employees was lightly injured in the incident, the statement said.  Those involved were said to be all out of danger after being escorted to a hospital by the police. The trio were driving to a military installation when they were approached on a dirt road by a vehicle whose passengers displayed weapons. "The driver of the diplomatic vehicle used evasive manoeuvers and when it returned on the highway, the passengers in the attacking vehicle opened fire on the diplomatic vehicle," the statement said. "Moments later three other vehicles joined the chase and shot at the US embassy vehicle." The statement did not specify who the four attacking vehicles belonged to or whether it was police bullets that hit the three victims. The US state department said it was working with Mexican authorities to investigate the incident further.

Prosecution allowed to mention gang ties in trial of final defendant in Newark schoolyard killings

What else but gang ties could explain 15-year-old Gerardo Gomez’s motivation to allegedly help rob, brutalize then shoot four strangers behind a Newark schoolyard, a judge said in his lengthy written decision issued Monday. The judge’s ruling grants the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office its motion to present evidence at Gomez’s upcoming murder trial that shows he was a member of the MS-13 gang, and that the triple killing was gang-motivated. Gomez’s defense attorney had objected to the request, maintaining any mention of a gang element would prejudice a jury. In his 44-page decision, Superior Court Judge Michael L. Ravin in Newark said that Gomez’s alleged gang membership could speak to his state of mind the night of the Aug. 4, 2007, killing. “The bond of a friendship, a classmate, or an acquaintance offers no explanation...on how one could possibly have possessed this egregious motive and state of mind,” Ravin wrote. But gang membership might explain why Gomez, who turned 15 that day, “would obediently follow the command” of a higher-ranking gang member “to rob, kill and maim four non-provoking strangers,” the judge wrote. Four college-aged friends were all shot in the head; only one survived. Gomez, now 20, is the final defendant to face justice. The others — all allegedly connected to MS-13 — have either been convicted at trial or pleaded guilty to the crime, including one who is expected to testify against him. Gomez, whose trial begins early next month, admits his presence at the schoolyard but denies any part in the attack. Responding to the judge’s decision, defense attorney Michael Robbins, said today: “Lady justice wraps Superman’s cape around the accused in the form of the presumption of innocence. To allow misplaced gang evidence into a case like this would be kryptonite that would melt Superman’s cape and cause otherwise fair jurors to disregard the presumption of innocence.” But Assistant Prosecutor Romesh Sukhdeo said the gang component is integral. “Our opinion has always been the schoolyard homicide was an MS-13 event,” he said. “It explains the context of the defendants’ actions and their motivation that night. Gang violence is part of our culture in Newark and we feel it’s relevant. Our burden of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt, so if we want to tell the jury what’s behind the killing, we have to add this in.”

Gang violence exploding in Quebec

Street gang crime has increased 69% in Quebec over the past three years, in contrast to a year-over-year decline in overall crime across the province, provincial data revealed. The data were released at the same time crime experts have told QMI Agency to expect even more gang violence after the recent assassinations of high-profile street gang members in Montreal. Crime attributed to gangs increased almost 11% in Quebec between 2010 and 2011, and 69% since 2009. The report by the province's public security ministry noted that Quebec's various police corps registered 100 more law violations attributed to gangs compared with 2010. The majority of the gang crimes were related to probation violations, drug possession and assault. Crime in general, however, declined in 2011 by 6% compared with 2010 and has been on the decline since 2006, according to the government. Crimes against people declined in 2011 by just under 2% compared to 2010, and crimes against property declined during the same period by just over 8%. One statistic of note is the province's homicide rate, which contradicts the overall downward trend in crime. Homicides in Quebec jumped by 20 murders - or over 20% - between 2010 and 2011. The report noted that the 2011 homicide stats reflected an increase of people killing members of their own family, the victims of which are often children. Cases of murdered children aged 17 years or under more than doubled, from six in 2010 to 14 a year later. The government noted that since 2008, police have attributed 20 murders in Montreal to street gangs. One street gang-related murder that did not figure into the 2011 statistics was the assassination of reputed street-gang kingpin "Big" Chenier Dupuy, 37, who was killed on Aug. 10 in Montreal. A top street gang member told QMI Agency it was a "matter of time" before Dupuy's death is avenged. Street gang activity represented 0.4% of all crimes reported by Quebec police forces in 2011. In Montreal, street gangs accounted for 1.6% of the total reported criminality in 2009, the last year for which the city's police force released data.

Mexico’s largest crime group, Los Zetas, appears to be splintering into two rival factions locked in occasional open warfare with each other

 The factions are tussling for control of the central states of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi and are battling each other in parts of the Yucatan Peninsula. What sparked the rift is unclear, but signs of the apparent split have come in public banners left at crime scenes, replete with accusations of betrayal and treason between factions led by the two top leaders, Heriberto Lazcano and Miguel Angel Trevino. “We’re looking at a turning point for them,” said Samuel Logan, a security analyst who’s the co-author of a book on the Zetas that was released earlier this year. “We’re at the beginning of the public stage of the split, but it’s been developing for a while.” A fracturing of Los Zetas could force a violent realignment of Mexico’s drug-trafficking gangs and probably would create challenges for President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto, who promised to bring down soaring homicides after his inauguration Dec. 1. One of the latest signs of turmoil came Aug. 9, when authorities found a Mercedes-Benz truck bearing 14 bodies on the outskirts of the city of San Luis Potosi, a mining and industrial hub that’s the capital of the state of the same name. Afterward, state Attorney General Miguel Garcia Covarrubias said a man who’d feigned death and survived the massacre told authorities that groups of Zetas were battling each other. “It seems this is a dispute within Los Zetas, a rivalry among themselves,” Garcia Covarrubias told Mexico City’s W Radio network. The members of Los Zetas, a band formed by military deserters, worked as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel in northeast Mexico until a violent schism in 2010. Since then, the Zetas have branched beyond drug trafficking to extortion, human smuggling, kidnapping and piracy of goods. Known for extreme brutality, the group is thought to be active in at least half of Mexico’s 31 states and Mexico City, as well as throughout Central America. “The Zetas have expanded rapidly in recent years, and they might have hit a wall,” said Alejandro Hope, a former official in the national intelligence agency CISEN. He cautioned that reports of a rift within the Zetas could be part of a government “psy ops” campaign to inject paranoia into the gang. As to the extent of a split, “we don’t really know yet.” Initial reports of a rift emerged in early June, then surged with the arrest June 12 of Trevino’s brother, Jose, at a horse-breeding ranch in Oklahoma, inflaming mistrust and questions that someone within the gang had led U.S. agents to the ranch. “It might have launched a chain reaction of suspicions within Los Zetas,” Hope said. In early August, cloth banners appeared along highways in the states of Veracruz, Coahuila and Tamaulipas denying that a Zetas split had occurred. But within days, new signs of infighting emerged in the states of Campeche, Tabasco and Quintana Roo, all in Mexico’s southeast. On Aug. 9, security agents arrested Jorge Luis Martinez Rodriguez, known as “El Taz,” in Campeche, linked to one faction of Los Zetas. The next day, police in Quintana Roo arrested an alleged midlevel henchman of Trevino’s, and said another Zetas faction had ratted him out.

Armed gang fight breaks out in Venezuelan prison

Twenty-five people were killed and 43 others hurt in a prison battle in Venezuela as two armed gangs vied for control of a penitentiary near Caracas, authorities said on Monday.

Gun charge brings 8-year term

 reputed member of the Crips street gang apologized for his role in the shooting death of an innocent man on a city street in 2008 as he was sentenced to 8 years in prison on a gun charge. "I take full responsibility for my actions as a 26-year-old adult," Matthew Blanding said Friday in Schenectady County Court. "I want to give a big public apology to the family the crime was committed against, specifically Foday Kpoto." The defendant also apologized to God and society, and thanked his attorney and the prosecution for the negotiated plea. He had earlier pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal possession of a weapon. Additionally, Blanding was sentenced to 6 years behind bars for an unrelated drug offense, a charge that will run concurrently with the gun charges.

The attackers shouted at the victims that they were part of the Problem Child Gang, or PCG.

Indianapolis metropolitan police say they are holding seven suspected gang members in connection with an attack on a 16-year-old, and neighbors in the Near-Southside neighborhood where the incident occurred said Friday that they were concerned about increased gang activity in the area. “We’ve got to take back our neighborhoods,” said Rachel Cooper, 63, a lifelong resident of the Fountain Square area southeast of Downtown. “They’re not going to come out here and take advantage of us. We’re going to protect ourselves. If we have to do some shooting, we’re going to shoot them, and I’ve already told the police that.” All of those arrested Thursday were 14 to 19 years old. According to a police report,

Al Capone's Palm Island estate

Zillow

Al Capone's Florida home includes an enormous 30-by-60 foot pool.

 

93 Palm Ave, Miami Beach, Florida
For sale: $9.95 million

Al Capone was Brooklyn-born and long ruled the streets of Chicago before he decided to makeFlorida his permanent residence. The notorious mob boss moved south in 1928, buying an enormous beach-side estate that would serve as his final home.

Sixty-five years after Capone's death, the mansion is for sale. Even after several renovations, the estate still carries a lot of historical details from the mobsters' reign there.

When Capone arrived in Miami Beach, historians say, the mob boss wasn't looking to expand his empire of bootlegging, gambling and money laundering but was searching for a place to retreat from the stresses of running the mob. His new residence on Palm Island was the perfect place to do so.

Capone reportedly purchased the home for $40,000 cash from Clarence Busch of the Anheuser-Busch family. Capone set about making the enormous 30,000-square-foot property his own.

"He wanted the biggest pool, so he built one 30 by 60 feet," said Jorge Alonso of Prudential Douglas Elliman Florida."He built the two-story cabana pool house, where he kept the guards, and he also built the guest house and a wall to guard the house."

The home was not only where Capone and his family stayed full time, it was also "supposedly where he planned the entire Valentine's Day Massacre," Alonso said. Miami Beach also served as Capone's alibi during the event:

"He made sure that everyone saw him in South Beach on the day," Alonso said.

For most of the 1930s, Capone was in prison for tax evasion, but he returned to the Miami Beach home upon his release and lived there until his death in 1947.

Capone didn't pass away in the master bedroom, however, explains Alonso. He spent his final days in the guest bedroom in the front of the house where he could always see who was coming and going.

Capone's home has only passed through a few owners since and under the current one. The house has had a complete renovation while still maintaining the "old Cuba, Havana style," Alonso said.

"The home has high ceilings, great moldings, the construction is amazing and they made sure the architect kept the original things." 

Well, everything, except Capone's cache of bootleg liquor.

According to Zillow's mortgage calculator, a monthly payment on the Capone estate would be $36,078, assuming a 20 percent down payment on a 30-year mortgage.

Zillow

The Prohibition-era home has been fully restored and updated.

Zillow

The downstairs powder room remains untouched from Capone's days.

Sixty-five years after the mobster's death, the Al Capone Estate is for sale.

it's only "a matter of time" before his group avenges the assassination of kingpin "Big" Chenier Dupuy.

The 37-year-old head of the Mafia-linked Bo-Gars gang was shot and killed in a parked car in east-end Montreal last Friday. A friend of Dupuy's was gunned down hours later. A longtime Bo-gars member told QMI this week that there will be reprisals for the murders. Sources say Dupuy had violently rejected a drug-dealing partnership offer from a Hells Angels-linked street gang in the weeks before his murder. A police tactical squad raided suspected gang hideouts this week to try and prevent bloody reprisals. Police targeted a dozen locations in the city on Wednesday and Thursday, most of which were in Montreal North, the home base for the Bo-Gars. "I would be lying if I said there's no connection between these raids and (the killings)," police Cmdr. Ian Lafreniere told QMI Agency. Provincial police also took part in the raids, which Lafreniere says are aimed at "reassuring the public and being visible." He adds that police have stepped up patrols in strategic areas. Montreal police on Thursday arrested two 24-year-old men with Bo-Gars ties. Officers seized a Ruger-brand pistol and a .44 Magnum and the suspects face weapons charges. It's too early to say if the arrests are linked to a plot to avenge Dupuy's death. Bullets have been flying for three years as enemies of the once-powerful Rizzuto crime family knock off top leaders, as well as associates such as the Bo-Gars. Rizzuto family patriarch Nick Rizzuto, Sr. was killed in his north-end Montreal home in 2010, about a year after his grandson, Nick Jr., was gunned down across town. Family boss Vito Rizzuto, son of Nick Sr. and father of Nick Jr., is scheduled to be released from a U.S. prison in October after serving several years for his part in a 1981 mob massacre in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Related articles

• Reputed street-gang kingpin "Big" Chenier Dupuy, was the head of the Bo-Gars street gang who was assassinated last week, violently rejected a partnership offer from the Hells Angels
• Two Rizzuto Associates Whacked
• Montreal shooting victim was gang leader
• Fire ravages Montreal building with Mafia ties

Reputed street-gang kingpin "Big" Chenier Dupuy, was the head of the Bo-Gars street gang who was assassinated last week, violently rejected a partnership offer from the Hells Angels

Reputed street-gang kingpin "Big" Chenier Dupuy, who was assassinated last week, violently rejected a partnership offer from the Hells Angels prior to his murder, sources tell QMI Agency. Dupuy, 37, was shot to death Friday as he was sitting in a parked car with another man at an east-end shopping centre. An associate was shot and killed hours later. Police believe Dupuy is the head of the Bo-Gars street gang, a Mafia-linked outfit whose members also reportedly claim allegiance to the well-known Bloods street gang in the U.S. A source says Dupuy had slapped a rival gang leader in the face last month during a Hells-sponsored summit north of Montreal aimed at uniting several street gangs under the Hells banner. He reportedly stormed out of the meeting along with colleague Lamartine Severe Paul, vowing never to work with the Hells. Both men were immediately marked for death, QMI learned from police sources and gang associates. The summit meeting was organized by Gregory Wooley, a protege of jailed Hells boss Maurice "Mom" Boucher. Wooley, one of the few Hells Angels of African descent, is the reputed leader of the Syndicates, a street gang formed by the Hells at the height of its bloody 1990s biker war with the Rock Machine. "Like many veterans of the Bloods, Chenier said he wanted no part of (Wooley)," said an associate of Dupuy, who describes the slain gang leader as "a brother." "He (said he) would never work for the bikers or their d--- suckers," added the friend, an apparent reference Wooley's Syndicates. Dupuy's associate confirmed that Wooley was the one who Chenier had slapped, in full view of everyone, during the gang summit at a bar in Sainte-Adele, north of Montreal. The bad blood worsened in the weeks following the summit. Dupuy confronted Wooley a second time at the Solid Gold strip club in Montreal. Dupuy had escaped a shootout at the same club in 2008. The Bo-Gars leader also reportedly beat up a Syndicates member in front of a Montreal car dealership. Police then warned Dupuy that there was a price on his head. Days later, he was dead.

Related articles

• The man who police claim to be "the trigger man" for a notorious street gang is a public threat and shouldn't be released pending deportation proceedings.
• Two alleged gang members arrested in massive Montreal police raid
• Montreal street gang boss killed
• Two Rizzuto Associates Whacked

war on Bloods street gang

Officials in Lancaster said Thursday they are joining forces with Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies to declare war on a local street gang they blame for a recent spike in crime in the High Desert region. “The city of Lancaster, the Lancaster sheriff’s department, and the citizens of this valley have worked too hard fighting crime over the past several years to have this group of thugs try to destroy our community’s sense of safety and peace of mind," Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris said in a statement. City officials allege that hoodlums associated with the infamous Bloods, a predominately African American street gang, have been “targeting the Antelope Valley ... showing a blatant disregard for the rights and property of others.”  Officials say the number of burglaries, robberies, car thefts and larcenies have increased in Lancaster neighborhoods. "The Bloods picked on the wrong city and the wrong mayor and now have a real battle on their hands," Parris said. In an interview with The Times earlier this week, the mayor said he was declaring "open season" on the gang. City officials said several operations are underway to combat crimes committed by gangs, including those conducted by the Sheriff’s Department’s robbery suppression and burglary suppression teams. Future strategies would include undercover operations and aerial surveillance, which would help minimize the ability of gang members "to hide from the law," city officials said.  Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Erik Ruble, of the agency’s Operation Safe Streets bureau, said his agency would work with the L.A. County district attorney’s office to secure gang enhancements in sentencing and prison time in any case involving the gang. The enhancement would make the gang member eligible for as much as 10 additional years in prison, Ruble said. In addition, Parris said he would contribute $10,000 of his own money to a reward for citizens who provide information that leads to the arrest and conviction of a Bloods gang member. "We know who they are, where they live, what cars they drive, and who they associate with," Lancaster sheriff’s station Capt. Bob Jonsen said in written remarks. "They will feel our presence in their lives from this day forward. I can assure the Lancaster community that this gang’s days of terrorizing this community are coming to an end." Said Parris:  "They better start packing for a one-way trip out of our city."

LA gang member convicted of 4 murders

gang member who hid out in the Philippines for 11 years was found guilty Thursday for four murders during a mid-1990s crime spree in a quest to make the gang the most feared in Los Angeles. Jurors found Pierre Mercado guilty of four counts of murder, two counts of kidnapping and five counts of attempted murder. He will be sentenced Aug. 24 and faces up to life in prison. Mercado was a member of the Asian Boyz, a gang founded by his brother Marvin Mercado that terrorized parts of Los Angeles in the mid-1990s. Marvin Mercado was convicted of eight murders and received eight life sentences last year in a separate case. He founded the notorious Asian Boyz in the early 1990s with a schoolmate in the San Fernando Valley. The gang had Cambodian, Vietnamese and Filipino factions and included three cliques in the suburbs of Los Angeles and one in San Jose. Prosecutors said while most gangs make money dealing drugs, the Asian Boyz committed burglaries and robberies. The killings stemmed from a violent rampage in 1995 that the gang dubbed the "summer of madness" in an attempt to become the city's most feared gang. Three of Pierre Mercado's murder victims were mistaken as rival gang members, said prosecutor Hoon Chun. The two attempted murder counts stem from an incident where Mercado and his associates shot at two Marines who were in a car returning to Camp Pendleton. The Mercados eventually fled to the Philippines, the home of their parents. Marvin Mercado married the daughter of a wealthy construction magnate and used the name Mark de los Angeles. Pierre Mercado posed as his brother's cousin and used the alias Angel Reyes.

crackdown on violent SoCal street gang

Federal agents and police targeting a violent street gang swept through a Southern California neighborhood Friday where earlier police killings sparked violent protests. Federal, state and local agents raided 54 locations in Anaheim and in Los Angeles County, arresting 33 people to cap a yearlong investigation of the East Side Anaheim gang, police Sgt. Bob Dunn said. Another 20 to 25 people already were in custody and several more were still being sought, he added. Some of the raids concentrated on a poor, mainly Latino neighborhood known as Anna Drive where there has been a recent rise in gang activity, authorities said. That is the neighborhood where police shot and killed Manuel Diaz, a reputed gang member who was unarmed, on July 21. The next night, police shot and killed suspected gang member Joel Acevedo after he reportedly shot at an officer. The killings prompted four days of violent demonstrations and a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit by Diaz's family. Mug shots of some reputed suspects were displayed at the news conference Friday. One was named Manuel Diaz but police declined to say whether he was the same Diaz who was shot. The raids were not related to the shootings and authorities even considered delaying them to avoid that appearance, police Chief John Welter said. "We didn't want to be seen as coming in now and arresting a bunch of community members and having people misunderstand or again spread rumors and false information about what we were doing," he said. "We need to regain some of the trust that has been lost as a result of some of these actions in the street by protesters," Welter said. The gang is suspected of drug-dealing and murder and those facing federal or state drug and weapons charges could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted, authorities said. Televised reports showed a line of men, some shirtless, sitting on the curb with their hands bound behind their backs. During the yearlong investigation dubbed Operation Halo, authorities also seized 11 pounds of crystal methamphetamine and 40 guns, including assault-style rifles, sawed-off shotguns and a pistol believed used in a killing, authorities said. The investigation was prompted by the 2011 stabbing death of a 12-year-old member of a graffiti tagging crew that is considered a "feeder" for the street gang, Dunn said. Prosecutors say Juan Martinez was walking home from school when he was stabbed during a fight with a member of a rival tagging crew. Bryan Ocampo is charged with murder.

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• 33 arrested in Anaheim gang crackdown
• The man who police claim to be "the trigger man" for a notorious street gang is a public threat and shouldn't be released pending deportation proceedings.
• Dozens arrested in crackdown on California gang

street gang member killed

42-year-old Laval man was fatally shot outside his apartment building early Saturday.  Laval police are investigating whether the homicide is linked to a fatal shooting early Friday evening in a busy parking lot outside Galeries d’Anjou.  A 37-year-old man was killed and another man was wounded in that attack. “We cannot confirm as of now but it is a possibility,” said Laval police constable Nathalie Lorrain, adding the force is in touch with its Montreal counterparts. In both shootings, police say the victims were known to police. A call came into 911 at about 2:20 a.m. reporting the sound of gunshots and a man lying on the ground in front of a building on Samson Blvd. in Laval, Lorrain said. The man was shot in the parking lot as he arrived home and managed to walk to the front of the building before collapsing. There were no eye-witnesses although a few people heard several gun shots, she said. The man was unconscious but still breathing when police arrived at the scene. He was pronounced dead in hospital, Lorrain said. Police allege the victim was a street-gang member.

Prosecutors from Atlanta to Mexico City want a crack at the light-haired, green-eyed Texan who reputedly climbed the ranks of a major Mexican drug cartel

Prosecutors from Atlanta to Mexico City want a crack at the light-haired, green-eyed Texan who reputedly climbed the ranks of a major Mexican drug cartel and directed soldiers in an endless drug war of beheadings and mass slaughters. Locked in one of Mexico's maximum-security prisons, Laredo-born Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez Villarreal has something everyone now wants: secrets. "The United States continues to seek extradition of Mr. Valdez to face the existing charges here, and we would welcome the opportunity to bring him to court here," said John Horn, an assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta. In just the last week, however, Valdez, 38, was implicated along with four retired and active high-ranking Mexican military officers, including three generals and a lieutenant colonel, accused of corruption and protecting cartel traffickers and their loads. If Valdez is the gangster authorities say he is, he knows plenty about drugs, cash and weapons moving across the border, as well as which law enforcement officers and political leaders may be on cartel payrolls. "He is in the middle of everything," said Mike Vigil, a retired chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Insane Clown Posse sues feds over 'gang' label

Insane Clown Posse plans to file suit against the federal government for the FBI's labeling of Juggalos -- as fans of the group are known -- as a gang, the group announced Friday at the annual Gathering of the Juggalos in rural Illinois. Last fall, fans of the Detroit-made horror-rap duo turned up on the FBI's National Gang Threat Assessment. The government report also cited street gangs with ties to Mexican drug cartels and other gangs linked to homicides, drug trafficking and gun-running. "Many Juggalos subsets exhibit gang-like behavior and engage in criminal activity and violence," the FBI report said. ICP's Violent J said Friday that the list affected the group's merchandise sales and caused police problems for some fans. "They're punishing fans for being Juggalos," he said. "This is the government's ways of telling us what you can listen to, what you can wear." Beasties sue Monster Mike (Mike D) Diamond, Adam (Ad-Rock) Horovitz and the estate of Adam (MCA) Yauch filed a lawsuit against Monster Energy Corp. on Wednesday, accusing the energy drink company of improperly using music by their group, Beastie Boys. According to a report at www.eonline.com, the suit says that a video on the company's website that promotes its Ruckus in the Rockies event is "comprised substantially of excerpts from the Beastie Boys Sound Recordings and the Beastie Boys Musical Compositions totaling more than three minutes in duration." The suit also accuses the company of giving "consumers the impression that Beastie Boys permitted the use of their name and intellectual property, and participated in connection with Monster's promotion of its products and events." They are seeking unspecified damages.

Vietnamese gang member was sentenced to life in prison without parole Friday for the 1995 execution-style slaying of a fellow gang member

Vietnamese gang member was sentenced to life in prison without parole Friday for the 1995 execution-style slaying of a fellow gang member, prosecutors said. An Orange County jury convicted Anthony Paul Johnson, Jr., 36, of Westminster in April of counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, with sentencing enhancements for murder by lying in wait, committing a crime for the benefit of a criminal street gang and murder to avoid arrest. Co-defendants Giang Thuy Nguyen, 36, of Fountain Valley; Tam Hung Nguyen, 36, of Riverside; and Truc Ngoc Tran, 35, of Santa Ana were each found guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. They are scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 21 and all face life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to the District Attorney's Office. On Feb. 24, 1995, Johnson, Giang Nguyen and fellow gang member Viet Nguyen robbed the Huntington Beach home of one of Viet Nguyen's high school classmates, prosecutors said, but Viet Nguyen fled the scene in the middle of the robbery because he thought the victim recognized him. Prosecutors said the other gang members plotted to kill Viet Nguyen for running away and to prevent him from implicating them if he were identified by the victim and arrested. Viet Nguyen was shot in the back of the head the next day while driving in Costa Mesa, after the other gang members persuaded him to take them to buy drugs, according to a statement released by the D.A.'s Office. To avoid retribution from their gang, prosecutors said the defendants lied and claimed Viet Nguyen was killed by a drug dealer in Costa Mesa. The case went cold until 2006, when the Costa Mesa Police Department began reinvestigating with the help of the District Attorney's Office. During sentencing Friday, an impact statement from the victim's father was read to the court. "Since the day we laid our son to rest, we have never stopped thinking about him, of his infectious smile," he wrote. "People tell us they hope we will be able to have some sense of closure. We don't know if we ever will. My other two sons and three daughters have lost their brother. How do you close an open wound in your heart?"

Gangster Disciple Street Gang Among Six Arrested in Carolane Homicide

Jackson police violent crimes investigators, with the assistance of the department's gang unit, identified suspects in the Sunday morning beating death of Antwan Brooks, of Denmark. Investigators developed the case and determined there was a large crowd of people at an apartment in the 50 block of Carolane Drive. Brooks was initially jumped from behind by three to four men within the crowd and was taken to the ground. Another eight to 10 more men joined in on the beating. During the attack, they took turns hitting and kicking Brooks. One of the men removed Brooks' shorts and threw them on a nearby basketball goal. Brooks had a cell phone that was taken during the attack. On Thursday, police presented their investigative findings to District Attorney General Jerry Woodall and asked him to convene a special grand jury. The grand jury met Friday morning and returned indictments on multiple suspects for first degree murder and felony murder. Beginning Friday afternoon and working through the evening, the Multi-Jurisdictional Violent Crime and Gang Task Force executed arrest warrants on those indicted. The task force arrested Terrell Reid, 29; Jonique Merriweather, 30; James Roberson, 27; Michael Anthony Smith, 22; Frank Clement Massengill, 34; and Byron Purdy, 33, all of Jackson. All six men are being held at the Madison County Jail with no bond. A formal arraignment and bond setting will be held in Madison County Circuit Court on a day to be determined by the court. The task force is comprised of local, county, state and federal agents with primary emphasis on the 26th and 28th Judicial Districts comprised of Henderson, Chester, Madison, Gibson, Haywood and Crockett counties. They are attempting to arrest others involved. Some of the suspects identified and arrested in Brooks' murder are documented members of the Gangster Disciple Street Gang, a.k.a. GD's, a.k.a. G's.

Manuel Diaz was a confirmed member of the East Side Anaheim gang, which was targeted in a series of raids that ended with 33 arrests

Manuel Diaz was a confirmed member of the East Side Anaheim gang, which was targeted in a series of raids that ended with 33 arrests, Anaheim police Sgt. Bob Dunn said.  Another 20 to 25 suspects already were in custody, he said. Diaz’s photograph was among those of suspects that were provided at a news conference. “He would have been arrested today,” Dunn said. Some 100 federal, state and local agents raided 54 locations in Anaheim and in Los Angeles County. Some of the raids concentrated on a poor, mainly Latino neighborhood known as Anna Drive where there has been a recent rise in gang activity and where the unarmed Diaz was killed on July 21. The next night, police shot and killed suspected gang member Joel Acevedo after he reportedly shot at an officer. The killings prompted four days of violent demonstrations and a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit by Diaz’s family. The raids were not connected to the shootings but protests delayed them, Police Chief John Welter said. “We didn’t want to be seen as coming in now and arresting a bunch of community members and having people misunderstand or again spread rumors and false information about what we were doing,” he said. “We need to regain some of the trust that has been lost as a result of some of these actions in the street by protesters,” Welter said. After the raids, police distributed fliers in English and Spanish that explained the yearlong investigation, which was dubbed Operation Halo because the city is home to the Angels baseball team. Some residents shook officers’ hands, Welter said. But others on Anna Drive told the Orange County Register (bit.ly/QVDtTg) that they felt the sweep was a retaliation against angry residents. “I just think this community is being targeted by the police because we’re speaking out,” said Ricardo Hurtado, 21. “This is all a cover-up,” he said. “It’s all show. They never expected this community to blow up like this.” The gang is suspected of drug dealing and murder and those facing federal or state drug and weapons charges could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of weapons charges and up to 40 years for drug charges, authorities said. Televised reports showed a line of men, some shirtless, sitting on the curb with their hands bound behind their backs. During the yearlong investigation, authorities seized 11 pounds of crystal methamphetamine and 40 guns, including assault-style rifles, sawed-off shotguns and a pistol believed used in a killing, authorities said. The investigation was prompted by the 2011 stabbing death of a 12-year-old member of a graffiti tagging crew that is considered a “feeder” for the street gang, Dunn said. Prosecutors say Juan Martinez was walking home from school when he was stabbed during a fight with a member of a rival tagging crew. Bryan Ocampo is charged with murder. Violent crime in Anaheim, home of Disneyland, jumped 10 percent last year and the number of murders nearly doubled, according to FBI crime statistics.

An alleged member of a Nortenos-affiliated gang in South San Francisco pleaded not guilty in federal court in San Francisco Friday to charges of attempting to murder three U.S. agents

An alleged member of a Nortenos-affiliated gang in South San Francisco pleaded not guilty in federal court in San Francisco Friday to charges of attempting to murder three U.S. agents as they raided his home in Petaluma on May 3. Victor Flores, 20, entered the not-guilty plea at an arraignment before U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Laporte. He is accused of shooting and wounding three U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as they served warrants on his residence at about 4:30 a.m. on May 3. Defense attorneys have said in court documents that Flores lived in the house with his parents and younger brother. U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag said Wednesday that the three agents are recovering. One has returned to full-time duty and the other two are continuing therapy, she said. The three counts of attempting to murder a federal agent and a fourth count of using a gun in a violent crime were lodged against Flores in a revised indictment issued by a U.S. grand jury on Tuesday. The new counts were added to existing charges in which Flores and 18 other people are accused of an array of gang-related crimes including racketeering and murder conspiracies. The previous charges were filed in an earlier version of the federal indictment on April 24. The indictment alleges the 19 defendants are members or associates of the 500 Block/C Street gang in South San Francisco. It says the group was originally two separate gangs that now function as a single association and that its members identify as Nortenos, defined as Northern Californians who are loyal to the Nuestra Familia prison gang. Four defendants, including Flores, are accused of murdering three young men perceived as rival gang members in South San Francisco on Dec. 22, 2010. Also accused of the murders are Joseph Ortiz, 22, of South San Francisco; Justin Whipple, 19, of San Bruno; and Benjamin Campos-Gonzalez, 21, of San Mateo. The indictment alleges that Ortiz, Flores, and Whipple shot at a total of seven people and killed three and wounded three others, while Campos-Gonzalez served as their driver. The four men could face possible death penalties if convicted of the murders, but prosecutors have not yet decided whether to seek death penalties. Sixteen of the defendants are accused of conspiring to racketeer, or to engage in a continuing criminal enterprise that allegedly included murder, attempted murder, drug trafficking and theft. The same 16 are also charged with conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit assault in aid of racketeering. The other three defendants face several charges including conspiracy to obstruct justice and impeding the investigation of the Dec. 22, 2010, murders. One defendant, Rodrigo Aguayo, 23, of San Mateo, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Susan Illston to the racketeering conspiracy charge. He is due to be sentenced by Illston on Nov. 2. No trial date has been set for the other defendants, and the case is now in an evidence-gathering stage.

MS-13 gang leader was outraged when he heard that members of his crew had been hanging out with Osbin Noel Hernandez-Gonzales

MS-13 gang leader was outraged when he heard that members of his crew had been hanging out with Osbin Noel Hernandez-Gonzales, a reputed member of a rival street gang, authorities said Tuesday. The MS-13 leader knew that Jeremy Oto Soto and another teenager wanted to become MS-13 members, so he decided the two teens would have to kill Hernandez-Gonzales to get into the gang, said Richmond prosecutor Ann Cabell Baskervill. "If they refused to do that, they and their families would be killed," Baskervill told Judge Richard D. Taylor Jr. on Tuesday in Richmond Circuit Court. Hours later, on July 24, 2011, Soto and the other teenage recruit, Luis Osvaldo Ramirez-Cabello, shot and killed Hernandez-Gonzales, 18, near the Huguenot Bridge on the south bank of the James River, Baskervill said. Soto, 17, of Chesterfield County, pleaded guilty Tuesday to second-degree murder, gang participation and use of a firearm in a murder. He had faced a charge of first-degree murder. A charge of conspiracy to commit murder was withdrawn as part of the plea deal. Soto now faces up to 53 years in prison when he is sentenced Dec. 18. Ramirez-Cabello, 16, also of Chesterfield, has a trial date set for Aug. 16 and faces the same charges Soto initially had faced, including first-degree murder. Baskervill said in court Tuesday that Soto and Ramirez-Cabello had been smoking marijuana with Hernandez-Gonzales at an MS-13 hangout in the 2700 block of Walmsley Boulevard in South Richmond. Hernandez-Gonzales was believed to be "representing" for the Latin Kings, a rival Hispanic gang. MS-13, a national street gang with ties to El Salvador, has a reputation for being especially violent. A person who was with the group that was hanging out on Walmsley Boulevard notified the MS-13 leader, Jose A. "el Pantro" Bran, that members of the gang were hanging out with a member of the Latin Kings, Baskervill said. Bran devised a plan for Soto and Ramirez-Cabello to earn initiation into the gang by killing Hernandez-Gonzales, Baskervill said. "They had not killed anyone, and killing someone is a requirement for membership in the gang," Baskervill said. Hours later, Hernandez-Gonzales was brought down a path to the river with Soto and Ramirez-Cabello, known as "Destroyer," and several other gang members and leaders, Baskervill said. Hernandez-Gonzales was shot multiple times. "The gun changed hands among the MS-13 participants," Baskervill said. "But the defendant, Soto, fired at least one shot that struck Osbin. Destroyer also fired a shot that struck Osbin." The body was discovered in the 8200 block of Riverside Drive, along a trail south of the river near the Huguenot Bridge. The victim suffered two gunshot wounds to his face, a graze wound to his body and a wound to his hand. Soon after the killing, Soto and Ramirez-Cabello were "beaten into the gang," the final ritual for gang membership. On Tuesday, Soto sat in court with a Spanish interpreter between him and his father. Soto's twin sister sat in the gallery behind him. "Is something funny?" the judge snapped at Soto during the hearing. Soto appeared to reply, "Sorry, I'm nervous." His attorney, James M. Nachman, said later that his client is remorseful. "He's just nervous," he said. "Sometimes it looks like he's smiling, and he's not." Nachman added that his client had feared for the lives of his family after Bran allegedly ordered that Soto and Ramirez-Cabello kill the victim or they would be killed along with their families. "The law doesn't allow you to trade a life for a life," Nachman said. Bran and four other suspected MS-13 members were indicted in February on more than three dozen state charges in a brutal stabbing of a man in South Richmond. Baskervill said those charges have been withdrawn because federal authorities have taken over the case. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia declined Tuesday to discuss the status of the stabbing case.

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Towerside posse Frederick “Ace” Glaspie, 27, and Marche Daniels, 25, were gunned down on Burr Avenue in the heart of Towerside’s territory.

Two men who were shot dead after a broad-daylight brawl in Visitacion Valley on Monday were both named in a 2010 city gang injunction, with one identified as a member of the notoriously vicious Towerside posse. Frederick “Ace” Glaspie, 27, and Marche Daniels, 25, were gunned down on Burr Avenue in the heart of Towerside’s territory. An injunction means a person is barred from a neighborhood known to The City to house a gang, but in this case the restriction was only given to Glaspie even though Daniels also was named in the injunction. In October 2008, according to the City Attorney’s Office, Daniels had survived an afternoon shooting at Sunnydale and Garrison avenues. That day, police said, he was accompanied to the hospital by Diondre Young, another Towerside member who lost his life to gun violence earlier this year. Since the death of Young, who was found in Rincon Hill on March 30, six more men have been fatally shot in Visitacion Valley. And one other who was killed elsewhere has been connected to the neighborhood. Additionally, there have been several nonfatal shootings. One of the homicides occurred Sunday when an 18-year-old who also was connected to Burr Avenue was found shot dead in Diamond Heights about 9:40 a.m., police said. Police have not said whether the recent killings are linked. But in response to the violence, more plainclothes and uniformed cops have been deployed to the neighborhood, police Officer Albie Esparza said. However, the violence has apparently persisted. About 10 p.m. Monday, police said, a drive-by shooting occurred at Sunnydale Avenue and Rey Street, only blocks from where Glaspie and Daniels were killed. The gunfire was aimed at a group of people standing on the sidewalk, police said, but the bullets only struck a passing SUV and no one was injured. No arrests have been made in connection with either of Monday’s shootings, police said. Suspect descriptions were vague. If necessary, Esparza said, more police sources might be pulled from around The City to deal with the flare-up. Police will act as peacekeepers as much as enforcers, trying to hash out differences between feuding groups, Esparza said. The violence has caught the attention of City Hall. Mayor Ed Lee has suggested looking into the possibility of a stop-and-frisk policy that would be similar to the one used in New York City. That idea has been rejected by the Board of Supervisors over civil liberty concerns.