perongregory wrote:the mafia isn't gang life, chicano street gangs aren't on the level of the mafia, the triads , russian mob, and Yakuza are. You are right about some of the things you said about blacks, but as usual only know a small percentage of the story. I will be back to tell the truth like many have had to do with your myopic posts.
WHAT RUSSIAN MOB ? or do you mean the hundreds of russian crimanals( EX COPS , JUDGES, SOLDIERS) who are the main the main contributors to organized crime , because they have become expert at snitching out their rivals to their old contacts in the goverment? How old is this RUSSIAN mob? from my investigating it the started in the 80s. The triads is another crime group made up out of thin air ---in actuality they are a clonglomerate of hundreds of street gangs and street thugs. YUKUZA? GONE........you do know that the najority of the heavy hitters in Mexicos drug war are chicano gangsters and that the most famous murders comitted in the 90s were done by chicano gangsters from right here in SOCAL dont you? READ BELOW FOR ONE OF A DOZEN STORYS ON TEH LEVEL OF CHICANO GANGS AND HOW THEY ARENT ON TEH SAME LEVEL AS CARTELS AND MAFIA.
Barron's an American success story and a bi-national pain in the ass. In a criminal career that started out poor and rough on the meaner streets of San Diego and Tijuana, Barron pushed his way into the farm leagues-the Calle Treinta gang of Barrio Logan-before being picked up to go into the Big Show. By the late 1980s, as inner cities around the nation were reeling from the sudden and violent epidemic of crack cocaine, Barron was associating with the Arellano-Felix Cartel. Sharply honed instincts, his street senses and a savage disregard for taking human life made him Ramon Arellano-Felix's No. 1 bodyguard. Reckless Ramon, killed in a 2002 police shoot-out, was the most unconscionable player in the most violent cartel in the world's busiest drug corridor. The clubs of Tijuana were Arellano-Felix's playground, and David Barron was perhaps the only man who could match his subtly crafted tapestry of caprice and brutality.
In the clean-cut corporate atmosphere of the DEA, agents are generally white (but increasingly Hispanic), educated and middle class. Agents carry a haughty disdain for their targets, with hints of class-based repugnance, yet San Diego's DEA spokesperson, Misha Piastro, talks of Barron with a begrudging respect. The implications that the man was a sociopath are clear enough. But it's also clear he was a world-class hit man, an extremely proficient killer.
“A lot of these guys on the street are a lot of talk,” Piastro says. “But this guy [Barron], he was for real. He was truly dangerous.”
Piastro's office is small and tidy. After years policing the streets and high-level, undercover dealing in places like Southeast San Diego, he's still acclimating to the indoors and to PR duties that generate far less adrenaline. He pops in a CD and pictures of cholos-Hispanic gang members-dance across the computer screen. They look proud and happy-intimidating in the manner of groups of men in their late teens and early 20s.
This is the way it happens, Piastro says, pointing to a gaggle of gangsters who don't know they're being photographed. They stand silently in front of a graffiti-littered market with no apparent purpose.
“Knucklehead, knucklehead, knucklehead,” he starts down the row. “These aren't hardcore guys, they're followers. Knucklehead, knucklehead, knucklehead-then there's this guy.”
He points to an older man who stands in the center of the disorganized non-activity.
“This guy's one of the leaders-he's an older guy. He's what they call an OG [original gangster],” Piastro says. “In most of these smaller groups, there are only a few hardcore guys, guys who've been to prison, guys who are violent.”
The pictures whirl away in a kaleidoscope of gang tattoos, menacing stares and Chicano Park visages. And then there he is, resting peacefully against a brick parapet at a four-way stop in a residential neighborhood in Tijuana-there is David Barron.
In his book The Cartel: The Arellano-Felix: The Most Powerful Mafia in the History of Latin America, Jesus J. Blancornelas, the hard-hitting founding co-editor of the Tijuana weekly ZETA, describes a distinguishing incident in Barron's career, a famous 1992 shootout in Puerta Vallarta's Christine nightclub.
As Blancornelas tells it, Ramon Arellano-Felix, well known in Mexican club circles, rolled into the nightspot with his entourage. In addition to his personal bodyguards, he was escorted by a retinue of paid-off Baja California policemen. The club date was originally set as a rendezvous between Ramon, his brother-cartel leader Benjamin-and another major drug trafficker. Benjamin opted out of the high-level get-together when the other kingpin cancelled, ostensibly for business reasons. What nobody knew was that the meeting was set up as an ambush-the other kingpin was determined to assassinate Ramon.
Barron was armed when they entered, as was every man in his team; he carried a 12-gauge shotgun under his jacket. When a group of men entered-the unrecognized security force of the other Mafioso-Barron unwittingly taunted them with insults. Instinct or a street-imbued sixth sense took root, however, and he sensed something was amiss. Without provocation or a seeming reason, he ordered Ramon into the bathroom. Then he turned, blasted and, as Blancornelas describes it, sent two men to meet their creator.
The shots set the ambush into motion and a full-bore gunfight broke out. Several Baja policemen fell immediately. Barron made his way to the bathroom, where several others were kicking out a grating to escape. One of the perpetrators reached them and took a bead on Ramon in the bathroom. They guy hesitated, but Barron didn't. Half a dozen men died in the incident, while Ramon Arellano-Felix left without a scratch. Barron, 12-gauge in hand, walked away on the cusp of myth and legend.
And now here he is on a DEA computer screen, resting on that parapet, bundled in a neoprene jacket. The bulletproof vest-standard cartel garb-is invisible beneath his pullover.
The scene is a requiem of quiet and stillness, save for dark blood spilling over the curb and pooling in the street. To the right side of the screen is the red Ford Explorer that carried Blancornelas and his bodyguard. It's riddled with 141 bullet holes-four of which found, but didn't kill, the editor. His friend and protector died instantly.
Fate's a fickle thing and nobody understands this better than Blancornelas. It looked for all the world like it would be him who died on that overcast day in 1997. Then, for some mysterious reason that only Barron and his finely tuned instincts could make sense of, an errant bullet from an AK-47 fired by one of his team ricocheted off the pavement and tore through Barron's brain, directly through the left eye.
But legends never die in Barrio Logan.
Everybody in the neighborhood knows about the cartel, the money and the power-the prestige. All people have an instinctual sense of pride, an atavistic desire to possess and be proud of what is possessed. “El CH” started from nothing and achieved power, fame and riches. He's been in the ground for seven years, and still his name is whispered with sideways glances and hushed voices.
Shannon White and David Barron are but two names etched onto the ledger of San Diego's gang-banger history. And though their radically different stories are symbolic of paths taken by many on the streets, White's story is far more common. National statistics show gang members to be overwhelmingly male (though female gangs and gang members are increasing), between the ages of 15 and 25 and unemployed. Gang-bangers who make it into the major leagues of organized crime are rare-which makes San Diego's gang story unique. The Arellano-Felix Organization (AFO) has, for more than a decade, relied on Barrio Logan as a dependable recruitment pool for assassins and kidnappers.
Gangs in San Diego have scattered to all parts, colors and creeds, says San Diego Police Department (SDPD) Assistant Chief Lou Scanlon. While a long tradition of Blood/Crip gang involvement transmigrated to San Diego decades ago in the black community-and Latino gangs are a part of the city's legacy-Scanlon points to a rising Asian gang presence, the existence of white-supremacist groups (particularly in East County) and even activity in the suburbs. Aided by the media, gangs have become ubiquitous.
