Gangs Busted

PERHAPS because of Hollywood, much of the focus of gang activity in Los Angeles centres on the black 'hood of South Central.But in reality - and perhaps obviously for a city slowly, but surely, returning to its Spanish-speaking roots - it is Hispanic gangs that rule the streets.
"Orale, Homes. Where you from, ese?" is a greeting dreaded by young Hispanics throughout Los Angeles.
The question doesn't ask for suburb, but gang affiliation: 18th Street - the biggest and baddest of the gangs - or any number of its fierce rivals: Mara Salvatrucha, Avenues, Florencia 13. The wrong answer brings a hail of bullets and another statistic.
There are possibly 150,000 gang members in the greater Los Angeles area, affiliated with more than 1300 street gangs. More than half are Hispanic.

Overworked police say they do what they can, but no one can deny that the gangs have flourished and become more sophisticated. They run huge, immensely profitable drug operations, usually by "renting" street corners to small-time dope dealers who then have to pay a "tax" to the gangs that control the neighbourhood.
Every now and again, turf wars break out and the body bags pile up in the morgue. But as long as it is bad guys killing other bad guys, Los Angeles just seems to keep on going about its business, ignoring the problem.
The gangs, in turn, understand that a low profile is good for business.
When Edward James Olmos made American Me in 1992 - focusing attention on the notorious prison gang Mexican Mafia, or La Eme - three former Eme members who advised on the movie were murdered and Olmos received death threats.
In the end, Olmos's celebrity probably saved his life. Killing him would bring heat.
The only way to bring more heat, though, is to kill a cop. And when that cop was the young son of a well-regarded Los Angeles Police Department detective, the move might as well have been a declaration of war.
So it was, two years ago, when two members of the Vineland Boyz - a 259-member gang that grew out of a tightly knit football team in the San Fernando Valley region of LA - allegedly gunned down rookie Burbank police officer Matthew Pavelka.
The alleged hitman, David Garcia, then 19, who fled to Mexico but was soon returned to the US, reportedly boasted that Pavelka "cried like a bitch" when he faced death, further stoking the fires.
After a 19-month investigation by a host of law enforcement agencies, the war is all but over for the Vineland Boyz. Last week came the third and latest of massive raids that have led to the arrests of at least 325 people.
More than $US1million ($1.3million) in cash has been seized, as well as 75 firearms and 135kg of drugs, including heroin and methamphetamines.
But undoubtedly the most startling arrest was that of Stacey Jo Murphy, the former mayor of Burbank. The 47-year-old councillor, Burbank's most popular politician, was arrested after investigators allegedly found cocaine in her bedroom, and weapons and 900 rounds of ammunition in her garage.
Police believe Murphy's boyfriend, 51-year-old businessman Scott Schaffer, traded guns for cocaine during rendezvous with gang members at a seedy bar that he and Murphy, a divorced mother of three, frequented.
Murphy, a civic activist once voted Woman of the Year, has refused to resign.
Detective Lopez, who has seen it all in 24 years of working the gangs, is glad the resources were found to take out Vineland Boyz.
But for him, the answer to the gang problem is not to wait until cops are gunned down by reckless teenagers who don't value life. He has spent the past two years conducting his own social experiment, going to an elementary school and teaching kids as young as five what being in a gang is really like.
"They try to glamorise it when they go to (young kids) and try to recruit them, but no one's told these kids what the life's really like," he said. "So I'm going to see what happens with the kids I'm teaching now when they get to middle school (sixth grade) in a few years. I'm hoping it works. For everyone's sake.
This article intrigues me. I studied LA gangs and Australian gangs around 2 years ago as part of my degree. The disparity between the two countries is rather laughable and although 2 years ago, i'm sure not too much has changed here in Oz, but the gang mentality appears to have grown stronger in the US. In Australia we have total of.............16 gangs!! I'm not kidding round i am serious. What constitutes a gang, that is what makes a up a gang say in LA, equates to only 16 in Australia. Sometimes i really do think i live on another planet!
till next time, Michelle.