Editor's Note: The following story by Los Angeles Times writers Joe Mozingo, Sam Quinones and Molly Hennessy-Fiske, illustrates how gangs dominate and suck the very life-blood out of a community. Residents who live among the notorious Drew Street clique of the Avenues gang, admit to the terror, fear and criminal acts by which the gang controls them. A key shot-caller for this population of thugs is a gang-mother whose own children are loyal soldiers. One was fatally gunned down, earlier this spring, in a battle with Los Angeles Police officers after he shot and killed, in cold blood, a man who was out walking his two-year old granddaughter. So deadly is this gang, and such was the avalanche of wire-tapped racketeering evidence against them, that 500 federal agents participated in the assault on the gang, netting 28 arrests.
The 10-month investigation leading to these arrests was conducted by a Los Angeles task force of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Questions that might spring to mind as you read this article are: Is a virtual declaration of war and military-like assault by law enforcement a neighborhood's only protection from the growth and paralyzing power of its gangs? Why did some of the residents feel more terrified by the police raid rather than by the permanent threat the gang posed to them? What protections and other tangible benefits do residents need to help rout out the gangs living among them? What kinds of inducements can law enforcement provide residents to motivate them to come forward and testify against gang members in court? How can the encrusted psychology of fear and submission be broken so that residents can realize the collective power they themselves have to determine the welfare, safety and future of their neighborhoods? What kinds of law enforcement messages (e.g., billboard public service announcements, radio bulletins, television flash releases) need to be devised and delivered consistently to break through and overcome the gang criminal mindset of deliberate, nonstop, premeditated and spontaneous law-breaking?
With a sweeping federal racketeering indictment, more than 500 agents, including 10 SWAT teams, arrested 28 people in an attempt to root out the Avenues gang members who have ruled the area with violence and near impunity. The indictment, which grew out of a 10-month investigation lead by a Los Angeles task force of the Drug Enforcement Administration, names 70 defendants -- mostly connected to the Drew Street clique of the larger Avenues gang. The gang dates to the zoot suit era in Northeast Los Angeles and is closely connected to the Mexican Mafia prison gang. Twenty-six defendants were already in custody and 16 are at large.
Prosecutors allege that the gang committed three murders, shot at police, extorted businesses, conducted home invasion robberies, taxed drug dealers for the Mexican Mafia and threatened potential witnesses -- all as part of an enterprise to distribute methamphetamine and rock cocaine in the area. Authorities say undercover agents conducted scores of drug purchases from the gang during the investigation.
U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O'Brien called the sweep "the largest gang take-down in recent L.A. history."
He said he was confident that by targeting so many defendants with heavy federal charges, the effort would accomplish what previous crackdowns, convictions, injunctions and evictions have so far been unable to do: break the gang's grip on the low-income neighborhood, which is heavily Latino.
Half of the defendants could face life in prison without parole if convicted, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office.
Francisco "Pancho" Real, 26, who was identified as the leader of the Drew Street clique, brought in $1,200 a day in drug money alone, according to a wiretap recording described in the indictment. He was arrested at his home in Glendale.
The gang stirred a storm of media coverage and police attention after a wild, rolling shootout in February.
The indictment suggests that the shooting stemmed from a brewing turf battle between the Avenues, backed by the Mexican Mafia, and the Cypress Park gang.
On Feb. 21, in order to prevent Cypress Park from dealing drugs in their territory, the indictment alleges, Real's cohorts shot to death one of its members, Marcos Salas, as he held his 2-year-old granddaughter's hand in front of her elementary school. Minutes later police pulled over the three suspected gunmen, who then opened fire with an assault rifle. Police fatally shot one of them, Real's half brother Daniel Leon.
Authorities had wiretaps on Real's phones at the time. The day after the shooting, Real shrugged off Leon's death, using a profanity to say "[stuff] happens," according to the indictment.
The gang didn't skip a beat after the shootout, the summaries of the wiretaps suggest.
In March, Real ordered the owner of a local tire shop to pay him $30,000 within 24 hours, prosecutors allege, or he would kill him and burn down his shop. When the owner of an adjoining tire shop told Real that he did not understand why they had to pay him, Real said they were operating in his territory, the indictment alleges.
Real is one of 13 children of Maria Leon, the matriarch of the gang and a defendant in the case, according to law enforcement. She has a criminal record with three drug arrests and was in custody Wednesday morning for reentering the country after a deportation.
The family hails from a sweltering, lawless part of the Mexican state of Guerrero, as does much of the neighborhood. Based on their shared roots, many residents maintain a fierce solidarity and loathing for the police.
On Wednesday, an 81-year-old woman on Isabel Street, Olga Martinez, called the police "gestapos" after they broke down her door looking for her son. Numerous other residents declined to talk.
"We don't know anything, we didn't hear anything, we didn't see anything," said a woman who lives on Drew Street and declined to give her name.
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