The 18th Street Gang in Los Angeles
The individual factions can number from 50 to several hundred members and they are dispersed throughout the County, but their strong hold and their oldest barrio is located in the Pico Union (Grand View, Hoover clicks) area east of the Staples center between the Harbor 110 Freeway (east) and Hoover Ave (west). Slightly to the north are two other barrios in the Shatto Park and MacArthur Park (Colombia Lil Cycos click) areas. There are also two significant size 18th Street Barrios in South LA, one between Vernon (north) and Slauson (south) along Vermont Avenue and the second one being between Florence (north) and 91st Street (south). One of the most infamous 18th Street neighborhoods would be in the West Adams (Smiley, Alsace, Lil Lowks) because member Catorina Gonzales was convicted for killing LAPD officer Filbert Cuesta in 1998, and more recently, member Pedro Espinoza was charged in the murder of High School star athlete Jamiel Shaw stemming from the conflict with the Bloods.
The media often states that 18th Street is the largest gang in Los Angeles, but the largest single Hispanic gang in terms of turf size and membership would be one of 18th Street's main rivals, the Florencia 13 gang that has a turf that stretches from Western (west) to Compton Avenues (east). Members of this gang were recently indicted by the Feds on drug trafficking and murder charges.
Historical Background
The 18th Street gang formed around 1959 in the Pico Union area when members of larger Clanton 14 neighborhood decided to start a new click. Originally 18th Street was a click of the bigger Clanton 14th Street neighborhood. As membership of Clanton grew, newer members who lived off of 18th Street decided to start Clanton 18th Street. Forming a new click of a gang can sometimes be a challenge, because some members may look at it as an action that does not unify but separates the neighborhood, and possibly creates division between members that will be forced to choose sides during a conflict. On the other hand, adding a click can expand the turf, bring in more members, and make the neighborhood appear to be stronger. There is usually a protocol to creating a new click and each neighborhood is different when it comes to that, but ultimately Clanton 14 core members did not approve of having Clanton 18, so the new click members had to make a decision of falling in line with Clanton 14, or taking a defiant position to start their own gang, hence the birth of 18th Street. They just simply dropped the Clanton off their name and then became rivals against them. As the years progressed, Clanton lost their main strong hold off 14th Street, and today that area is dominated by 18th Street.
Clanton did not disappear though as their neighborhood in Hollywood off Beverly has survived and their other neighborhood on the South Side near San Pedro is still thriving. Most gangs today have clicks and there is usually little resistance from the rest of the gang when members want to start a new click, because there is a perceived benefit to the entire gang as outsiders will assume the gang is growing, and it provides a psychological edge against their rivals. Through a small act of defiance, one of the most well known gangs was born in Los Angeles. Because of its aggressive recruiting techniques of accepting any all new comers the name of this gang has caught on and has been copied and mimicked in several other cities and countries around the world.
Global Reach: Real or Perceived?
Since its inception youth from every large city in the US, Canada, Mexico and countries in Central & South America America, Europe and most likely several other cities and countries have adapted the use of the name 18th Street. Because of the wide spread popularity, the FBI has labeled this gang a transnational gang with global reach, but there is no evidence to support the existence of any such global network in which the 18th Street gang operates between cities or across national borders. Because of deportation, the gang culture of LA was introduced into Mexico and Central America, but transnational linkages in which the 18th Street gang operate have not been uncovered thus far. A study from 2007 found that international connections among Hispanic gangs like 18th Street were over stated and that there were no signs of transnational coordination among gang members. Academic studies have also fell short from identifying these types of networks among Los Angeles based Hispanic gangs.
The typical propaganda from law enforcement is designed to stigmatize the gang by over exaggerating the extent to which the gang operates. Phrases like "violent foreign-born gang members" and "their behavior is often deadly" uses the fear card to gain public support for what ever law enforcement action is desired against the group. For years the FBI has been telling us that there exists parallels between 18th Street and international crime but many of those linkages have been overstated and just because the federal government says that 18th Street possesses weapons of mass destruction does not necessarily mean that it is true. United States Senator Dianne Feinstein published a report in 2003 which erroneously stated that 80 percent of the 18th Street gang in California consists of illegal immigrants.
Gang Injunctions
The Los Angeles City Attorney's Office has three gang injunctions against the 18th Street; two in the Rampart Division and one in the Southwest Division of the LAPD against the same faction that Catorino Gonzales and Pedro Espinoza were from. This specific 18th Street gang has several clicks including Alcase, Lil Lowks, and Smiley Drive.
The Rampart injunctions were under review and temporarily halted in September of 1999 because of the Rampart corruption scandal that implicated several LAPD officers in criminal activity. In 2002 these injunctions were refiled by the City Attorney's Office and placed back into affect.
Warring with Bloods
Certain factions of 18th Street in South Los Angeles are feuding with Black gangs, specifically the Bloods. In 1994, members of the Rancho Park click that were hanging out on Gibraltar Avenue in the Jungles got into a conflict with members of the Black P Stones in the Jungles. The actual source of this conflict remains in question, but an argument ensued, and an 18th Street member was murdered, thus starting the cycle of violence between the Bloods and the 18th Street. The Black Stones from the City joined the conflict, then in 1996 the Rollin' 20s Bloods got involved. More recently the Fruit Town Brims, the 4th Blood gang joined the conflict against the 18th Street. This conflict followed the war between the Venice Shoreline Crips, a predominately black gang and the Hispanic Venice 13, that saw 17 murders in 9 months from 1993-94. Eventually, Venice 13 had the support of three other Hispanic gangs; Culver City Boys, Sotel, and Santa Monica 13, but that war was over by 1996.
Rick Ross was a Correctional Officer?
Two Lesbian Women Charged in Boy's Torture
Officer April Harding said Saturday the boy's mother, 24-year-old Starkeisha Brown, turned herself in Friday night. Brown's girlfriend, 21-year-old Krystal Matthews, was arrested the same day when she showed up for an appointment. Harding says Brown will be held in custody without bail and faces one charge of torturing.
Matthews was charged with willful harm or injury to a child. Her bail was set at $100,000. Harding did not know if the women had retained attorneys. She says the boy remains in hospital where he is being treated for serious injuries including burns to his hands and body and a broken tooth with a nerve exposed.
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Society and Crime
Henry Thomas Buckle
Henry Thomas Buckle 1821-62, English historian. Contemptuous of the historical writing of his day, with its intense concern with politics, wars, and heroes, Buckle undertook the ambitious plan of writing a history of civilization, treating people in relation to each other and to the natural world. At the time of his death, he had completed only the first two volumes of his panoramic History of Civilization in England (1857-61). In his attempt to make his field a science, Buckle arrived at various "laws" of history (e.g., the law of climate, by which he demonstrated that only in Europe could humans reach high levels of civilization) that were in fact rationalizations of his own progressive and liberal views. The effect his book had in shaping English liberal thought was nonetheless immediate and huge. It profoundly influenced later scientific historians and helped to fasten attention on masses rather than individuals, on all life rather than politics, and on the interrelations of people and nature rather than people and morals.
Guess Who this is?
As a result of John & Ken on 640 KFI and Doug McIntyre on 790 KABC, I received a level of hate calls and messages that was unprecedented in the 10 years my website has been on the internet. Their commentary on the subject matter was just wrong, and their explanation to my motivation was also dishonest. I was invited to go on the John & Ken show, but I declined because their producer wanted me to defend a statement that I never made in my original article and that was an indication to me that the attack was on. McIntyre never called or invited me to go on his program, and on May 13, 2008 he made some insidious comments about me and my conclusions.
I was invited on the Larry Elder show, and although many love him and many hate him, I must say he was extremely respectful to me and unfortunately I did not receive that level of respect from the other commentators on this issue.
Guess who this is?
Doug McIntyre Claims Smear Campaign against Jamiel Shaw
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I wrote an article about the murder of Jamiel Shaw to emphasize that the conflict between the Bloods and 18th Street is the primary reason why the shooter targeted Jamiel and not race. The main point is that Pedro Espinoza, was not on 5th Avenue looking for a random black person to murder. I was heavily criticized by Doug McIntyre from 790 KABC and many of his assertions about my article were completely wrong. What follows are responses to his statements made on May 13, 2008 from his morning radio show in Los Angeles.
* I never called Jamiel Shaw a "hardened gang banger" nor do I even come close to it in the article. The "hardened gang banger" or the hard core element of the gang is precisely what I am saying Jamiel was NOT. The word "gang" has become so stigmatized and over criminalized that the knee jerk reaction towards anything that is "gang-related" is to condemn those involved as criminals and domestic terrorists. Most of the members of a gang are not felonious offenders and most people cannot comprehend this dichotomy. The gang as a whole is not a criminal organization, but the hard core members use the gang as a conduit to express their anger, self-hate, crime and violence, while many of the other members take a back seat. The smaller group of hard core members are on a path of violent delinquent behavior regardless of gang membership because of their dysfunctional value system. Fortunately most gang members do not lash out so aggressively.
*Doug calling me a "self professed expert" I find a bit condescending. My education, articles published, nearly ten years working in the judicial system on gang cases, 15 years of research on gangs, being cited in dozens on books on the topic, working with the leading gang researchers in the country, appearing on more programs than I can count, producing television programs on the topic, I believe I have established my credentials. I was even a guest on his show last year.
*I vehemently challenge the belief that the 18th Street gang in Los Angeles has a membership that includes 80 percent illegal aliens. Just think about this number for a moment. Our illegal inmate population in California is about 15% (25,000 of 172,000 inmates). Our gang population in Los Angeles County of approximately 100,000 includes roughly 10% illegal aliens (high estimate) so if we assume that every illegal alien gang member in the County belongs to 18th Street, then at most you would have a gang that has 50 percent of its members illegal (Thats 10,000 of the total 20,000 members of 18th Street in LA County). But examining this with a little logic, we know that the illegal alien gang members are going to be disbursed throughout the 500 Hispanic gangs in the County. Additionally the 18th Street gang that has factions 40 years old, of roughly 20,000 members, is a generational gang that has a strong base of US born members, so it is impossible for that gang to have a population of 80 percent illegal aliens. This statistic comes from a 2003 report by Senator Dianne Feinstein, a politician that Doug and others on KABC would rarely rely on as a credible source of information because of her left leaning liberal record, but she has garnered some credibility from conservatives who now cite her on this outrageously false characterization. The statistic as it appears in Feinstein's report cites the National Drug Intelligence Center, but the Senator's report does not provide a proper citation for that statistic and her report claims that 80 percent of the State's, not LA's, 18th Street gang population is illegal. A Report by the National Alliance of Gang Investigators in 2005 uses the same stat, but that report at least sites the National Drug Intelligence Center, U.S. Department of Justice, Connecticut Gang Threat Assessment report of 2003 and this report does not even talk about 18th Street, so where does this stat come from?
*Within the worst neighborhoods that are plagued with gangs, approximately ten to fifteen percent of the adolescent population gravitates towards gangs. This is actually a good sign, because it reveals that the gangs are not ravaging and terrorizing neighborhoods as Doug suggested, and if you go to the Arlington Heights neighborhood on any day and drive through the community some might be surprised how appealing this community looks. Additionally, only a small portion of those that gravitate towards gangs exhibit habitual and predatory like criminal behavior.
*My analysis of what may have caused the shooter to kill Jamiel is being reduced by Doug as "a short skirt defense" without understanding the severity and consequences of anyone who fashions themselves after or emulates gang culture. On one hand we are quick to criticize popular culture and hip hop for promoting gang activity through rap music and videos and other medium used by the music industry, and rightfully so for its negative influence, however we do not want recognize its potential harm on young people and the danger it poses to walk the walk. To Doug, "what difference does it make?" and to disregard this issue is irresponsible.
*A "gang banger" is an active member of a gang who actively puts in work for his gang which includes shooting, assaults and murders, and I never put Jamiel in a "gang banger" category.
*My article never claimed that Jamiel was in a gang database.
*The article never stated that "Jamiel was responsible for his own death" nor does it even suggest to blame Jamiel. The murder of young Jamiel is horrific and I merely attempted to describe why the shooter targeted Jamiel. No matter what we learn about Jamiel, it is the shooter who was responsible for Jamiel's death, and if found guilty he should receive the most severe punishment that the jury recommends.
I've always considered Doug to be a fair minded reliable conservative voice but he misinterpreted my message to his audience and for those who never read it would have a completely different take on what I wrote. He has associated me with a political camp that preaches an "open border" policy for which I have no relationship with. I am not part of this "system" or a "game" as Doug contends, who supports illegal immigration, and I am not connected to the Mayor's Office or aligned with anyone in the LA County District Attorney's office. I firmly believe that if you are found guilty of a serious crime such as the one Espinoza was found guilty of last year, the County government, who had Espinoza in custody, should have placed a hold on him, investigated his immigration status and then turned him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
My analysis of the shooting was not done so to attack Jamiel's Law, a proposed City ordinance or to uphold Special Order 40, a current City ordinance. If any entity is responsible for the events that led up to Jamiel's murder, it should be our County government who had Espinoza in custody. Espinoza was arrested on November 18, 2007 in Culver City, California, and then turned over to the County to await trial in State Court where he was convicted and sentenced to serve his time in a County facility, that ultimately released him on March 1, 2008. The City of LA was not involved with in any actions related to the custody, arrest and/or prosecution of Espinoza stemming from his November arrest in 2007. The murder of Jamiel did occurred in the City of LA, but if the County turned Espinoza over to ICE (or if ICE placed a hold on Espinoza's release), then Jamiel would be alive right now. None of the preventative measures that are being discussed and recommended by Doug and others would have stopped the County from releasing Espinoza from custody.
Jamiel Shaw’s gang association made him a target for murder, not race
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On March 2, 2008, Jamiel Shaw Jr., 17 was gunned down by 19 year old Pedro Espinoza, a 18th Street gang member who had been arrested on the same day of Jamiel’s funeral according to the Los Angeles District Attorney. Espinoza had spent nearly four months in a Los Angeles County jail for exhibiting a firearm and resisting arrest before he was released March 1, 2008 just 28 hours before he murdered Jamiel. Within a week, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency had filed paperwork naming Espinoza a potential candidate for deportation. If convicted for this crime, he will most likely received a life sentence, so the immigration hold brings no heavier punishment for this offense. It turns out that when Espinoza was four years old, he was smuggled into the United States from Mexico and he grew up in a neighborhood just west of Shaw’s Arlington Heights home.
When the murder was reported in the local news, Jamiel was characterized as the son a military mother, who was a successful high school athlete that was not involved in street gangs in any way. The media described this murder as “senseless” and when it was determined that Espinoza was an illegal alien, the story of Shaw’s murder was being highlighted by the media’s strongest critics against illegal immigration, including Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Lou Dobbs. According to Bill O’Reilly, “Jamiel was just walking around, he wasn’t a bad kid, he’s an athlete, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time” (March 24, 2008 – The O’Reilly Factor).
Jamiel wasn’t a bad kid, but he did have relationships with gang members in his community that led to Espinoza’s fatal assault on him. Jamiel lived in a community occupied by Bloods that have been at war with 18th Street for 12 years. With witnesses pointing out that a Hispanic was responsible for the murder, the only logical assailant would be a member of 18th Street, a predominately Mexican-American gang with some illegal alien members. Reports that 18th Street gang has a membership that is 80% illegal is false. Of the County’s total gang population approximately five to 10% are illegal.
The 18th Street gang formed in the 1960s in the Pico-Union community of Los Angeles and has formed over 20 separate gangs within Los Angeles County. Collectively they are the largest Hispanic gang operating under the same name, but in actuality, each of the 20 or so discreet 18th Street neighborhoods should be treated as individual autonomous gangs, since many of the separate neighborhoods clash and have internal rivalries in an unstable network. Reports that 18th Street as a “supergang” are media myths that also include gangs such as MS13, Maravilla, Surenos, Crips, and Bloods, all which are NOT gangs but umbrella labels that hundreds of gangs in Los Angeles identify with. If there were any truth to the existence of these “supergangs,” then the Crips, predominately black, would be the largest street gang in Southern California with approximately 20,000 members in Los Angeles County alone and several thousands more in the surrounding Counties. Since the Crips and black-on-black violence was yesterday’s news, our media is no longer concerned with their violence, even though they are responsible for the majority of gang crimes in our city. Mainstream media attention on gangs for some has now shifted to highlighting the violence that the smaller illegal alien gang member population have committed.
In the Arlington Heights neighborhood, a preliminary investigation reveals that the shooter from 18th Street went to the door of one of Jamiel’s neighbors and shortly thereafter saw Jamiel walking on the street, who was wearing a red belt, a common gang identifier in that neighborhood. According to a witness, the shooter asked Jamiel what gang he was from and then he shot him. All indications about Jamiel was that he was a good teen with a bright future, but what may have caused the shooter to single Jamiel out was his association with the neighborhood including amiable relationships with Blood gang members. His relationships with these gang members should not take away from his good character nor does it justify his murder, because people such as Jamiel inevitably interact with gangs because they are in the neighborhood, on the school bus, protecting residents from other gangs, on the street corners and at the high school.
Many of our City’s 40,000 gang members in the database are teens like Jamiel, just mere associates that interact with those in the community and play sports. They are not of the criminal element, but based on his associations, law enforcement would categorize young Jamiel as a gang member, and if they read the following quote that Jamiel wrote on one of his myspace pages under “people I’d like to meet,” it would raise more eyebrows to his gang affiliation:
“I'D LIKE 2 MEET OTHER B-DOGS SOME FREAKY GIRLS BECAUSE U GOT 2 BE A VERY FREAKY 2 TALK 2 ME. SOME crabs SO I CAN BEAT THOSE c-monstas. BUT MAINLY OTHER GIRLS. aND 2 TALK 2 MY FREAKS”
Source: http://www.myspace.com/lilckaboom
The term “B-DOGS” in the above quote is a reference to Blood gang members, and “crabs” is a derogatory reference to Crip gang members. I would characterize the above statement as normal adolescent behavior but law enforcement will call this gang related. Jamiel was not a bad kid, but he was specifically targeted because of his gang association. Some find it difficult to believe that such a talented athlete would even talk or affiliate with gang members, but college athletes and professional athletes alike are known to have strong ties to their neighborhood gang. Just last week, Boston Celtic’s star Paul Pierce, threw a Piru Blood gang hand sign to Al Horford after a spat during a playoff game that represented his Inglewood neighborhood in California. Stacey Augmon who has gang ties to the Denver Lane Bloods in Pasadena has had a successful career in the NBA and won a national title in 1990 playing for UNLV. In 1996 many skeptics warned about drafting Keyshawn Johnson out of USC because of his "gang ties" to the Fruit Town Brims but Johnson has had a hall of fame career without incident and now a commentator for ESPN. Baron Davis, the star point guard for the Golden State Warriors, has gang ties to his South LA neighborhood and he’s currently producing a film about LA’s gangs, and he is the godfather to Harlem Caron Taylor, the son of gangster rapper The Game. Additionally, Charles Jordan, a Blood member from the LA Swans gang played six seasons in the NFL for the Miami Dolphins and Green Bay Packers and was known to tribute his gang with a hand sign after scoring a touchdown.
Jamiel’s association with the Bloods was strong enough to cause the shooter to target him, making this shooting purely gang related as the shooter’s purpose was to benefit the 18th Street gang’s objectives. When the shooter asked, according to a witness, where Jamiel was from, that provided the shooter’s motive lessening the role of race in this shooting. The murder of Cheryl Green in Harbor City in 2006, the murder of Kenneth Wilson in 1999, the murder of Christopher Bowser in 2000, and the murder of Anthony Prudhomme in 2000, all in Highland Park were black residents killed in purely racially motivated fashion where the victims had no gang affiliation in communities where black gangs were not even present. Additionally all the Hispanic assailants in the above murders were US Citizens.
In nine years as testifying as a gang expert in criminal courts, I have seen dozens of individuals wrongly classified as gang members, including mothers, brothers, and other relatives for just being seen in the neighborhood or having an association with someone who is in a gang. Read about Mario Rocha. This vague identification process that police officers use is the reason why the City claims 40,000 gang members with nearly 100,000 gang members County-wide. Many of these young men never know they are being entered into a gang database, and all it takes is an officer to complete a field information (FI) card and write “admitted gang member.” The purpose for including gang affiliations on as many FI cards as possible makes any offense that the individual commits in the future prosecuted with gang enhancement penalties even if the offense was not gang related.
I have always been against lumping people like Jamiel as a gang member, but because of this conundrum, we must look at gangs not as vicious criminal organizations, but as naturally forming delinquent groups, rooted in community, that include everything from non criminal associates to the hard core elements and everything in between. Many of these adolescent youth will mature out of the gang within their first year and never acquire a criminal record or commit violence. Gangs are complex organizations that require a deeper understanding than what media sensationalism and law enforcement depictions offer on the topic.
Of those 40,000 gang members in the City today, we should only be concerned with about 4,000 to 6,000 of those members who are the habitual repeat violent offenders responsible for approximately 90% of all gang related crime. The rest of these “gang members” are close friends, associates, peripheral players, relatives, school friends, wanna-bes and community residents. Assuming Espinoza is guilty, one has to attempt to explain why this murder took place before we even try to work at mitigating future violence in this community and certainly before anyone can draft law that is suppose to prevent these types of murders from happening again. Many will suggest that if Espinoza was deported, this shooting would have never occurred, but lets take it further and understand that if 18th Street and the Bloods from this neighborhood were not engaged in conflict, not only would Jamiel be alive, so would several other people.
Anyone truly committed to mitigating the violence between the Bloods in Jamiel’s neighborhood and 18th Street should try to organize a truce between the two neighborhoods that have been feuding for over a decade. I am certain that with proper financial resources being used to organize and sustain street worker’s efforts on the conflict between the Bloods and 18th Street, a resolution to this conflict can be achieved that would have a regional impact on other neighborhoods that will educate young people and save lives. Thus far all I have seen is a demonstration of politics among people who have no understanding on gangs and the problems that plague these communities while another family grieves the loss of a great son.
How to Lose an Argument Everytime
Alex Alonso
Good Liars Must Deceive oneself
Newly added gang member to top ten list captured
Sixth Top-10 Gang Member Arrested
LAPD News Release
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Los Angeles: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William Bratton announced the capture of 18-year-old Soperry Chea, also known as “Baby Face,” who was listed as one of LAPD’s most wanted gang members. Chea is the six most-wanted gang member captured since the list was created February 8, 2007.
“Chea’s capture is significant for two reasons,” said Chief Bratton. “First, he was arrested locally, by LAPD officers, and second, it demonstrates that this particular gang initiative is working.”
On March 26, 2008, officers developed information that Chea, a wanted Top-10 gang member was in the area of 14000 block of Valerio Street in the Van Nuys Area. Uniformed officers from the Van Nuys Station converged on the apartment complex.
Approximately three hours later, officers recognized Chea after he was seen entering a vehicle. Chea was stopped and taken into custody. Inside the vehicle, was a handgun which, was recovered by the officers.
Chea was placed on the most-wanted list for a murder that occurred back on April 17, 2005, during which he stabbed an unarmed man to death while pinning him to the ground. After committing the murder, Chea through the knife over a fence which, was later recovered by police.
http://lapdonline.org/newsroom/news_view/37916
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