Sat, Sep 6, 2008, 01:00
It is the most feared gang in the world. Its activities are now being classed as urban terrorism. It has 100,000 members - some as young as 13. Ken Murrayrecently spent a day on patrol with the Los Angeles Police Department in one of the US's toughest neighbourhoods, where officers wage a daily battle to contain the fearless MS-13
'YOU ONLY GAIN RESPECT by the viciousness of your actions." These are not the words of an irate Marlon Brando in The Godfather, but the actual rhetoric of senior members in MS-13, the name of the biggest urban gang on the American continent.
When they kill somebody, it's not just a case of three bullets in the head, it's usually by repeated use of a machete whereby heads and limbs are severed and left rotting in the mid-day sun as a chilling reminder to rival gangs not to mess or intrude on their territory. Tattooed from head to toe with gang logos, members also have their own five-finger salute in the shape of the letter M.
Drug smuggling from South America earns the MS-13 hierarchy what is estimated at several hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Robert Clifford of the FBI told USA Today in 2005: "MS-13 are the biggest domestic threat to US security." The problem has worsened since, with M-13 committing rapes, smuggling drugs, raiding houses, extorting money from small businesses, intimidating witnesses and savagely murdering and beheading whoever gets in their way, putting the activities of the Italian and Russian Mafia as well as the Chinese triads and Japanese Yakuza gangs in the shade.
MS-13 emerged in Los Angeles in the late 1980s when El Salvadorian refugees, fleeing violent civil war in their native country, formed protection groups against existing gangs in their neighbourhoods. MS-13 takes its name from the Spanish La Mara, meaning gang, and Salvatrucha, meaning trout or shrewd person - a name given to El Salvadorian guerrillas who fought in that country's bloody civil war between 1980 and 1992. The "13" represents the letter M, the 13th letter in the alphabet, and stands for Mafia. In time, the gang turned to illegal activities such as extortion rackets - and the methods they used were savage, many of them honed during the civil war itself.
By the 1990s, US law enforcement was deporting MS-13 members to El Salvador, where they set up branches and, in many cases, returned to the US, bringing back-up members. MS-13 operates in 35 US cities and now outranks the 4,900 or so other gangs across the US in terms of size. Its geographical spread now ranges from California to Texas to New York state to as far north as Canada.
For some years, I had wanted to get an insight into who MS-13 are and how they have mushroomed, particularly in LA, like a nasty virus. Last year in LA, there were 387 murders - just over one per day, leading Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles, to tell the BBC that "international efforts are now required to deal with gang crime". His city was "ground zero" for Latino gangs, he said.
I have been to Los Angeles numerous times - once, back in October 1995, when stopped by a police patrol at 4pm close to the South-Central district of the city, I was warned that, as a white man, I should not drive beyond a certain landmark two blocks away or else my family in Co Meath could find themselves organising a very costly funeral - assuming my body could be found in the event of things going wrong.
In August, I finally got my chance. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) agreed to allow me to interview officers in the specialised Gang Unit at the Ramparts Division in downtown LA and to "ride along" in a patrol car through the notorious gang districts. My driver for the afternoon is Sergeant Mike Patriquin, who, in a former posting in Boston, had served under Kathleen O'Toole, who now heads up the Garda Inspectorate in the Republic of Ireland. He insists that I'm going nowhere unless I wear a bullet-proof vest. The Ramparts Division lost a colleague who was gunned down in action earlier in the year - a stark reminder that not even cops are safe in LA gangland territory, even in broad daylight.
I was also obliged to sign a compensation waiver form. "By signing this form it means that if you are shot, injured, paralysed or even killed, you will have no legal right to issue legal proceedings against the Los Angeles Police Department for compensation," Patriquin says, making it clear that once I sit into his patrol car, my life could end at any minute. He also tells me, in firm language, that by wearing a visible bullet-proof vest over my shirt, I am all but inviting someone to have a pop at me.
I tell him that, unfortunately, I wasn't expecting this "ride along" to be so precarious, and that it's a case of wearing it over my shirt or not taking the trip at all.
Being strapped into an LAPD patrol car gives you a certain sense of empowerment. You feel as though you are part of US state machinery, with the task of protecting the citizens of the US, but, ironically, those who require your protection, look upon you with a certain degree of hostility.
The built-in LAPD grey Dell laptop computer perched high on the dashboard can, at the touch of a button, give a complete run-down on every individual in the locality who has "form" with the police.
Patriquin talks to his superiors on the police radio, letting them know his movements and, before we know it, the electronic gates open and we're on our way.
Within minutes of leaving the police station, we are in the middle of what looks like a gang war-zone. Here, graffiti marks territory and sends out a warning to rival gangs that they are not to enter a particular street or area unless they are considering a painful suicide.
The Ramparts police division in Los Angeles is less than a mile west of the downtown area, where LA's small number of skyscrapers tower above "Earthquake City". Gang warfare here is a daily occurrence - particularly between MS-13 and the 18th Street gang - in what is LA's corporate heartland. It's a bit like open gang warfare taking place in Dublin's Summerhill, less than a mile from the International Financial Services Centre. The US's most dangerous psychopaths, or "locos" as they like to be termed, are causing daily chaos in an eight-square mile area where the list of gangs looks like something from a horror movie - La Mirada Locos, Silverlake 13, Temple Street, Echo Park, the Osiri Boys, The Crazy Riders, Drifters, Laraza Loca, Orphans, the Witmer Locos and the DIA - Down in Action gang are just a few.
We drive by rows and rows of filthy shop fronts that haven't been painted in years, and past what seems like endless rows of poor housing. Small clusters of young Latino men are seated on the steps outside their doors wearing long-sleeved shirts to hide their tattoos, making it impossible to identify whether or not they are in a gang. Their deep stares, however, are far from welcoming.
Every single street has graffiti, a sign that every piece of turf and cement is gang territory. In some cases, houses of rival gangs back on to each other, which can even make it dangerous just to do simple things such as mow a lawn or clean a window.
We turn another corner and a man with MS-13's notable, ugly tattoos all over his face and neck makes it quite clear that we're in his territory now.
Patriquin slows the car and watches the gang member's movements before he eventually disappears into a run-down house - he is either avoiding us or else he is up to no good.
To join MS-13, a male would-be member must allow himself to be viciously kicked for 13 seconds by others in the clique in order to prove his "worth" as a gang member. The free-for-all practice is known as a "jump in". A female would-be member must allow herself to be gang raped by at least six other members in order to join the gang. Once a person joins MS-13, they cannot leave the gang and cannot act without the boss's consent.
As we begin our drive, another decorated MS-13 gang member appears from nowhere every so often and disappears just as quickly. I begin to wonder what chance I would have of survival if I accidentally ended up in this place at night.
"When I stop this car, don't sit in your seat too long," says Patriquin in a calm tone of voice that leaves me instantly frightened.
"If you are spotted in a fixed position for a number of minutes, you could be shot at from a window in the distance," he says. "Now if you look around here you will see that MS-13 is written on the walls in a number of variations. You can have MS-13 or MS-X111 or MS-VV3 of simply MS-X3. Where possible, it is also written in blue, which is the colour of the El Salvadorian flag," says Officer Patriquin.
My original plans to get quotes from an MS-13 member was not going to happen, as there were life-threatening implications if something went wrong.
We get back into the car, which by now is like a magnet for all prying eyes in the area, and drive around more corners and into more alleys, where the territorial graffiti changes from street to street.
The deeper we travel into the depths of these gang-ridden, run-down communities, the more I began to wonder if this "ride along" was such a clever idea. The temptation just to walk into a shop and buy a can of cool cola suddenly loses its appeal as something in the air tells me that this is not a place to be unless you're a member of the actual MS gang that controls that particular street.
Back at headquarters, I meet LAPD Officer Carla Godoy, who heads up investigations on the activities of the 18th Street gang within the Ramparts Division. She says that despite the growth and strength of MS-13, the 18th Street gang - described by the FBI as a "mega-gang" - is just as much of a menace. "The 18th Street gang, which started here in the 1960s, is a pretty big force in the Ramparts area. They have five cliques or groups in the Ramparts area alone, where they have over 2,000 gang members.
"The average age of a member in the 18th Street gang is 13 to 15 years. It goes from 13 right up to 40 in other gangs such as MS-13, with older members actively recruiting to ensure that each respective gang remains active and knows how to murder and extort money. This is passed up the line to senior members of the gang, the majority of whom are in high-security prisons," says Godoy.
In an area where the bulk of local business is made up of small-time traders and street vendors who sell anything from clothes to food to souvenirs, the consequences can be horrific if the so-called "rent" to gangs isn't paid.
"If vendors don't pay, first of all they'll get beat up. If they still refuse to pay, they'll be murdered. It's as simple as that," says Godoy.
"As recently as last December, a local vendor didn't want to pay rent. He got beat up and refused to pay again. He was shot, and while he didn't die, the baby that was with him did. That's what you're dealing with around here," Godoy says.
The Ramparts Division is regarded as the toughest and its police have, in the past, been exposed as corrupt, making trustworthy policing in the area all the more difficult. In the late 1990s, the division was the subject of a major scandal when several officers within what's known as the "Crash" unit were implicated in a bank robbery. Another officer, Rafael Perez, stole cocaine from an evidence locker and subsequently framed a gang member who he shot and paralysed.
When Perez was investigated, he pleaded guilty to a range of charges in exchange for supplying information on alleged misconduct by up to 70 other corrupt police officers with the Ramparts Division.
Coming after the fallout from the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which were prompted by the beating of taxi driver Rodney King by four LAPD officers, three of whom were subsequently acquitted, the Los Angeles police, especially in the Ramparts Division, have had a tough job on their hands trying to win the hearts and minds of people in the city - particularly those who live in the nearby gang-filled communities.
In the 1990s, LAPD chief Darryl Gates introduced Crash - Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums - and achieved considerable success in terms of numbers, but was severely criticised for the way indiscriminate arrests were made, with the police being accused of deliberately targeting teenagers.
Crash has been replaced with GED - Gang Enforcement Details - a combination of local intelligence gathering and the making of arrests where more than one suspected gang member congregates with others. According to Officer Shaun Schneider of the LAPD Ramparts Division, the GED injunctions are achieving positive results.
"Basically a GED is a restraining order that the City of Los Angeles places on specific gangs that we have reason to target at any particular time. Once you get served with an injunction, you are not allowed to congregate in public with other MS gang members in public. You could be arrested just for associating with somebody in the gang. If two guys are just walking down the street and they have an injunction, then I could pretty much arrest one of them or even both of them right there," he says.
And it's not just gang membership that is the criteria for arrest. According to Schneider, the GED allows the LAPD to make life as difficult as possible for anybody they suspect is up to no good.
"Minor laws like drinking in public, loitering, littering etc, I can take them to jail for instead of issuing them with a ticket, so that has helped greatly to break up a lot of gangs from gathering in substantial numbers, though that doesn't mean they can't operate from behind closed doors."
An additional weapon the LAPD have to frustrate and discourage youngsters from joining gangs is the Gang Enhancement Law, which allows the courts to add additional years on to a sentence on the basis that a run-of-the-mill crime was committed for the benefit of the respective gang.
"Say a guy gets arrested for vandalism or stealing and he may only get a year for either of those two crimes, we can put the gang enhancement order on to the sentence, which adds an extra three to five years on to the sentence," says Schneider. The GEDs and Gang Enhancement Orders have helped to decrease the number of shootings and murders that were so prevalent in the district in the 1980s, he says.
So then, what advice for Irish tourists heading to Los Angeles who opt to follow their noses rather than the tourist guide?
"Let's just say I would advise people coming here on vacation to get advice on where they should and shouldn't visit when they come here. The downtown area is, in the main, pretty safe in the day, but I wouldn't advise someone from Ireland to come near this area at night-time, there are plenty of more pleasant areas in this city to walk around in that have a tourist feel to them," says Schneider.
"So, tell me this, is it true the Irish police don't carry guns?" he asks in curious amazement.
"Yes it's absolutely true," I reply.
"Gee, that sound like a great stable society you have over there in I-ERLAND," he says.
• Ken Murray is political correspondent for INN Radio News in Dublin.