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MS-13s: Los Angeles' Unwelcome Export to Virginia August 31, 2004 By Nicolas Zimmerman, Medill News Service Order this DVD While Hollywood films and Lakers jerseys may still be Los Angeles's most popular exports, the city is also becoming famous for one of its more notorious by-products: violent Latino street gangs. And parts of the country are having no choice but to start paying attention. The wake-up calls for law enforcement officers and residents of Northern Virginia have come rapidly and with cannon-force. In July 2003, Brenda Paz, an 18-year-old federal witness, was stabbed to death and left on the banks of the Shenandoah River. In May 2004, a 16-year-old in Fairfax, Va., had his hands almost completely chopped off by a machete-wielding youth. A week later, a 17-year-old Herndon, Va., youth was shot dead by an assailant on a bicycle. Authorities in affluent Fairfax County, Va., say all three murders appear to be the work of members of Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a violent street gang composed primarily of illegal immigrants from El Salvador. The gang took root during the 1980s in Los Angeles, as Salvadorans fled the country’s brutal civil war for the relative calm of LA. Many of the original MS-13 members had ties to the Salvadoran street gang La Mara and the paramilitary group Farabundo National Liberation Front, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s office. MS-13's presence has been building in Northern Virginia for the last decade, says Mindy Grizzard, a board member of the Virginia Gang Investigators Association. One of the reasons, authorities say, is the area's sizable Central American community. Fairfax County is home to more than 30,000 Central Americans, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. Of these, more than 20,000 are Salvadoran. Another reason MS-13 has migrated toward the nation's capital, says Grizzard, is the region’s affluence. This, combined with the fact that before MS-13 no gang had firmly entrenched itself in Northern Virginia, has made the area an attractive drug market for an enterprising street gang to tap. While MS-13's mere presence in Fairfax, Loudon, Alexandria, Arlington and Prince Williams counties is not news, the recent sharp increase in gang membership, and corresponding escalation of violence, is. The sensational nature of recent gang-related incidents has focused the public’s attention on the issue, Grizzard said. "When the guy got his hands hacked off by a machete, that blew the whole thing out of the water," she said. As a result MS-13 has swiftly become a cause celebre among Virginia politicians, with the state’s attorney general, governor and a state representative all creating task forces in the last two years to deal with the problem. Investigators estimate that the entire Washington D.C., metropolitan area is home to five to six thousand members of MS-13. Of these, at least 1,500 live in Fairfax County, according to Mike Porter, an investigator who has been dealing with the gang for almost a decade. Porter says the gang is believed to be responsible for at least 10 murders in Northern Virginia over the last several years. And of all the gang-related crime in Fairfax County, Porter estimates that 90 percent of it is committed by members of MS-13. On July 1, 2004, several new Virginia laws took effect aimed at helping law enforcement arrest gang members and keep them in jail. In addition to MS-13 members' lurid use of machetes to settle disputes with their rivals, the characteristic that separates the gang from most others is that most of its members live in this country illegally. In recognition of this, one of Virginia’s new laws allows police to detain for up to 72 hours illegal aliens who have previously been convicted of a felony, deported and reentered the country illegally. Keith Applewhite, a member of the gang task force who testified in front of the Virginia General Assembly, said he thinks this law in particular will help curb the problem with MS-13. "What it comes down to is we’re trying to be proactive," Applewhite said of the growing gang problem. "We’re learning from other states and slowing it down while we can." Before the law came into effect, officers were powerless to detain a suspect on the grounds that he had been deported and reentered the country illegally. Officers had to wait until they caught gang members doing something illegal. After MS-13 members were convicted of felonies and deported, many of them simply returned to the U.S. clandestinely. Now if a police officer recognizes an illegal alien who has already been deported as a convicted felon, Applewhite explained, the police officer can detain the individual until the Immigration and Naturalization Service can have him deported. Applewhite stressed that a police officer would either have to recognize a suspect as a convicted felon and deportee, or he would have to uncover this information as part of an unrelated search. Still, the application of the law may be affected by a case that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court during its 2004-05 term. In Muehler v. Mena, the Court will decide whether the questioning of an individual about his or her immigration status constitutes a search as defined by the 4th Amendment. In the case, police officers obtained a warrant to search a suspected gang safe house for evidence pertaining to a drive-by shooting two weeks before. Iris Mena, who was not believed to be a gang member, was pulled out of bed at gunpoint, marched to her garage and detained for two to three hours. While police and SWAT team members searched Mena’s house, a member of the INS inquired about Mena’s citizenship and searched through her purse for her papers. The high court will decide whether law enforcement officials have the right to question a lawfully detained suspect regarding his resident status. If the Supreme Court rules against law enforcement,they fear the new Virginia law will do little to combat gangs like MS-13. Unless the Supreme Court overturns the decision made by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in California, officers in Virginia will not have the right to question an individual in custody of his immigration status unless there exists a reasonable suspicion that the detainee is an illegal alien. If Virginia’s police are hamstrung by the Supreme Court ruling, state lawmakers may want to adopt one of Los Angeles' own tactics in the war against gangs: injunctions. In March of this year, L.A. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo obtained a court order that bars members of MS-13 from certain activities in prescribed areas. Members of the gang, who the City Attorney's office said have been linked to 18 murders over the last two years, are prohibited from meeting together in public, trespassing, creating graffiti and other gang-related activities. More than 20 such injunctions have been granted in Los Angeles to get at gang violence. Delgadillo's office said that some neighborhoods affected by these injunctions have seen a 50 percent reduction in gang crimes over the past year. Results like that would probably be a welcome sight in Northern Virginia. 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