HIPCHIP
09-22-2009, 05:50 PM
LA police stage huge raid on notorious street gang
Published: 9/22/09, 9:25 PM EDT
By THOMAS WATKINS
LOS ANGELES (AP) - More than a thousand law enforcement officers descended Tuesday on the homes of key members of a notorious street gang suspected of killing a sheriff's deputy and murdering rivals while defying authorities for decades.
A federal indictment named 88 suspects and detailed criminal activity spanning more than a decade.
Forty-six people were arrested in the pre-dawn raid targeting members of the Avenues gang, which claims a swath of northeast Los Angeles as its turf.
Among them was Tammy Armstrong, a corrections officer accused of helping incarcerated gang members, Deputy Police Chief Charlie Beck said. It was unclear when she might be arraigned.
Another 33 suspects were already in custody, and nine remained at large.
The operation involved 1,100 police officers working with nearly 300 federal agents, making it one of the biggest raids in city history.
The indictment reads like a laundry list of gang crime: the murder of rivals, prolific drug dealing, weapons violations and money laundering. Prosecutors say the Avenues preyed on community members, with two named suspects accused of attacking a resident in a parking lot then shooting him to death when he tried to call for help.
Another woman was pistol-whipped then shot at but survived to identify an assailant by the Fedora-wearing skull he had tattooed on his chest, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ariel Neuman said.
The gang is also accused of carrying out acts of violence against police officers, culminating in two attacks that rocked the law enforcement community last year.
The first in February 2008 allegedly saw Avenues gang members opening fire with handguns and an AK-47 on Los Angeles police officers. Police shot back, killing 20-year-old Daniel Leon and injuring another man.
Then on Aug. 2, 2008, off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff's Deputy Juan Escalante was shot dead in front of his parents' home in the Cypress Park neighborhood northeast of downtown.
Even before the killing, authorities were investigating the Avenues, but Escalante's death increased the urgency of the operation. Earlier this year, police charged three men in his death. A fourth suspect remained at large.
Officers in full body armor were seen at dawn Tuesday at a blocked-off staging area at the Dodger Stadium parking lot, where suspects, almost all of them men with shaved heads, were being processed at a portable booking area as media helicopters hovered overhead.
Most appeared calm as they waited to sign paperwork and be placed in a jail van.
The raid was mostly without incident. Two sheriff's deputies shot a pair of aggressive dogs as they entered a house, Beck said, and authorities recovered about 10 guns.
The indictment details several possible motives for Escalante's murder. Carlos Velasquez, one of the men accused of killing the deputy, was allegedly heard in a wiretapped telephone conversation telling another Avenues gang member that he killed Escalante in retribution for the death of Leon, nicknamed "Clever."
"Clever took one with him," the indictment states Velasquez said.
The 222-page indictment also alleges Avenues members posted inflammatory remarks on Web sites, including "Avenidas don't get chased by the cops. We chase them," and, "Avenidas don't just hurt people. We kill them."
City Councilman Ed Reyes said the bust had removed a lethal threat from the streets.
"There are parents today that don't have to run to the bus stop to make sure that their kids don't get jumped because they have an iPod or because they are carrying books or because they have lunch money," Reyes said. "This is the daily terror that gangs like Avenues impose."
Members of the largely Hispanic gang would also spray paint racist threats around neighborhoods to intimidate black people, according to prosecutors.
"This indictment attacks a criminal organization that has terrorized a community for generations," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Brunwin, the lead prosecutor in the case.
Tuesday's operation marks an ongoing focus on the Avenues gang, which gets its name from a series of streets running through the area.
In June 2008, another federal indictment took aim at the Drew Street clique of the gang. Prosecutors said Drew Street was the most active and violent clique within the Avenues and it produced significant drug-sale revenues for the Mexican Mafia, a prison-based gang that oversees much of Southern California's street gang activity.
That investigation resulted in the arrest of several of the clique's alleged leaders. Afterward, Mexican Mafia leaders attempted to reorganize the Avenues' presence in northeast Los Angeles by ending the clique rivalries within the gang and naming new leaders, Tuesday's indictment states.
By midmorning Tuesday, Drew Street and the blocks immediately around it were quiet, with no obvious sign of the earlier police activity.
Johnny Trujillo, 45, said the area had improved in recent months, though he remained intimidated by some boys who he said are disrespectful of the neighborhood and its residents.
"They write on walls, litter, be loud when you try to get to sleep," Trujillo said.
Another resident, Rosa Mariscal, said the neighborhood is better than in previous years, but she worried about gang members being released early from prison because of the state's cash crunch.
"Sometimes I don't feel safe for my children," she said.
Published: 9/22/09, 9:25 PM EDT
By THOMAS WATKINS
LOS ANGELES (AP) - More than a thousand law enforcement officers descended Tuesday on the homes of key members of a notorious street gang suspected of killing a sheriff's deputy and murdering rivals while defying authorities for decades.
A federal indictment named 88 suspects and detailed criminal activity spanning more than a decade.
Forty-six people were arrested in the pre-dawn raid targeting members of the Avenues gang, which claims a swath of northeast Los Angeles as its turf.
Among them was Tammy Armstrong, a corrections officer accused of helping incarcerated gang members, Deputy Police Chief Charlie Beck said. It was unclear when she might be arraigned.
Another 33 suspects were already in custody, and nine remained at large.
The operation involved 1,100 police officers working with nearly 300 federal agents, making it one of the biggest raids in city history.
The indictment reads like a laundry list of gang crime: the murder of rivals, prolific drug dealing, weapons violations and money laundering. Prosecutors say the Avenues preyed on community members, with two named suspects accused of attacking a resident in a parking lot then shooting him to death when he tried to call for help.
Another woman was pistol-whipped then shot at but survived to identify an assailant by the Fedora-wearing skull he had tattooed on his chest, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ariel Neuman said.
The gang is also accused of carrying out acts of violence against police officers, culminating in two attacks that rocked the law enforcement community last year.
The first in February 2008 allegedly saw Avenues gang members opening fire with handguns and an AK-47 on Los Angeles police officers. Police shot back, killing 20-year-old Daniel Leon and injuring another man.
Then on Aug. 2, 2008, off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff's Deputy Juan Escalante was shot dead in front of his parents' home in the Cypress Park neighborhood northeast of downtown.
Even before the killing, authorities were investigating the Avenues, but Escalante's death increased the urgency of the operation. Earlier this year, police charged three men in his death. A fourth suspect remained at large.
Officers in full body armor were seen at dawn Tuesday at a blocked-off staging area at the Dodger Stadium parking lot, where suspects, almost all of them men with shaved heads, were being processed at a portable booking area as media helicopters hovered overhead.
Most appeared calm as they waited to sign paperwork and be placed in a jail van.
The raid was mostly without incident. Two sheriff's deputies shot a pair of aggressive dogs as they entered a house, Beck said, and authorities recovered about 10 guns.
The indictment details several possible motives for Escalante's murder. Carlos Velasquez, one of the men accused of killing the deputy, was allegedly heard in a wiretapped telephone conversation telling another Avenues gang member that he killed Escalante in retribution for the death of Leon, nicknamed "Clever."
"Clever took one with him," the indictment states Velasquez said.
The 222-page indictment also alleges Avenues members posted inflammatory remarks on Web sites, including "Avenidas don't get chased by the cops. We chase them," and, "Avenidas don't just hurt people. We kill them."
City Councilman Ed Reyes said the bust had removed a lethal threat from the streets.
"There are parents today that don't have to run to the bus stop to make sure that their kids don't get jumped because they have an iPod or because they are carrying books or because they have lunch money," Reyes said. "This is the daily terror that gangs like Avenues impose."
Members of the largely Hispanic gang would also spray paint racist threats around neighborhoods to intimidate black people, according to prosecutors.
"This indictment attacks a criminal organization that has terrorized a community for generations," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Brunwin, the lead prosecutor in the case.
Tuesday's operation marks an ongoing focus on the Avenues gang, which gets its name from a series of streets running through the area.
In June 2008, another federal indictment took aim at the Drew Street clique of the gang. Prosecutors said Drew Street was the most active and violent clique within the Avenues and it produced significant drug-sale revenues for the Mexican Mafia, a prison-based gang that oversees much of Southern California's street gang activity.
That investigation resulted in the arrest of several of the clique's alleged leaders. Afterward, Mexican Mafia leaders attempted to reorganize the Avenues' presence in northeast Los Angeles by ending the clique rivalries within the gang and naming new leaders, Tuesday's indictment states.
By midmorning Tuesday, Drew Street and the blocks immediately around it were quiet, with no obvious sign of the earlier police activity.
Johnny Trujillo, 45, said the area had improved in recent months, though he remained intimidated by some boys who he said are disrespectful of the neighborhood and its residents.
"They write on walls, litter, be loud when you try to get to sleep," Trujillo said.
Another resident, Rosa Mariscal, said the neighborhood is better than in previous years, but she worried about gang members being released early from prison because of the state's cash crunch.
"Sometimes I don't feel safe for my children," she said.