Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
As a former prison gang member, I'm ashamed to look in the mirror because my failures are staring back at me.
October 21, 2013
As a former prison gang member, I'm ashamed to look in the mirror because my failures are staring back at me.
October 21, 2013
Every time law enforcement thought that they had knocked out or retired the Eme organization, they found that the Eme came back again. The Mexican Mafia absorbed the blows and grew stronger.
August 13, 2013
The court transportation system is the first weak point. Did you know that 40% of all inmate escapes occur during transport? Any gang member who's spent any time in custody has practiced slipping out of handcuffs and shackles, and you can bet one or more of them carry jail-made handcuff keys.
July 23, 2013
The murders of two Texas prosecutors has made safety a top concern for many prosecutors throughout the country. Prosecutors should start thinking about what to do to protect themselves from high-risk gang defendants.
April 4, 2013
Two recent investigations show us the value of gang task forces that combine resources from law enforcement, prosecutors, and corrections to take down Mexican Mafia "carnals" in Southern California.
March 14, 2013
While in custody, most Sureño gang members are educated in martial arts fighting tactics and are primarily trained in fighting with edged weapons. The culture of jails and prisons is a knife culture. Jail-improvised weapons start with "shanks" but can include spears, clubs, zip guns, and bombs.
November 26, 2012
Every victim or witness had heard the stories in the ghetto about gang retaliation against those who were foolish enough to snitch on gang members. Most of these stories were only urban legends that grew with each telling. Some were absolutely true. Gangs do target witnesses.
November 7, 2012
No matter how small or large a town they work in, and whether they work urban or rural, gang cops need to know about and recognize the signs of criminal gang activity associated with national and international gangs.
October 2, 2012
Most prison gang leaders will be released into the terrible jungle where they will try to obtain two things they care about the most: drugs and power. Once the titans come down to dwell with gang mortals, the gangland utopia will usher the next prison gang golden age.
August 23, 2012
Long Beach patrol officers can pull up photos of served gang members, maps of safety zones—those parts of the city subject to the gang injunction—a copy of the injunction and a hyperlink to the image of the proof of service form. That certainty has produced very real results.
August 15, 2012
Sureños identify with the color blue and use tattoos with the number 13, sureño, sur, south sider, or "kanpol" (a word taken from the ancient Aztec language of Nahuatl that means southerner).
March 14, 2012
The girlfriend was provided with a “burnout phone.” A burnout phone is one that would be operational for a few months before being burned out. By that time the bill would have grown to many thousands of dollars, which they had no intention of paying.
March 6, 2012
Sometimes separate local, state, or county police are used for physical surveillance. Occasionally when intercepted communications seem to have gone dormant, the surveillance team will also be used to deliberately arrest or conduct a traffic stop on individuals to cause them to increase their criminal communications or "tickle the wire."
March 1, 2012
While behind bars, I honed my skills with on-the-job training. I learned how to slip out of my handcuffs, cut metal, and smuggle knives, hacksaws, and drugs. Most of all, I learned how to manipulate, intimidate, and confuse deputies who were still learning how to be cops.
January 3, 2012
Jose "Bat" Marquez received a life sentence for trafficking methamphetamine from a prison cell. Most law enforcement officials would consider this a success; however, it was too little, too late for those of us familiar with his criminal past as a violent enforcer for Mexican Mafia and Tijuana drug cartel.
November 23, 2011