Targeting Long Island's gang problem

From CBS 2:

Retired Suffolk County Police detective John Oliva specialized in gangs.

So why are gang members recruiting children as young as 10 or 11?

“It’s the age where can start getting into these kids’ heads,” Oliva said. “The recruitment sometimes occurs at home also. We’ve had it where three, four brothers in the same family part of the MS-13 street gang.”

Feride Castillo of the Empowerment Collaborative of Long Island works with young children in poverty.

“When we are talking about gangs, the dynamics are so complicated,” Castillo said. “We are talking about children sometimes even being born into families that are already involved in gangs.”

“It’s kind of hard dealing with the struggle and stuff like that, because, you know, you come from a gang-related home,” 13-year-old “Maria” said. “Like, oh I want to be popular, so I am going to be in the gang.”

Some females but mostly males make up Long Island’s estimated 1,000 gang members. Protection from bullying, a desperate need to belong and a yearning for respect are all reasons why Sergio Argueta joined at age 13 and led a gang for five years in Hempstead.

“A mode of survival is fight or flight, right? And oftentimes, kids are getting tired of being bullied, of getting picked on,” Argueta said.

MS-13 set Flushing fire

From CBS 2:

A suspected MS-13 gang member faces charges after he allegedly set a fire in Queens that left two other members in critical condition, police sources tell CBS2.

Crews were called to the two-alarm house fire around 2 a.m. Monday on 41st Avenue in Flushing.

Investigators later determined a flammable liquid was used to fuel the flames.

Two men, ages 29 and 48, were hospitalized in critical condition.

Sources say they were both MS-13 members squatting inside the vacant residence.

The suspect, 20-year-old Melvin Gongora, had also been staying there, sources say. He was caught on camera fleeing the fire.

Sources say he told arresting officers something to the effect of “I have to get them before they get me.”

Gongora was charged with arson, attempted murder and assault, among others.

ICE cracking down on DUI offenders

From PIX11:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested more than two dozen undocumented immigrants during an operation cracking down on those with convictions for driving under the influence.

All but one of the 25 arrested in November had a previous DUI-related conviction, officials said. The other individual was arrested for immigration violations.

One of the men arrested, a 35-year-old previously removed Honduran man, also had been convicted of assault. A 40-year-old Salvadoran national has been identified as an alleged MS-13 gang member.

Getting to MS-13 through immigrants

From Fox News:

Critics of the sanctuary city crackdown say it will chill immigrants from helping ICE go after MS-13 gang members, but the feds say they have plenty of tools – including a change in visa status - to win cooperation from the immigrant community.

The options seem to be paying off, with investigators from ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations saying immigrant cooperation is making a big difference in the fight against the lethal and ruthless MS-13 gang.

In an atmosphere where cooperating with law enforcement is a death sentence imposed by the gang, most illegal immigrants appear to be more concerned about how to obtain legal resident status than financial reward, said one investigator who declined to be identified.

But at the same time, critics warn that the visa tool should be used only sparingly, since it could lead to fraudulent claims.

Cops dig up Kissena Park looking for MS-13 victims

From the Daily News:

Cops were digging in a Queens park Friday afternoon for the bodies of two possible victims of MS-13, according to sources.

Police could be seen unloading heavy excavation equipment at Kissena Park near 164th St. and Underhill Ave. in Flushing around 5 p.m., witnesses said.

One source said that cops were investigating after they received a tip and another law enforcement source said that the bodies could be related to MS-13 killings.

Small Long Island town has a big gang problem

From the NY Times:

Four dead teenagers. Two weeks. One town. And a ruthless gang, the authorities say, was most likely responsible for the toll. Again.

On Sept. 13, Nisa Mickens, 15, and her best friend, Kayla Cuevas, 16, were murdered, their battered bodies found near an elementary school here. A week later and just two miles away, the skeletal remains of two more teenagers — identified as Oscar Acosta, 19, and Miguel Garcia-Moran, 15 — were found in the woods near a psychiatric hospital. Oscar had been missing since May, Miguel since February. Their deaths have been ruled homicides.

Brentwood, a hardscrabble town of nearly 60,000 on Long Island, 40 miles east of Manhattan, has reached another crisis point. For nearly two decades, MS-13, a gang with roots in Los Angeles and El Salvador, has been terrorizing the town, the authorities say, especially its young people. Since 2009, its members have been accused of at least 14 murders, court and police records show.

School officials are scrambling. Police officers are searching. Students are frightened. Parents are anguished.

Tensions simmer here because some residents say they believe an increase in Central American migrants to town has led to the increase in gang violence. According to 2014 census figures compiled by Queens College, Brentwood’s population is 68 percent Latino or Hispanic, with more than 17,000 residents claiming to be from El Salvador.

Timothy Sini, who became the Suffolk County police commissioner 11 months ago, after his predecessor, James Burke, pleaded guilty to civil rights violations and obstruction of justice, has vowed to eradicate the gangs.

“There’s been a huge influx, to be honest with you,” said Ray Mayo, the president of the Brentwood Association of Concerned Citizens, who added that he was upset over undocumented immigrants crowding rental properties. “It seems like a whole new set of gang members who have stirred the pot up.”

We have plenty of MS-13 here in Queens but no one wants to talk about it. I wonder why?

Gang members charged in gun & drug sales

From the Queens Courier:

Eight purported street gang members from Queens have been charged after peddling guns and drugs during undercover buys, prosecutors announced.

“Illegal firearms that flood our streets pose a serious and deadly threat to public safety and the distribution of illegal drugs is a plague on our society. For those arrested, the message could not be clearer: law enforcement has no tolerance for those involved in the weapons and drug trade,” District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement Tuesday.

According to prosecutors, seven of those arrested were alleged members of the Trinitarios, “a violent New York-based Dominican street gang,” and the eighth defendant is a reputed member of MS-13, another “violent street gang primarily composed of Central Americans.”

The buys, which took place in Queens between November 2012 and June 2014, included a total of 14 guns, with ammunition in some cases, and cocaine, MDPV and marijuana, according to the district attorney’s office. During that time, the members were unknowingly selling to NYPD operatives.

See press release for details on perps. Glendale seems to be a dirtbag magnet lately.

Wendy's drive-by in Jamaica

From the Times Ledger:

Three suspected MS 13 members were shot by alleged members of the Latin Kings during a drive-by shooting in the parking lot of a Wendy’s in Jamaica Thursday afternoon, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

“It turns out that apparently it is a dispute between the MS 13 gang and the Latin Kings,” Brown told reporters outside the Wendy’s on Jamaica Avenue near the intersection of Queens Boulevard.

After the shooting, which took place at about 3 p.m., the suspects - who are believed to be members of the Latin Kings - fled in a tan Toyota Corolla with tinted windows northbound on Queens Boulevard, the DA said. Investigators at the scene said there had not yet been any arrests.

“Like in so many different boroughs, we do have a gang problem here,” Brown said. “It’s something that the police are very much on top of.”

Two of the people shot were 20 years old and one was 17, and all three are suspected MS 13 members, the DA said. One person was taken to Jamaica Hospital, while the two others were transported to New York Hospital Queens in Flushing.

10 Flushing members of MS-13 busted

From the Daily News:

Ten members of the infamous MS-13 gang from Flushing were indicted Thursday on racketeering charges, including violent machete and baseball attacks against rivals, authorities said.

Federal agents and NYPD detectives arrested eight of the thugs in early morning raids while two others were already incarcerated.

The defendants were members of a powerful clique of Mara Salvatrucha 13 wreaking havoc in their Queens neighborhood since 2007, authorities said.

Christian Merino, a reputed leader of the clique, was secretly intercepted on a wiretap discussing a September 2010 stabbing and baseball bat beating with an associate.

A machete was seized from gang member Abraham Iraheta, who is charged with using the large knife in a 2009 attack.

Carlos Hernandez is charged with volunteering to be the triggerman in a revenge shooting against a rival who slashed the face of MS-13 member Kevin Cardona.

The indictment also charges the Queens-based faction with raising money to finance the gang’s activities in El Salvador and with plotting to smuggle MS-13 members from the Texas border to Virginia.

Illegal alien gang bangers pinched by the Feds

From the Wave:

Twenty-five members of the vicious La Maria Salvatrucha (MS-13) South American street gang were indicted this week in federal court in Islip, Long Island, charged with 70 counts of murder, including the death of Mario Alberto Canton Quijada, 25, of Beach Channel Drive, who was found dead with multiple stab wounds on Beach 12 Street in Far Rockaway on March 17 last year.

Two of the men facing federal trial are Roger Alvarado of Queens and Heriberto Martinez of Central Avenue in Far Rockaway. Those two, along with a third, unindicted man, were found on the beach by police. Police say that uniformed officers on patrol on the boardwalk at about 12:34 a.m. on March 17, 2010, spotted three young men on the beach.

The cops went down on the sand to investigate the three and found Quijada with multiple stab wounds to his body.

An ambulance was called and EMS workers declared him dead at the scene.

The three men on the beach with the body were taken into custody and transported to the 101 Precinct in Far Rockaway for questioning.

At the time, local sources conjectured that the murder may have been the result of a fight between rival gang members.

The three men were arrested and transported to Queens Criminal Court for booking.

The three were identified by police as Diego Marroquin, 19, of Mott Avenue; Heriberto Martinez, 23, of Central Avenue and Roger Alvarado, 30, of Queens.

Marroquin and Martinez were charged in Queens Criminal Court with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.

State charges against Alvarado were brought later on, according to court sources.

Martinez is charged in the federal indictment with not only the murder of Quijada, but with an earlier murder in Central Islip (Long Island) in which a woman and her two-year-old son were shot and left in a secluded wooded area on the island.

All of the men are charged with a series of violent crimes, including attempted murder, conspiracy to murder rival gang members and assaults that left a number of people badly injured.

Court documents say that MS-13 is a violent street gang, made up primarily of illegal immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

Trash among us

From the Daily News:

An MS-13 gang member whooped it up, shouting "The beast has eaten!" after murdering a Queens man he mistook for a rival Blood, a government witness testified Thursday.

Julio Chavez is charged with emptying his revolver into Maurice Parker on May 18, 2007, in Flushing.

Chavez then hopped into a SUV, flashed gang signs and yelled in Spanish, former MS-13 gang member Jose Molina said in Brooklyn Federal Court.

" 'Yeah, homie, that's how you're supposed to do it,'" Chavez said, according to Molina. "'You see the blood coming out of his head?'"

Molina said Chavez then uttered, "The beast has eaten!"

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ali Kazemi asked the witness to translate the meaning of Chavez's rant.

"That he had just given a soul to the devil," Molina said.

Parker, 21, was not a Blood and was mistakenly targeted because he had on red sweatshirt.

Chavez and other members of a Long Island-based MS-13 crew allegedly went hunting for a Blood to retaliate for an earlier stabbing.

New strategy against gangs

From the NY Times:

When Walter Alberto Torres, a Salvadoran immigrant and a gang member, confessed in October 2009 that he had unsuccessfully plotted the assassination of an immigration agent in New York City, the admission touched off more than just his prosecution.

In the weeks that followed, immigration authorities, working with other law enforcement agencies, conducted raids on suspected hide-outs of Mr. Torres’s gang, La Mara Salvatrucha 13, an international network of violent cliques with a growing presence in New York City and its suburbs.

And that offensive — intended in part, officials said, to signal that the government would not tolerate attacks on its officers — was only the beginning for the New York office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In the months since, agents in the office’s investigative division have expanded their dragnet far beyond La Mara Salvatrucha and across the region, from Ulster County in the Hudson Valley to eastern Long Island.

From October 2009 through September, they arrested 285 suspects they said were gang members or close associates — a record for the office and a fivefold increase over the same period the previous year.

The surge, which has unfolded with little public notice, coincided with the arrival of James T. Hayes Jr., who became the special agent in charge of the investigations division several weeks before Mr. Torres confessed to the murder plot.

Mr. Hayes, 37, said that while the threat to an agent had fired up his team, the arrests also reflected a new emphasis for the investigative unit, which enforces more than 400 federal customs and immigration statutes. When he assumed the job, he said, he reviewed the office’s recent moves against gangs — it had made 57 such arrests in the previous year — and concluded that his team could be doing far more.

He added 3 agents to a force that now numbers 11, “and really gave them a mandate, not just to look at individual gang members but to look at these street gangs as criminal organizations and to use all our tools to disrupt and dismantle them,” Mr. Hayes said in an interview.

The office’s stepped-up action against gangs reflects a nationwide shift in priorities by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, which says it is now focusing on capturing immigrants who pose a threat to public safety and security, rather than those with civil violations. The New York offensive has come under the banner of Operation Community Shield, a five-year-old national campaign by the immigration agency to dismember violent street gangs by prosecuting and deporting their members and associates.

Several law enforcement officials in the New York area said gang activity appears to have grown in recent years, particularly among immigrants, spurring the formation of new anti-gang units and greater collaboration between local and federal agencies. Yet even as that has produced an increase in prosecutions, officials said, the very nature of gangs — quick to form, grow and change shape — has made them particularly hard to track and tackle, and the immigration agents’ contribution has helped.

Man arrested for discharging gun to scare away gang

From 1010WINS:

UNIONDALE, N.Y. (1010 WINS/ AP) – George Grier is out on bail after allegedly firing warning shots with a rifle at a group of suspected gang members over the weekend and now he’s in seclusion at his home in Uniondale.

George Grier with Attorney John Lewis Jr. (Photo/Kathleen Maloney)His wife, Ylana, said the family is shaken and afraid that the large group of men who invaded their property will come back.

“There’s that feeling of are they coming back to retaliate?” Ylana Grier said. “How can I still guard my home? We no longer have the rifle.”

Grier, 30, was arrested after he fired rounds into the ground and air from an assault-style rifle after arguing with 15 to 20 men — believed to be MS-13 gang members – gathered outside his Long Island home Sunday evening, Nassau County police said.

“They were literally on my lawn,” Grier’s wife said. “I felt they were going to invade my home, I thought my husband was going to be killed.”

No one was hurt in the incident.

Ylana Grier said her husband was merely protecting her and their two young daughters — ages 2 and 1 — from the men. She said the family did not know who the men were or why they swarmed the lawn.

Grier was arrested on reckless endangerment and weapons possession charges. He was released on $10,000 bond after his arraignment Monday.

A FedEx worker, Grier is the grandson of a local minister and is a church deacon himself, his sister, Caprice Rines said. Grier bought the rifle for self-defense amid concern about recent shootings in the area, Rines said.

The family is now relying on surveillance cameras and a pit bull for protection.

Candidate cleaning up gang tags

From the Queens Courier:

The new turf battle heating up in western Queens is over who has control of the walls in its neighborhoods.

Community activists and elected officials are working to clean up the graffiti and the gangs who create it.

“We want to let them know that the people in the community are involved,” said community activist and Assembly candidate Francisco Moya. "We will take the community back wall by wall."

Moya organized a six-point graffiti cleanup plan targeting gang signs in Corona. He cites fighting gang violence as a focus of his campaign for the Assembly seat, which is now open because Jose Peralta won a Special Election to replace the ousted State Senator Hiram Monserrate.

The now State Senator Jose Peralta said he tried to tackle the same issue when he represented the area in the Assembly. He said removing graffiti is important because gangs use it to communicate with each other and warn other gangs to stay off their turf.

“It happens in cycle,” Peralta said. “We managed to deter it for a while then they come back. It is because of the Roosevelt Avenue corridor.”

The graffiti signs are from gangs like the Latin Kings and MS-13, a violent gang of mostly Central Americans.

“These gangs are really the more violent ones that are picking up steam,” Moya said. “People who live in the community have a right to live without fear.”

Moya wants to increase funding for the Gang Crimes unit in Queens, increase the amount of lighting on streets where violence is up and increase the number of street corner cameras and foot patrols.

“If you have a presence, there won’t be opportunities for gangs to rise up,” Moya said.

Moya also proposed measures including building a community center in Corona and creating a youth mentoring program to keep kids busy and out of gangs.

MS-13 invading all over

From NBC 4:

The Hispanic gang was formed in Los Angeles in the mid-eighties. But when arrested members were deported, the gang spread to Central America, concentrating in El Salvador, before spreading to Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and other parts of the world.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, MS-13 is present in at least 42 states and there are as many as 10,000 members nationwide. Gang members are generally known for blue and white colors in their clothes and their graffiti. The number 13 and the letters MS are present. Another trademark are tattoos, not just on the arms and chest, but also on the head, neck and face.

In New Jersey, gang is most prevalent in Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex and Somerset counties, but its presence has grown on Long Island as well, making law enforcement's job ever more difficult.