Category Archives: Gangs

May 14, 2012

Mexico violence: Monterrey police find 49 bodies

Posted on May 14, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

The grim discovery comes just days after police found the dismembered, decapitated bodies of 18 people in two abandoned vehicles in western Mexico.


The killings appear to be the latest in a string of brutal murders linked to a continuing conflict between rival drug gangs.

Forty-nine mutilated bodies have been found dumped by a roadside near the city of Monterrey in northern Mexico.

Security officials said the 43 men and six women had been decapitated and had their hands cut off, making identification difficult.

They blamed the killings on a conflict between rival drugs gangs – a note left with the bodies said they had been killed by the Zetas cartel.

It is the latest in a series of recent massacres in northern Mexico.

The Zetas have been fighting the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels for control of smuggling routes into the US.

Unidentified

The bodies were found at 04:00 local time (09:00 GMT) in Cadereyta municipality on the road from Monterrey to Reynosa on the US border.

Security officials said the bodies appeared to have been killed at another location up to two days ago and dumped from a truck.

“We know from the characteristics that this is the result of violence between criminal gangs, it is not an attack on the civilian population,” Nuevo Leon State security spokesman Jorge Domene said.

[...]

Original source.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Crime, Drugs and Cartels, Gangs, Mexico/Central America, Murder

May 11, 2012

Riots were a ‘taste of Britain to come’, warns Government adviser

Posted on May 11, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Last summer’s riots are a “taste of Britain to come” as politicians are failing to deal with the gang warfare, crime-ridden streets and absent fathers, a Government adviser has warned.


Simon Marcus says the root causes of the riots have not been addressed in an article for the Spectator

Simon Marcus, a charity boss appointed to investigate the riots, has launched a blistering attack on the Government, local councils and police for being “in denial” about the gang culture behind the unrest.

An official report into last August’s violence by the Riots, Communities and Victims Panel found that a lack of confidence in the police, materialism and poor parenting were all partially to blame.

Mr Marcus was a member of the panel that wrote the report, but he said it “failed to address the deeper causes” of the violence.

Writing in the Spectator, he said few are willing to admit that an “epidemic of father absence” had lead to a vacuum which is now filled by dangerous gangs that give young people security, identity, loyalty and money.

“Many may be in denial of this reality – but in many parts of our country this culture now owns the streets and last August it simply did what it says on the tin,” he said.

He blamed gang culture for “dominating areas” as the disintegration of the traditional family has demoralised and fractured society.

[...]

Original source.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Crime, Europe, Gangs, Riots

May 10, 2012

Interpol says organised gangs behind internet crime boom

Posted on May 10, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

He said that US banks reportedly lost $900 million (690 million euros) to conventional robbers last year but $12 billion (9.2 billion euros) to cyber criminals. He also warned of the dangers to global security of cyber attacks, saying that Interpol itself had been hit by the hacker collective Anonymous.


Interpol president Khoo Boon Hui

Interpol president Khoo Boon Hui said on Tuesday that organised international gangs are behind most internet scams and that cyber crime’s estimated cost is more than that of cocaine, heroin and marijuana trafficking put together.

Speaking to delegates at the opening of the France-based international police agency’s European Regional Conference in Tel Aviv, Khoo quoted a study by London’s Metropolitan University indicating that “80 percent of crime committed online is now connected to organised gangs operating across borders.”

“Criminal gangs now find that transnational and cyber crime are far more rewarding and profitable than other, riskier forms of making money,” he said.

“Experts have warned that the cost of cyber crime is larger than the combined costs of cocaine, marijuana and heroin trafficking. In Europe, the cost of cybercrime has apparently reached 750 billion euros ($979 billion) a year,” he said.

Khoo cited illegal gambling and credit card and banking fraud as examples.

[...]

Original source.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Crime, Gangs, Technology

May 1, 2012

Springfield fighting gangs with Green Beret tactics

Posted on May 1, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Gang members and drug dealers cruised the streets on motor scooters carrying SKS semiautomatic rifles in broad daylight. Gunfire erupted almost daily.

At first glance, the Brightwood neighborhood in this central New England city would seem to have little in common with war-torn villages in Iraq or Afghanistan.

But when two Massachusetts state troopers, Michael Cutone and Thomas Sarrouf, returned to their jobs here after deployments with a Green Beret unit in Iraq, they noticed troubling parallels.

Like the residents of Avghani, the small northern Iraqi town where the two had helped establish and train a local police force to combat insurgents, many families in Brightwood, a low-income, largely Puerto Rican neighborhood in the North End, lived in fear.

Gang members and drug dealers cruised the streets on motor scooters carrying SKS semiautomatic rifles in broad daylight. Gunfire erupted almost daily.

Perhaps the only sentiments that ran higher than the residents’ fears were their apathy and distrust of the police, who swooped in to make arrests but did little to involve themselves in the community.

Before their deployments, Cutone and Sarrouf might have been similarly distant. But their experience overseas changed their perspective, convincing them it was futile to fight a war without gaining the trust and support of those most affected by it.

[...]

Original source.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Crime, Drugs and Cartels, Gangs

Sheriff Baca disappointed with lawsuit ruling (Video)

Posted on May 1, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

The U.S. Supreme Court decision is precedent setting. It means supervisors like Sheriff Lee Baca could be held accountable for racial gang violence in his jails.


Sheriff Lee Baca

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca says he’s disappointed with a Supreme Court ruling that a former jail inmate’s lawsuit against him can go to trial. The suit stemmed from a racially motivated jail brawl that left the inmate badly injured.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision is precedent setting. It means supervisors like Sheriff Lee Baca could be held accountable for racial gang violence in his jails.

When Dion Starr was awaiting trial at the Men’s Central Jail in 2006, he claims three Latino gang members came into his cell with homemade knives.

“I was stabbed 23 times. My cellmate was injured real bad. I’m yelling for help, my cellmate is yelling for help, no one comes to help us,” he said.

Starr and his attorney say someone had to let the inmates into the cell. Starr says a deputy watched the entire incident, and afterwards, kicked Starr in the face and broke his nose.

“When I came from the hospital, no one ever asked me one time who stabbed me. I never got interviewed, and I asked for an interview,” he said.

[...]

Original source.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Gangs, Law & Courts

April 29, 2012

UPRISING: Hip Hop & The LA Riots (Video)

Posted on April 29, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

20 years after riots ripped through Los Angeles, “Uprising” documents how hip hop forecasted — and some say ignited — the worst civil unrest of the 20th century. The film revisits the riots in gripping detail and draws from a diverse collection of voices — the rappers, rioters, victims, police officers, journalists and everyday citizens of South Central Los Angeles.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Culture, Flash Mobs and Looting, Gangs, History, Riots

April 24, 2012

Joel Kotkin: The Great California Exodus

Posted on April 24, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

A leading U.S. demographer and ‘Truman Democrat’ talks about what is driving the middle class out of the Golden State.

‘California is God’s best moment,” says Joel Kotkin. “It’s the best place in the world to live.” Or at least it used to be.

Mr. Kotkin, one of the nation’s premier demographers, left his native New York City in 1971 to enroll at the University of California, Berkeley. The state was a far-out paradise for hipsters who had grown up listening to the Mamas & the Papas’ iconic “California Dreamin’” and the Beach Boys’ “California Girls.” But it also attracted young, ambitious people “who had a lot of dreams, wanted to build big companies.” Think Intel, Apple and Hewlett-Packard.

Now, however, the Golden State’s fastest-growing entity is government and its biggest product is red tape. The first thing that comes to many American minds when you mention California isn’t Hollywood or tanned girls on a beach, but Greece. Many progressives in California take that as a compliment since Greeks are ostensibly happier. But as Mr. Kotkin notes, Californians are increasingly pursuing happiness elsewhere.

Nearly four million more people have left the Golden State in the last two decades than have come from other states. This is a sharp reversal from the 1980s, when 100,000 more Americans were settling in California each year than were leaving. According to Mr. Kotkin, most of those leaving are between the ages of 5 and 14 or 34 to 45. In other words, young families.

The scruffy-looking urban studies professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., has been studying and writing on demographic and geographic trends for 30 years. Part of California’s dysfunction, he says, stems from state and local government restrictions on development. These policies have artificially limited housing supply and put a premium on real estate in coastal regions.

[...]

Original source.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Employment, Gangs, Government, Immigration, Multiculturalism

April 12, 2012

Police to White Victim: We ‘Don’t Mess’ with Black Gang

Posted on April 12, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

They told Stokes that there was nothing they could do, as it would be impossible to identify those who actually wielded the knives. And then there was that more shocking admission. Both Stokes and Boyd were told the same thing by the Adamsville police. We “don’t mess with the Outcasts of Alabama.”

Most of us have heard about how the media won’t report on black-on-white crime. We also may know that authorities sometimes sweep it under the rug due to political pressure, usually with a wink and a nod. But not so in rural Alabama, where the police actually told a white crime victim that they “don’t mess” with a local black motorcycle gang.

The tragic event that led to this shocking admission occurred on March 28, as truck driver Nick Stokes and neighbor Johnathan Cooper were heading out of Birmingham hauling a portable cabin. While rounding a curve, one of Stokes’ tires slipped and kicked up some gravel, which angered a black motorcycle-gang member who was in close proximity. The gangster — part of the notorious “Outcasts of Alabama” — gave chase and tried to force Stokes to pull over to the side of the road. Here’s what happened next, as reported by the Macon Beacon’s Scott Boyd, whose piece has been published online by J. Christian Adams:

The motorcyclist then sped up and pulled in front of Stokes [sic] F-250. He stopped in the middle of the road and forced Stokes to stop. He then jumped off his bike and came around to the passenger side and hit the rear passenger window with his fist but it didn’t break. Stokes then made the quick decision to get out of there and pulled out around the parked motorcycle.

Stokes said he looked back in his rear-view as he pulled away and noticed the biker rolling in the highway. “He either tried to jump in the back of the truck or onto the trailer and somehow slipped.”

[...]

Original source.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Crime, Gangs, Law & Courts

April 3, 2012

America has a starring role in the drug war in Mexico in ‘Murder Capital of the World’ (Video)

Posted on April 3, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

He’s the biggest drug lord in the world, in my opinion. He’s the leader of the Sinaloa cartel. And just recently, we talked about this before the show, about four or five months ago his wife delivered twins in Los Angeles. And people are wondering if he’s the greatest drug lord in the world, why wasn’t his wife questioned or held at the hospital?


Charlie Minn

This is a rush transcript from “On the Record,” March 30, 2012.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Now, we have been telling you about this almost every night for three years — Mexico, no one is safe, now even the police. This week five policemen were gunned down at a party in Mexico. It happened in the city of Juarez right next door to El Paso, Texas. And like we keep telling you, Mexico’s deadly drug cartel violence is spilling over the border into the United States. So is anyone paying attention? Filmmaker Charlie Minn is. He just made a documentary called “Murder Capital of the World.”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just the amount of corruption has been there for decades. Sometimes the officers have to take bribes because that’s the only way to survive. You take the bribe or you are killed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAN SUSTEREN: Charlie Minn joins us. Nice to see you. I don’t know if the word “enjoy,” I don’t know how you can enjoy watching a horrible crisis right next door. How bad is it?

CHARLIE MINN, DIRECTOR, “MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD”: It’s really bad, Greta. In 2010 there were more murders in Juarez than the 9/11 attacks. Since 2008, we have had over 10,000 murders in Juarez, which is 40 percent greater than both of our Middle East wars put together. Despite all that, President Obama is sitting around having a ham sandwich, watching all these innocent Mexico people being executed.

[...]

Original source.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Crime, Drugs and Cartels, Gangs, Murder

April 1, 2012

Feds: Crips gang ran teen prostitution ring in Northern Virginia

Posted on April 1, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Between April 2009 and March 2012, according to an affidavit by FBI Agent Jeffrey F. Johannes, at least 10 high school girls were recruited by UGC leaders, including one 16-year-old girl who was approached by Mr. Strom at a Metro station, told she was pretty and advised “she could make a lot of money by having sex with men.”


Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II

The Crips, one of the largest and most violent street gangs in the United States, has spread its network of crime into high schools across the country, including Virginia, where gang leaders recruited young girls as prostitutes with promises of “lots of money” and then maintained their allegiance through beatings, threats, assaults and an endless supply of drugs.

With over 35,000 members in an estimated 800 individual gangs or “sets” in more than 30 states and 120 cities, the Crips recruited the girls — some of them runaways — after approaching them on the street or at Metro stations and by making contact with them through Facebook and DateHookUp.com.

Most of the girls are 15 and 16 who, according to documents unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, became reluctant to report their “pimps” to the police after what law enforcement authorities described as violent and frequent beatings and threats.

With a requirement to commit acts of violence to obtain or maintain their gang membership, the Crips locally have added to their reputations as violent street thugs. In the Washington Metropolitan area, they have been involved in attempted murders, assaults, rapes, robberies, thefts, drug distribution, obstruction of justice by threatening witnesses and racketeering to fund their enterprise.

[...]

Original source.


→ Leave a comment

Posted in Crime, Gangs, Sex Crimes, Slavery