Inside the Feds' War on Gang Violence
Law enforcement agencies are trying to get the most dangerous hit men and enforcers off the streets
In places like the bowels of an Aurora police barracks, ATF agents keep some of their most effective tools of gang fighting in a locked filing cabinet—audio and video recorders, hidden cameras, bugs, and other electronic gadgetry used not only to spy on gangs but to convict them in court.
The feds have far greater surveillance authority than local police and are also able to bring stiff charges that send criminals away to distant federal pens. "When the federales are involved, gang bangers start coughing up information, because they are going away for a long time in a prison far away from their mothers and girlfriends," says an ATF special agent in Aurora, who requested anonymity because he still works undercover.
The same tactics are also at work in larger cities, though it's far more difficult for a few agents to make enough arrests to shift the momentum against the gangs, as they can in smaller cities. In Los Angeles, one of the national epicenters of gang culture, ATF agents spent months gathering evidence against members of the Bloods, Crips, and Black P-Stone Nation gangs this summer. Using phone taps and undercover drug and gun buys by agents, they targeted the Baldwin Village neighborhood of L.A., the setting for the movie Training Day and long a gang hotspot.
"Guns off the street." Just hours before the ATF and the L.A. Police Department are set to raid a key gang hideout, the nightly news carries the all-too-familiar story of an 8-year-old girl playing with friends in the courtyard of a South Los Angeles apartment building when she was hit in the chest and killed by a stray bullet from a drive-by. "We're the violent crime police, and that means taking guns off the street and away from gangs however we can," says John Torres, who runs the ATF office in L.A.
It is still dark outside when members of the SWAT team gear up in a parking garage, strapping on stun grenades, giving their assault rifles a final once-over, and adjusting their body armor. They look more like a military unit preparing for battle, but the extra firepower is warranted. By the end of the operation, the ATF and the L.A. Police Department will capture 38 gang members and 119 guns, including AK-47 assault rifles and Uzi machine guns.
But this particular raid does not go well. The team arrives at the suspect's home and bangs on the door. Tossing in a stun grenade, the team batters down the door only to find a middle-aged woman—the suspect's mother—asleep on the couch. The grenade delivers a terrific noise, giving the startled woman chest pains. The team quickly calls for an ambulance.
"Too familiar."Outside in the dawn light, neighbors peek out of their windows, but no one comes out. "It's all too familiar," says Donald Wilson, 52, a preacher at a local church who just the day before helped his neighbors scrape the bark off trees after gang members marked their territory on the palms with spray paint. Wilson was out walking his dog when the SWAT team drove by. "Sure, that house is a gang house—good riddance," he says. "But I understand that to survive around here, you have to side with someone."
A common refrain, even in middle-class towns like Aurora, is that the gang replaces the family by protecting and providing for young men who see few other options. Chris Blitch, 25, is typical of many young men with difficult childhoods who fall in with the wrong crowd. His mother is a social worker who serves battered women at an office that happens to be in the same building where an ATF task force targets gangs. It was several of those agents in 2006 who caught her son on tape planning to knock over a drug stash house. He boasted to undercover officers that he'd use a machine gun to cut people in half if they got in his way, according to a criminal complaint.
Reader Comments
WE MUST BE THE SPIRITUAL CHANGE, WE WISH TO SEE IN CREATOR'S WORLD
WE MUST BE THE SPIRITUAL CHANGE WE WISH TO SEE IN CREATOR'S WORLD!
By Mike (Ali) Raccoon Eyes Kinney
A Native man should always be clean and sober, for he knows there is still more work to do !
Rise with the Sun to pray. Pray alone and pray often. The Great Creator will listen, if you only speak.
From all generations of the past, here now in the present and the unborn generations of the future, the Creator from Sacred Time, Creation Time, First Man and First Woman Time, made all Native People a Holy People.
It is important that we as Native People maintain good self-esteem, self-worth and self-value.
We cannot attack ourselves, beat ourselves up and pound ourselves for crimes we have never committed.
Our Prayer to the Creator represents a different kind a power, a different kind of strength, a different kind of energy.
Stand up with pride when you pray to Creator. Stand with Honor before Creator. Be Proud to be Spiritually alive on the Earth Mother, and thankful and honored to stand before Creator, rather than bowing down like a slave.
All prophecy can be changed. There are things that may happen under the present conditions of our world, but these conditions do not have to stay the way they are, or deteriorate to a more desperate situation.
Native People offer a spiritual solution to the world's problems.
Many people are interested in the message of Native Spirituality because they are aware of the despairing circumstances of our world and the fact that we must all make changes in order to survive globally.
We offer people hope for a peaceful world by sharing our Spiritual paths with them. We are not selling our ceremonies, or our traditions; we are sharing wisdom.
With Creator's World Renewal Medicine cycle soon approaching, it is predicted that all First Nation People shall return to our traditional Native ways. Native people will spiritually transform North America back into harmony and balance.
Native and non Native People who walk in the Spiritual ways of the Ancestors will be in control of the Americas.
Native people see the Sun as our Father. The highest of the Earth Mother's energies are in the morning when Father Sun is rising in the East.
Native people know that morning is the best time to pray for as Father Sun rises, we can place all problems and issues into the past. Native people give spiritual thanks daily for the energy and power of Father Sun.
The purest Spiritual medicine in the World of humankind is of course, the Great Creator of All Things, and the blessing of Father Sun when it rises each morning in the East.
When we as Native people pray, it permits us to have the Creator's Blessings of healing and understanding, in turn creates peace and love, and brings the full effect of Creator's harmony and balance to the Earth Mother.
Wado and A-ho, Brothers and Sisters
Mike (Ali) Raccoon Eyes Kinney
Posted by Mike (Ali) Raccoon Eyes Kinney
TEACHING THE VALUES OF PEACE: A NATIVE PERSPECTIVE
TEACHING THE VALUES OF PEACE
By: Mike (Ali) Raccoon Eyes Kinney
As a Cherokee Native American Activist and a former member of the Richmond California Violence Prevention Movement, I have seen close to 515 homicides in the City of Richmond from 2001 to the present.
The declaration of a 'war on violence' by the Richmond city government was not the panacea, instead it failed miserably.
I have often stated in town hall meetings and on television, the best way to win the 'war on violence' in Richmond is to 'TEACH THE VALUES OF PEACE'.
In the killing fields of Richmond, most of the victims of homicides are youth or young adults. Teaching the values of peace begins with our youth and young adults. From a Native perspective, winning the war on violence begins in the home with a strong, spiritual belief and value system.
We believe that Creator made all generations, past, present and those of the future, holy people. This is what our Elders teach us from the time we are born.
Our families and Elders teach our young people that they must tear away the images and stereotypes that mainstream society has placed upon them as Native peoples.
Violence and killing is not traditional in Native culture, it is a learned behavior from mainstream society.
We teach our youths not to attack, punish or beat themselves up for crimes that they have never committed in regards to racism. Our Elders and families teach our young people to have good self-esteem, self-worth and self-value, for as the original holy people this was Creators plan.
Native people know that it is both family and community responsibility to teach the values of peace to our young people.
We teach our young people honesty and accountability concerning violence. It begins with accepting responsibility for self and acknowledging any past use of violence.
Admitting any wrongdoing, communicating openly and truthfully to renounce the use of violence in the future places our youth on the right path. We place a heavy emphasis that all life is sacred.
The final lesson in teaching the values of peace is quite simple. It is helping young people understand their relationship to others and all things in Creation.
Be responsible for your role, act with compassion and respect, and remember ALL LIFE IS SACRED. Native culture is prevention!
Mike (Ali) Raccoon Eyes Kinney
Close to home
First of all, people are getting shot on my street. I can't leave my apartment due to police barricades. I'm a student.
Second of all, people might join gangs because it's 'cool' but they ultimately stay because of a lack of other options. People with better means of being accepted and becoming something quit the gang life very quickly. Trust me it's a scary scene.
It's all about hope, and as long as our economy turns for the worse there's more of the same to be expected. The most that's done about it is awareness organizations like 99problems that try to reach out using celebrities. The problem is, they have to reach the actual gangs. They're raising awareness among the general public but the important messages need to be directed at the gangs.
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