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The Inside Man – Confidential Informant, Los Angeles Gangs & the LAPD | StreetGangs.Com


cant post this old school article cause its embedded... but how is this guy alive...

 

[Day_Walker]

 

[Dr Dre's ProductionSkills]

From the Hoods to the Woods
How an O.G. gangbanger turned himself into a hardcore firefighter
By Léon Bing Wednesday, Sep 20 2006


DeShion McIntyre is in his late 30s, a tough little workhorse of a man with a ready smile and a spray of freckles across the bridge of his nose. The smile cannot quite mask an unmistakable quality of cool assessment behind his light-brown eyes; it’s a look that lets you know he’s wary of your game, that if boundaries are crossed, an invisible barrier will rise up around him like a security fence. He is talking about his past as a hardcore Crip.

His weapon of choice back in the day was a .40 Glock. “We were programmed to kill Rollin’ 60s before first period.” He grins narrowly when he says this; he’s talking about elementary school. He was taken in by his grandmother when he was a baby; his mother didn’t have much interest in raising a child, and his father was a phantom figure, absent before DeShion was born. There was an older brother, Kenny-Mac, a member of the Eight-Tray Gangsta Crips, and other relatives who claimed the neighborhood: uncles, aunts, cousins. By the time DeShion was 8 or 9, he was regularly approached to be “from the hood.” The hood was the streets around Florence and Normandie avenues, the intersection that would become notorious as the flash point of the 1992 riots.

When he was 11, to keep him occupied and away from gang influences, a family friend who owned a liquor store hired DeShion to run the cash register. He wasn’t allowed to sell alcohol — too young. But he was old enough to clip 20 or 30 bucks out of the register every week. “Just thuggin’ . . .” is how he describes it now, in much the same way a bodybuilder might talk about lifting a 50-pound weight. At first, he eluded the seductive lure of membership in the heavily populated Eight-Tray Gangsta Crips (1,200 in 1977), preferring to hang with some of the homeboys from 80th Street, a small Crip faction with some 200 members. Friends and relatives from Eight-Tray continued to court him, but DeShion maintained his status as a free agent.

Then something happened that changed everything: One of the Eight-Trays was shot in a drive-by, and as the young gangsta lay mortally wounded in the street, the car sped off, stopped, turned and doubled back to run him over. Eleven-year-old DeShion witnessed the entire incident.

“I heard that dude’s head pop. Saw his brain jump to the other side of the street.” He reflects for a moment. “No kid should see somethin’ like that. That pretty much took away whatever innocence I had left and handed me back an ‘I don’t give a fukk’ attitude. And it was that attitude led me to CYA.” The initials stand for California Youth Authority: a prison with a school attached.

He’s facing off with it now, wielding a Pulaski ax to hack away dense brush, helping to dig a line that can contain the flames, working fast against the wind. He can hear the snarl of chain saws and the whap of helicopter blades. Every few minutes, he stops and gulps water from the 2-gallon jug in his backpack — September heat can be a bytch. The smoke is playing hell with his eyes too, but he can still see pretty clearly. That can change in a finger snap; as the smoke thickens, a man an arm’s length away can melt into it.


DeShion joined up with Eight-Tray shortly after the drive-by killing. He got a street name, “Bugga Red,” and set out to prove himself a warrior. Before he hit his teens, he’d had built a reputation as a fearsome homie: “Anytime there was a gang-related incident, my name rang a big bell.”

Red’s grandmother, known as “Minnie-Mac,” was a much-respected figure in the neighborhood. He describes her as “the grandmom of Eight-Tray — everybody came to our house.” While she may have been tolerant of other gang members, including Red’s brother, Kenny-Mac, Minnie’s disapproval of that lifestyle for her youngest grandson was palpable. She argued and implored, threatened punishment; the kid was unreachable. “My homies had become my family, see. I loved my hood and my hood loved me back, so . . .” He shrugs slightly, remembering those years at the tail end of the ’70s.

Bugga Red was so caught up in the web of gang life, so addicted to the excitement that coursed through him anytime he went out on a gang mission, that nothing else counted. So what if his grandmother taught sixth grade at Miller Elementary? Bugga Red showed up at school when he felt like it. Homework was something to be ignored. Teachers were fools. He made passing grades, but building a rep in the neighborhood was his only concern. He had to be the baddest, the toughest, the fastest to retaliate.

“I remember one time I stole a big ol’ color TV from a neighbor’s house and carried it on home. Me and my brother got in a beef and he kicked in the screen, bam! So I shot him in the back with a .22 Remington automatic. My grandmom took him to the hospital, and I think that’s when she really knew how involved I was in gang life.”

Involved is perhaps not quite the word; obsessed seems nearer the mark. “We didn’t care about no girls, no school, no church. Nothin’. The only thing we cared about was gangbangin’.”



Bugga Red and about 50 other kids his age — 12 through early teens, all of them looking to make their reps — formed a kind of task force. “These were the guys who was really puttin’ it down. We were the enforcers. Anything came up needed to get done, nobody had to tell us to go do it. It was already done.”

When Red was 13, he was convicted of the armed robbery of four Jack in the Box restaurants in and around South-Central L.A. Customers seated at tables were robbed as well. Twelve charges in all. The sentence handed down was 12 years at CYA. Red still claims he was set up: “They really wanted to get me off the street.”



His first three months at CYA were spent in Receiving: 24-hour confinement in a single cell, out only for classes at the on-campus school and a one-hour recreation period. There was a Bible in the cell, and, desperately bored, the kid began to read. One evening, a month or so after his arrival, he picked up the book, turned to a picture of Jesus and whispered, “Please, God, forgive me. I can’t do no 12 years.” Then he hanged himself with a bed sheet.

When he regained consciousness, he was in restraints in what he refers to as “the padded room.” When he was told that his grandmother was there, he refused to see her and turned his face to the wall. Minnie kept coming back, and Red kept refusing for the two months he had left in Receiving. “I was ashamed and, at the same time, confused. Because I was so into loving the neighborhood, which I felt was lovin’ me back. Back then, see, I was more into the neighborhood thing than family morals.” He hesitates briefly. “And, I got to admit, I knew damn well my grandmother was gonna lecture me up one side and down the other.”

Two weeks after his failed suicide attempt, Red was moved to a cell where he was in close proximity to other Eight-Tray Gangstas. “It was my homeboys kept me alive with they moral support. They knew I was young and that I had been born to [gang life]. Knew I didn’t know nothing about the system. They gave me ‘Tray Love.’ ”

Within four months, he was relocated to permanent housing at the O.H. Close Youth Correctional Facility in Stockton. “Close wasn’t as bad as CYA. They was girls in there, at least — you’d see ’em in class. Couldn’t mess with ’em, though.”

Checking out the girls is not Red’s most vivid memory of the seven years he served at Close. What he remembers most clearly is that one of his fellow enforcers from Eight-Tray, “Sad Face,” was doing time there as well and that he had put it to use by enrolling in the camp’s college-prep course. Bugga Red and Sad Face were tight on the outs (homeboys, after all, and about the same age), and the years in confinement strengthened that bond. But Red took a pass on the college course.


The sound is terrible. It’s like a battalion of 18-wheelers headed straight at you going at top speed. You can almost make out the snarl of engines and the whine of downshifted gears above the crackle of burning brush.

Bugga Red was released in ’83. Nineteen years old, on parole, and straight back in the life. Two things had changed: He had forged a relationship with his mother, Antoinette, during his time at Close. And he was now considered an O.G. He lived up to the honorific: six months of freedom and he was in trouble again.

“I was slangin’ drugs and got into a confrontation with some rival gang members. I got in my car and drove ’round the corner. Then I came back and shot all four of ’em with a 12-gauge pump. Three of the blasts got the one guy who was talkin’ all the mess. The others was wounded, but they still managed to run to the cops.” He pauses. “They all survived, but the guy with the mouth was paralyzed.”

Within 30 minutes of the shooting, Bugga Red heard the police bullhorn outside his grandmother’s house: “DeShion McIntyre — Bugga Red — we know you’re in there. Come out of the house with your hands over your head.”

The house was empty; Minnie-Mac had gone to the beach with some relatives, and Red, escaping the area as soon as he heard the bullhorn, was already on the run. He stayed with a girlfriend for a couple of weeks, and then he heard the police were stopping by his grandmother’s house every day, poking around, asking questions. He turned himself in at the 77th Street station in the neighborhood where the shooting had taken place.

Red was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in order to commit grave bodily harm. He tooka deal from the district attorney: seven years at Corcoran State Prison. Serious time in a serious place. Corcoran was the model for the infamous Pelican Bay, and it is one of the toughest maximum-security prisons in the country. Sirhan Sirhan and Charles Manson are among the inmates serving life sentences at Corcoran. It is where eight guards were indicted for arranging prisoner gladiator-style fights in the yard.


“When I first got there, they put me in the hole for about a month — until they decided where they were going to place me.” His voice develops an icy edge. “You in yo’ socks and yo’ underwear and that’s it — you ain’t goin’ nowhere. Yo’ food, everything, is brought to you. The only time you get out that little cell is when they take you for a shower every four days. Nobody talks to you. You just somethin’ to guard.”

When Red was released from solitary, he was placed in a double cell in general population. “At that time, Corcoran was rockin’ and rollin’. Because of the race wars goin’ on there — Mexican on black. Sometimes the guards would put a Mexican and a black outside in what we called ‘the rec room,’ which was just an enclosure, and then they’d make bets on who would come out on top.”


Red was determined not to make trouble; he wanted only to do his time. “But soon as I hit that yard, I ran into a rival gang member. We looked at each other and, bam, it was war.” His lips curve into a smile that doesn’t make it to his eyes. “We standin’ there, mad-doggin’ each other, gettin’ ready for it, when a lifer — a guy who had already been down for 16 years — come up next to me and whispered, ‘Be cool. We already got enough trouble.’ ” The lifer was talking about the race war, of course, and he was making sense. Red thought about it and took a step back. The rival gangsta hesitated, then he stepped off too.

Within a week or so, whenever he was outside, Red noticed the guards would say, “?’Sup, S.C. . . .” He didn’t understand, so he started asking around. The guards were referring to him as a shot caller — high praise. It defined Red as the final word for all Crips on the yard. Then there was a knifing, a “sticking,” during free time. Two rival Mexican gang members, one claiming allegiance to the North faction, the other to the South, got into it.

“The gunman in the tower picked me out as the sticker because of my complexion,” Red says, “and I got thrown in the hole for it.” He was there for four days, all the time trying to get someone to listen, trying to explain he’s not Mexican, he’s black; he’s not from North, not from South, he’s a Crip. Finally, another inmate recognized him as Bugga Red from Eight-Tray, and he was returned to general pop.

Two weeks later, the race war escalated, and Red was on the frontlines. He was charged with inciting a riot and sent back to solitary confinement. Back alone in a cell 23-seven. No TV. Nothing but the Bible to read. This time, he began to read in earnest, beginning with Genesis and plowing straight through. He was in solitary for four months. He read the Bible every day; studied it, took it in. When he was moved back to regular housing, it didn’t take long for personal tragedy to overtake him: His mother died of cancer, and his brother, Kenny-Mac, was killed in a motorcycle accident.

“Between those two things, I was on the verge of losing my mind. My mother died first, and that was a lot to go through, but it wasn’t unexpected. My brother had just finished a four-year stretch at Soledad, so I was expecting to see him when I got out the next year. I had just spoken to him — he asked me to call him the next Friday — and I had said, ‘I ain’t gonna call you Friday. I’m gonna let you get yo’self together first.’ ”

Friday came, and Red was at chow when the guards came to inform him that Kenny-Mac was dead. Red stood up to face them: “Naw. Naw!Don’t be tellin’ me my brother dead. I just talked to him — I was supposed to call him today. Don’t be sayin’ he dead.” When Red called home, Minnie-Mac told him that Kenny had lain in the county morgue for five days as a John Doe, unknown and unclaimed.

 

[Dr Dre's ProductionSkills]

Code Red: ''I would become the best firefighter they had ever seen.'' (Photos by Gareth Seigel)
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More About
Red McIntyreDavid HastingUSDA Forest ServiceCrime and LawGang Violence
The remainder of the year passed slowly. Red descended into a depression so engulfing he spent most of the time in his cell, unavailable even to the homies. Nothing could entice him out of himself.

Red’s cousinJade came to pick him up upon his release from Corcoran and, as a kind of gift, brought along a girl: Monique. Monique was pretty enough, and she was clearly intrigued at the prospect of being with a genuine outlaw. Red went home with her to Rialto.

“I figured, comin’ out of prison, that was a way to keep out the hood.” But two weeks later, he was back at Minnie-Mac’s in South-Central, ready to re-up with the Eight-Tray Gangstas. One thing stopped him:

“I had made a promise to myself that I wasn’t never goin’ back to prison.”

Some of the homeboys came to the house that first week. “We was kickin’ it, smokin’ a little weed, and I told ’em I had to find me a job. And they started in talkin’ how they was all about fightin’ fires now as part of a crew called the Panthers. They was goin’ on about how the Panthers was with the Highlanders, which was part of the U.S. Forest Service, and I got interested. But the homies said, naw, I was too involved with the neighborhood to be in the program.” He displays that thin smile again. “That made me more interested. See, I wanted a way to give back to the neighborhood. Wanted a way to help inner-city kids in trouble.” He made a promise to the guys sitting in his grandmother’s living room. “I told ’em if they gave me an opportunity, I would run away with it.”

One of the homeboys at the house that day was a Panthers program manager. Red remembers that this guy had remained silent during much of the talk, just sat and listened. “This dude knew if I could turn that negative into a positive, then I could run a whole lotta things.” The guy vouched for Red, and a week later, McIntyre was accepted as a Highlanders trainee. Highlanders was the name of a temporary fire crew, part of an employment program that had been developed by the U.S. Forest Service in the wake of the ’92 riots in South-Central L.A. The program was originally designed to provide jobs for those people living in areas most affected by the rioters. Ninety-five percent were African-American, most of them young guys out of South-Central.


Assistant Chief Jim Hall has been with the Forest Service since 1979. Hall is a powerfully built man, a onetime firefighter turned training officer. He nods approvingly when I mention Red McIntyre. “Yeah, McIntyre came to us through a program called Opportunity L.A. that came into being after the ’92 civil unrest. The Angeles National Forest wanted to keep their CWN [Call When Needed] fire crews in place, and this program supplemented us with a temporary firefighting force of hand crews when we had to dispatch our regular crews to other parts of the country. We drew down our regular personnel, but we still needed to protect our home front. So we put these crews together and we mixed Crips and Bloods — that was probably our biggest challenge.”

Challenge is right. Hall and other training officers had to persuade young men and women loyal only to their neighborhoods to exchange red or blue for the green and yellow of the U.S. Forest Service. “We made it clear that if you wanted to be in the program — if you wanted to change your life — you had to change your ways.”

The first all-black crew in the country, with members culled, street by street, from South-Central L.A., was called the Panthers (renamed Highlanders in ’98). There were confrontations between rival gang members at times, and Hall had to deal with them. During one three-man face-off, he pulled the whole crew off a fire.

“But, let me tell you, this program has gotten some really good folks. Not only from South-Central, but from other community-based programs in East L.A. There’s the Aztecs and, as of last year, the Fuego Rangers. And 95 percent of them are gang members. These programs are here to stay, and the one we have here on the Angeles is a model for the rest of the country.” Hall is smiling now. “Want to clean up your gang areas? Present them with another way of life.”


“I was pretty much the only Crip among the gangbanger trainees in my group.” Red’s memories of his early days with the Highlanders are vivid. “All the others was Bloods, mostly from the Jungle. There was some civilian trainees too.” He describes his two weeks of taking classes in basic firefighting standards and living at the training center in the San Fernando Valley for two weeks as “goin’ to college and stayin’ in a dorm.” But he admits to retaining “the neighborhood attitude, which meant I was on the lookout for any sign of disrespect, any stepping over that imaginary line. The only thing I got was courtesy and respect. That taught me a lot about people. And I’ll tell you something: Being on the fire line with Crips and Bloods, having your life in their hands, sleeping next to them on that fire line for 21 days — which is how long that first fire went on — sharing food, sharing cigarettes, sharing emotional thoughts and physical thoughts of fear together, that crew becomes your family outside your family.” I notice that when Red is speaking about the job, he speaks more precisely, dropping the elaborately casual diction of the gangs.


After that first fire, Red knew what he wanted to do with his life. “I learned something I never knew before: I saw that more than gangbangers, even more than police officers, everybody respects firefighters. And from then on, I made a commitment to myself that I would become the best firefighter they had ever seen.”

Two years and 25 fires later, Red was promoted to crew leader, in charge of 25 men and five women. His new responsibilities allowed him to make good on the promise that he would reach out to at-risk kids in South-Central. He instituted classes three days a week in St. Andrew’s Park, a broad sweep of carefully tended lawn and shade trees where family outings and children’s birthday parties coexist with gangbangers’ picnics. About 15 kids from the hood showed up for the first class. Red showed them how to fill out applications for the program, taught them the rudiments of firefighter requirements and delivered a heads-up for the program classes. He described the physical training they would have to undergo, and he told them how hard they would have to work. Most important, he suggested to them an alternative to life on the street.

One of the kids, David Hasting, was with the Eight-Tray Gangstas; they called him Tiny Squally. He was the nephew of Red’s old road dog and fellow enforcer, O.G. Squally. Red decided to give back some of the “Tray Love” that had gotten him through the hard times at CYA by mentoring Tiny Squally. He can still recall how much of himself he recognized in the young homeboy: “Mostly the determination that he was gonna get himself out the neighborhood.”

Hasting signed up as a trainee for Red’s crew on Highlanders, and he went at it with everything he had. Red remembers one training session vividly: “It was a Saturday and we was all on our way to Griffith Park. I had my crew there in the parking lot, getting set to begin a hike at 8 a.m. David was the only one wasn’t there yet, but we decided to cut him some slack. We had waited about 10 minutes when here he comes. I ask why he’s late, and he tells me he got pulled over by the cops and that his car was taken in on Los Feliz Boulevard at the bottom of the hill — maybe two miles down from where we was. He had ran up those two miles to meet us. Then he P.T.’d with us [did a Pack Test] for a three-mile hike carrying a 45-pound load of equipment.” Red considered Hasting’s behavior that day as the final proof of the kid’s determination to be part of the crew. “I told him, ‘Don’t worry about yo’ car. We gonna get you three or four cars.’ ”

Hasting was set to graduate from trainee to firefighter the following week. “All the guys on the crew accepted that kid. He had become one of them.” The day before the graduation ceremony, Red and his crew were on a fire when they got the news: David Hasting — Tiny Squally — had been killed in a drive-by shooting. His body was found next to a Dumpster in an alley.

“I got the word and called David’s grandmother, who told me arrangements were being made and that expenses would come to $8,000. I told her not to worry about it, that me and my crew had been excused, that we were walkin’ off the fire line. Told her we was on the way home to bury our soldier.”


The morning of the funeral was clear and warm. People were outside, walking to bus stops, watering the small plots of green in front of their houses, clustered in groups on corners. The rise and fall of conversation and laughter punctuated the steady rumble of traffic. Then silence, like a fall of dominoes, began to spread along the street. David Hasting’s cortege was moving slowly past, headed toward the church. All activity came to a halt. People called out to those still inside to come and see; women in the upper stories of apartment buildings along the route leaned out of open windows; kids jostled one another to get close to the curb, and gang members in baggy jeans and immaculate sneakers came up out of their signature slouches. Nobody spoke as two engines, manned by their entire crews and flanked by LAPD officers on motorcycles, set a deliberate pace. The wreath-covered hearse bearing Hasting’s body came next, followed by two more fully crewed engines and another brace of motorcycle officers. Bringing up the rear of the procession, a Lincoln Navigator limo carried the members of Red McIntyre’s crew. Every man was in full uniform, and each of them wore a banner across his left shoulder with the legend “In Memory of a Fallen Soldier” and the dates of David Hasting’s birth and death. He was 19 years old.

When they reached the church, six of the men formed an honor guard at the entrance, and Red and five other crew members carried the casket inside. Many of Hasting’s fellow gang members — both male and female — attended the service, taking up rows of seats at the back of the church and filing slowly past the coffin to pay their final respects. But no one dropped a bullet into the folds of the silken lining; no one draped a blue-and-white kerchief across Hasting’s folded hands as do-or-die symbols of gang solidarity. This was a final salute to a firefighter and every person there knew it.

We meet up with Stanton Florea, fire-information officer for the U.S. Forest Service, at a 7-Eleven located near the corner of Osborne Street and Foothill Boulevard, a barren stretch of land with a disturbing history: This is where Rodney King was beaten into submission by four LAPD patrolmen. There used to be a service station next to the 7-Eleven, but it was torn down after too many tourists with a taste for the sensational stopped to gawk. The condo from which the beating was videotaped is still standing.

We’re to go from this location into the Sequoia National Forest, where Red McIntyre is part of a crew fighting a sleeper fire that has been burning for three and a half days. Florea explains that a sleeper fire is one that begins in a single tree due to a lightning strike or some other factor, then smolders and flares up later. A ground crew is needed to drop the tree; a helicopter showering water won’t always get the job done, Florea tells us. “I worked a lot of sleeper fires in the eastern Sierra before I got on the Angeles. They’re fun.”

We’d planned to go up to the Dawson Fire (which is what this sleeper has been tagged), but Red missed the call to the fire and is back at his post at the Valyermo station, where he is an engine operator as well as a firefighter. We follow Florea in the mint-green U.S. Forest Service station wagon along the 138 to the Pearblossom cutoff. Up ahead is a low-flying helicopter with a long, mosquito-like extension dangling from its belly. Florea pulls over and walks back to our car, gesturing at the copter.

“See that? That’s a Sikorsky Type One. It just pulled up about 2,500 pounds of water from a canal, and it’s about to drop it on that sleeper. We get maybe eight to a dozen of those a day when cumulus clouds create lightning.” He grins suddenly. “You know, there’s this urban legend that after a fire in the foothills outside San Francisco, the body of a scuba diver was found trapped in a tree — supposed to have been sucked up from the bay by a Forest Service helicopter.”

 

[Dr Dre's ProductionSkills]

The Valyermo station could be mistaken for a collection of large, freshly painted tourist cabins if it were not for the U.S. Forest Service flag and the mint-green fire engines parked around the property. These engines are smaller than those used in urban areas, and each one, called a “10-person module,” is outfitted with rows of bucket seats in back. Side panels are tightly packed with all the equipment and supplies (including specialized tools for digging fire lines and clearing out dirt) vital to a face-off with a blaze that can go on for days. There are five men, including Red McIntyre, on the engine crew at Valyermo; they drive the engines to the fires, and then they help to fight them. One man, the water tender, supplies water to the engines from nearby aqueducts and streams.


The others at the station are the Valyermo Crew 4, known as the Hot Shots, an elite squad of 20 men, all of them in their early to late 20s. Even their everyday uniforms are different: Instead of green and yellow, the Hot Shots wear black T-shirts and work pants, and there are as many ’hawks as conventional haircuts. Matthew Bailey is in his third season here. “We’re the ones punching in the line, working sometimes for 32 hours straight. By the end of the season, I’m in the best shape ever. We do about three hours of full-gear physical training every day, but beyond everything, we go fight fires. That’s our priority.”

“That’s our love,” adds Matthew Snyder, who has spent three years on the Hot Shots. “Next to our families, this is the thing.”

It is early afternoon. Red has gone out with other engine crew members in response to a smoke check in the area, and some of the guys are kicking back in the rec room. There is an atmosphere of easy camaraderie in here, and when I mention it, Bailey is quick to reply: “That cohesion runs pretty deep with us — we’re more than co-workers. We’re family.”

There are a few ex–gang members up at the Valyermo station, and two of them are in the rec room this afternoon. They have both asked for anonymity, and each of them bears the scars of bullet wounds from drive-by shootings. If there was animosity between them on the streets, it has been replaced by a deeper sense of loyalty to the common goals of every man on the squad: become the best firefighters they can be, suppress wildland fires and support risk management on both fire and nonfire emergency incidents. Whatever colors they pledged their lives to in the past have been replaced by their allegiance to those of the U.S. Forest Service.

Minnie McIntyre is in her mid-70s now, but she has the voice of a much younger woman. She chuckles when I mention that when Red tells his story, he sounds as if he was a handful to raise. “Oh, yeah. That’s the truth, for sure. There were so many times I just couldn’t reach him at all. It was like he was made of stone — nothing got through to him when he was running with the gang.” She pauses for a moment. “But he’s doing fine now.” When I ask how she feels about all those homeboys who used to gather at her house, she replies quickly, “You know what? They was pretty good guys. Most of them just couldn’t get it together. A few did good, though.” She mentions a couple of Eight-Tray Gangstas whom I have known through the years as hard-working family men. Minnie-Mac goes quiet again. Then she makes a final comment about her grandson Red:

“He made a U-turn in his street. A U-turn in his life. I’m thankful for him and proud of him.”

Red and Leomie McIntyre have been married for five years. They have a 3½-year-old son, LeShion, and two of Red’s children from a previous relationship live with them: 8-year-old TreShion and DeShion Jr., 9. Leomie has four kids from her first marriage. They range in age from 16 to 22, and the eldest is married with a son of his own. The two youngest live with the McIntyres; as of last year, the 19-year-old is with Leomie’s mother. Leomie, a gently pretty, soft-spoken woman who looks too young to be a grandmother, works for the county. For the past three years, she has provided in-home services to senior citizens. It’s work she enjoys. When I ask how she feels about Red’s past, her voice lifts slightly: “I know he’s been through a lot in his life. But he’s come through it a different person. He’s a wonderful husband and a great father. I’m very proud of the man I married.”

Red McIntyre was transferred last year to the Mill Creek Station, near Palmdale, where he completed further classes and accomplished four certifications. He is the operator for Engine 18, and since Labor Day he and the Mill Creek crew have been squaring off against the Day Fire around Lake Castaic with nearly 2,200 fire personnel. As of Monday, the fire had consumed nearly 80,000 acres and cost $16,782,000 to bring to 15 percent containment.

“My whole life, my whole intention since I been a firefighter, is to give to the youth of the community, because so many of these youngsters have been misled by other gang members. I feel I owe that. If I can change just one kid’s life, I owe that. Twenty years ago, I would probably have just offered them a gun. Now the only thing I hold out to them is a job.” This time, his smile moves up and settles in his eyes. “It’s like, ‘from the hoods to the woods.’ ”

 

[JoeBuddenNumber1Fan]

is this bout wesley pipes

 

[doublenegative]

Wrong.....nevermind

 

[MexicanKingpin]

Fire fighters and dre both have something in common
There both flaming fakkits.

 

[pawdalaw]

both are excellent reads. Props!

 

[Dr Dre's ProductionSkills]

There is an unfortunate stereotype among law enforcement that corrections officers are at the low end of the gene pool and couldn't make it as "real cops." Having done my own time in a custody environment and working criminal prison gangs, I was long ago cured of this misconception.
In fact in my gang training sessions I usually recommend that every officer tour a major jail or prison and walk the yard among the inmates. I recommend that they visit the gang unit office and physically handle some of the jail-manufactured weapons recovered by staff. That should give them a new respect for the officers who work in this environment every day.

However, no jurisdiction or individual is immune from the corrupting influences of criminal gangs. In the 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment, the National Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC) reported that gang members in at least 57 jurisdictions have applied for or gained employment with judicial, police, or correction agencies. The NGIC also reported that in at least 72 jurisdictions, gang members had compromised or corrupted judicial, law enforcement or correctional staff within the previous three years.

The report cited a November 2010 case of a parole worker in New York who was suspended for relaying confidential information to Blood gang members. In a similar incident in Los Angeles, it was reported that Los Angeles County Sheriff's Capt. Bernice Abram was caught on an FBI wiretap giving information to Compton's Original Front Hood Crips.

In July 2010, a Riverside County (Calif.) Sheriff's deputy was convicted of assisting her incarcerated Mexican Mafia boyfriend with the murder of two witnesses in her boyfriend's case.

In 1999, during the Mexican Mafia RICO investigation, I was a witness against Riverside County's Deputy Barbara Flores, who pled guilty in a conspiracy to murder a protected witness who was in custody. Deputy Flores had formed relationships with the incarcerated Eme associates; smuggled drugs to them; and identified the cooperating witness against the Mexican Mafia, who was booked under a false name for his protection. The witness was assaulted but survived.

In April 2010, a former Berwyn (Ill.) Police officer pleaded guilty to racketeering charges for helping an outlaw motorcycle gang's members target and burglarize businesses. Outlaw motorcycle gangs often utilize their biker females to lure cops into compromising positions.

Prison cell phones often provide the conduit for illegal activity. "Cell phone smuggling into correctional facilities pose the greatest threat to institutional safety," according to the threat assessment. Most commonly these illegal cell phones are smuggled into institutions by visitors or correctional staff. In 2010, more than 10,000 illegal cell phones were confiscated from prisoners in California. In March of 2011, the California State Senate approved legislation criminalizing prison cell phones for both inmates and smugglers.

In 2010, a New Jersey inmate used a contraband cell phone to order the murder of his former girlfriend for cooperating with the police investigation regarding his case, according to the threat assessment.

In March of 2010, an off-duty South Carolina Department of Corrections captain was shot in his home by an armed intruder. The captain was lucky to have survived an assault that had been ordered by an inmate using a smuggled cell phone.

Some of this gang-corrupted officer misconduct can be blamed on poor personnel hiring practices and inadequate background investigations. Some misconduct can be blamed on the employee unions and their over-protection of problem employees. Even worse is the negligent retention of these employees by the departments. Other factors include poor supervision and the strong "code of silence" among custody officers.

There are also some unspoken factors to take into account. Anyone who has worked in the jail or prison for any length of time is probably aware of the psychological manipulation practiced by many sophisticated inmates and gangs. They commonly employ tactics designed as corruption ensnarement traps. Being a nice officer and giving an inmate a few cigarettes can become such a snare.

All of these negative factors apparently came together in a perfect storm the first week of May at the Baltimore City Detention Center. Federal prosecutors indicted 13 corrections officers for aiding Tavon "Bulldog" White, a member of the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF). The officers allegedly helped the gang to gain control of the Baltimore City Detention Center, and facilitated other criminal gang members operating outside the jail.

They are accused of smuggling food, tobacco, money, cell phones and drugs into the facility. In the past four years, four of the female COs gave birth to five children fathered by White. One officer had his name tattooed on her neck. Another tattooed it on her wrist.

Maryland runs the Baltimore jail system, and more than 60 percent of the guards are women, reports the Washington Post. Across the nation, 37 percent of the correction forces in 2007 were women, according to the American Correctional Association.

Men make up the great majority of the skyrocketing prison and jail populations. But the number of males able to qualify and pass the background investigation is shrinking. So women are filing this gap. According to 2008-'09 Bureau of Justice statistics on 39,121 male prison inmates who were victims of staff sexual misconduct, 69 percent reported sexual activity with female staff. The numbers were even higher in juvenile detention facilities, climbing to 90 percent.

In local jails, corrections officers often come from the same communities as the inmates they supervise. They may have outside social connections. Even before Bulldog White's arrival in 2009, jail corrections officer Antonia Allison was linked to the Bloods gang, reports the Baltimore Sun. In 2006, she was identified as having gang ties by a state investigator but remained on the job.

In 2010, a settlement agreement was reached between Antonia Allison and former inmate Tashma McFadden. Then-inmate McFadden sued Allison for allegedly opening his cell door and holding it open as nine other inmates stabbed and beat McFadden. Allison denied the allegations but settled with McFadden for $5,000.

In the federal indictment from April 23, Allison was accused of smuggling marijuana and prescription medications for Bulldog White and the gang. In a wiretap conversation she was recorded saying, "You know they gonna sell fast." Another intercepted call records inmate White saying, "I hold the highest seat you can get." He told another alleged member of the gang, "So regardless of what anybody say, whatever I say is the law. Like, like I am the law. My word is law."

My good friend Detective Tony Avendorf dealt with Tavon White back in 2008 in Prince George County, Md., during a similar investigation. It involved about five female officers with one being pregnant. This one involved mostly Blood gang members with only a few BGF members. Tony said that unlike the BGF prison gang in California, which prefers to remain covert, the BGF in Maryland operates with a street-gang mentality and controls West Baltimore. This street-gang attitude developed when old-school BGF leadership eventually was paroled and younger members "went off the deep end."

In the 2013 case, some of the corrections officers were motivated by money in the form of prepaid debit cards that flowed freely through the jail. However, some were drawn into the gang's web of control because of personal relationships with BGF members.

I saw the same type of corruption of custody staff through personal relationships and sex at the Sybil Brand Institute for Women in Los Angeles and the California Institution for Women at Frontera. Cunning and manipulative inmates charm unwary officers into relationships. And once the officer compromises herself, she's ensnared in a trap.

In the Baltimore case, investigators found a BGF operating manual teaching the gang's new recruits to target a specific stereotype of corrections officer—specifically women with low self-esteem, insecurities, and certain physical attributes. And once these officers were seduced, the women saw themselves as wives and girlfriends of White and his gang.

Women are no more vulnerable to this type of corruption than their male peers. The males just don't get pregnant. Fellow correctional officers and supervisors looking the other way is the real problem. Other officers knew what was going on; saw the officers breaking the rules; and decided not to report them.

They made this decision knowing that money, dope, and cell phones in the hands of incarcerated BGF gang members compromised jail security and enabled gang members to kill others inside and outside of the prison walls.

 

[Dr Dre's ProductionSkills]

WHO KNEW PEOPLE IN CHICAGO LIKED THEIR DRUGS LIKE THEY LIKE THEIR FOOTBALL

Sometimes a new trend identified by the American media is really an old problem that's become so obvious that it can no longer be denied. Suddenly the light switch is turned on, and we see the cockroach infestation. These bugs have been hiding in the dark for a long time.
Mexican drug cartels are now operating deep in the U.S., reports the Associated Press. They're operating not just in the border areas of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. They're making beach heads in suburban communities near Chicago; Atlanta; Columbus, Ohio; and Louisville, Ky. They've also been active in Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

Investigative reporters from the Associated Press interviewed dozens of federal agents and local police. They reviewed hundreds of court documents. The results seem to support law enforcement reports of increased cartel presence in numerous non-border cities. Cartel operatives move into tree-lined neighborhoods and appear unremarkable. They try to fit in to the community. Neighbors are often surprised when SWAT teams show up to raid the residence. They watch police cart away large seizures of drugs and weapons.

About 1,700 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, the Chicago Crime Commission, a non-governmental agency that tracks crime trends in its region, recently named the Sinaloa Cartel's leader, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, as the city's "Public Enemy No. 1." This title was last held by Al Capone. Unlike Capone, Chapo has probably never set foot in the city. However, the cartel's narcotics have now flooded America's Second City.

This supply of illicit drugs fuels the violent gang turf wars now engulfing Chicago. James O'Grady, the Chicago police commander who oversees narcotics investigations, has said street gang disputes over turf accounted for most of the city's 500 murders in 2012. Jack Riley, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Chicago office, has said the cartel is "probably the most serious threat the United States has faced from organized crime." Riley also argues that the cartels should be seen as an underlying cause of Chicago's disturbingly high murder rate.

Chicago gang cop Joe Sparks has been sending me photographs and news articles of Mexican cartel activity in Chicago for several years. Chicago authorities began seeing that the cartels were putting their own "deputies on the ground" in Chicago two or three years ago, said Art Bilek, executive vice president of the Crime Commission. "Chicago became such a massive market ... it was critical that they had firm control."

Firm control meant that they couldn't continue to rely on their American gang partners—their distributers and enforcers. In order to ensure their continued profits and to prevent skimming by middle men, cartel leaders sent Mexican drug cartel members and even members of their own families to the U.S. to run the business. In 2008, Jose Gonzales-Zavala was sent by the La Familia Cartel to the U.S. to oversee wholesale shipments of cocaine to Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. The former taxi cab driver and father of five settled in a middle-class neighborhood in Joliet, southwest of Chicago.

The same Mexican cartel assigned Jorge Guadalupe Ayala-German to provide security for a Chicago-area stash house for $300 a week. He was promised a $35,000 payment once he returned to Mexico. Both men would subsequently be arrested and charged criminally. The wiretap transcripts from law enforcement's electronic surveillance linked them to their Mexican cartel bosses.

To combat the growing problem in Chicago, a joint task force that included 70 federal agents began operating from a new secret location to focus on the point of contact between these suburban-based cartel operatives and the city's street gangs. This is the point where both are most vulnerable to detection. Their meetings can be monitored, and their cell phones tapped.

A massive drug operation run by the La Familia Cartel was discovered in Atlanta's suburban Gwinnett County in 2011. The operational leader, Socorro Hernandez-Rodriguez, has been convicted. In February, Ohio authorities arrested Isaac Eli Perez Neri, who told investigators he was a debt collector for the Sinaloa Cartel.

Once arrested, investigators and prosecutors have had little success in "rolling over" cartel operatives. Mexican cartels have the well-earned reputation in Mexico of terrorist-like murderers. Over 50,000 men, women and children have been slaughtered since the drug wars began. Family members, journalists, and policemen are not spared. Horrific dismemberment and beheadings often intimidate and "send a message" to those who would cross the cartel.

Danny Porter, Gwinnett County's chief prosecutor, told the Associated Press he has tried to entice cartel members to cooperate. Nearly all have declined. Some laughed in his face. "They say, 'We are more scared of them then we are of you. We talk and they boil our family in acid.' Their families are essentially hostages."

Here's the part that irks me most. So far, cartels don't appear to be directly responsible for a large number of murders in the U.S. Before I retired in 2004, Mexican nationals in Los Angeles were murdering as many people (as many as 600 a year) as the prolific gangs. Many of these murders remain unsolved. They haven't been identified as cartel-related cases because professional hit men make the hit and then quickly return to Mexico. Fear of the cartels keeps witnesses from coming forward and identifying the individuals involved. I imagine that many murders in non-border cities haven't been identified as cartel-driven violence. Nobody is gathering these statistics.

In 2008, U.S. cities reported a cartel presence in 230 American communities. By 2011, that number had climbed to 1,200. In my opinion, the Mexican cartel presence can be found in every major U.S. city and most American suburbs where drug and human trafficking flourishes. If you have a large illegal immigrant population, you have cartel activity.

 

[Dr Dre's ProductionSkills]

Compton was incorporated as a city by Los Angeles County on May 11, 1888, making it one of the oldest incorporated cities in California. To ensure the continuance of farming on the land, certain acreage was to be zoned solely for agriculture.

After the Second World War, the city experienced a housing boom. Compton attracted many black settlers from the South. Returning war veterans, a group that included my father, also found homes. The land parcels for housing remained spacious, and agricultural farmlands remained.

I lived in an unincorporated area to the north known as Willowbrook. To the west, there were disputed tracts of empty lots. Migrant immigrants were attracted to the farm work nearby and began squatting on these unoccupied lots. Mexicans, Pacific Islanders, blacks, and whites parked their trailers on the fields and built out-of-code housing. Compton would eventually annex this land but like the unincorporated Willowbrook area, paved streets, drainage and access to gas lines, water and electric power were problematic. These areas had no sidewalks until the late 1960s.

In the 1950s, street gangs had formed in these depressed areas. "You jive mouth farmer!" was an insult hurled by rivals at black gang members from Compton, in reference to their families being negro farm hands. The Compton Farmers was the name of one of the first gangs. Many more would follow. But colonies of other ethnic groups struggled to survive in areas primarily controlled by African American gangs. Some of the non-black gangs were allied to these black gangs (San Pedro's Dodge City Crips had Latino and black members), but some were bitter rivals.

In the area west of downtown Compton these former squatter lands became known by blacks as Taco Town, and by Latinos as La Calle Loca (the Crazy Street). The local Catholic parish was Saint Albert the Great Church. I attended tardiadas (afternoon dances) at Saint Albert. My first girlfriend lived on 152nd Street. The Lynwood sheriff's station patrolled this area and adopted their logo and "Viking" name from Saint Albert's middle school.

Because of changing boundaries, I was required to attend Compton High School rather than the closer Centennial. But I had cousins who lived in the 155th Street area and at Compton High they introduced me to several 155th Street gang members. I occasionally had to hang out with a few of the most notable 155th Street members like Danny "White Boy" Holmes, Ralph "Lettuce" Lechuga, "Sampson," as well as Pacific Islanders "Coconut" and his brothers "Pineapple" and "Saber," who always carried a machete.

Not being a 155th Street gang member eventually became a problem for me and my brother. The worst of these 155th Street members were usually high on "red devils" (Seconal) and drunk on wine. They were dangerous to everyone and lethal to rivals. They were as bad as any Willowbrook gang such as the Compton Varrio Tres, Tortilla Flats, Willowbrook Winos, or any black gang. The African American Compton gang Swamp Boys was a chief rival.

At that time, the official logo of the gang was a grim reaper standing under a streetlight with a street sign reading 155th Street. Lechuga had commissioned me to draw it for them on poster board in art class. Very few of these gang members ever made it to high school graduation, but several of us who avoided gangs and graduated became cops.

The bitter rivalry between 155th Street and the surrounding black gangs had its beginnings in this era. As a minority in another race's minority community, the non-blacks were often the victims of lots of bullying and sometimes violence. The 155th Street gang members soon learned that the best defensive tactic was to be very offensive. By being mas loco (crazier than) any surrounding gang, they established an atmosphere of intimidation that few dared to challenge.

After the Rodney King riots in 1992, the Sureño gangs under the control of the Mexican Mafia intensified their attacks against blacks. The 155th Street gang was an enthusiastic follower of this movement, being strongly influenced by Mexican Mafia members Alejandro "Fox" Tapia originally from the South Los gang and their own homeboy Raul "Dagwood" Vasquez from 155th Street.

Compton is now 65% Hispanic, and the gang has intensified its attacks on black residents.

Being a small gang, the activity associated with 155th Street gang seems to rise and fall with the influence exerted by the few hard-core gang members active and alive at the time. Upon their release (as in California's current "realignment program") the gang violence increases. Imprisonment also further indoctrinates and motivates these gang members in their Mexican Mafia/Sureño war against the African American community. Many in this community are calling for federal prosecutors to charge interracial violence committed by members as hate crimes.

 

[Dr Dre's ProductionSkills]

Gangs Often Drive Hate Crimes
Many hate crimes involve gang members who target other racial groups.
12
December 28, 2012 | by Richard Valdemar - Also by this author

The flight from urban blight in Los Angeles expanded into the desert north of Los Angeles. Former Angelinos have settled into newer, less crowded and more affordable residential areas like Canyon Country, Lancaster, and Palmdale. Unfortunately some of these new settlers come from old ghettos and barrios. They bring their old hates with them.

One hot June day in 2011, two black 13-year-olds were swimming in the pool of their Palmdale apartment building. The two weren't gang members themselves, but had been the victims of gang bullies. They had been harassed in school and in the neighborhood for having Latino friends, which was far from their thoughts at that moment.

Suddenly four Latino gang members approached shouting, "Southside!" They hurled racial epitaphs at the two young blacks, calling them "porch monkeys," "banana eaters," and "slaves." They challenged the boys and attacked them. The mother of one of the victims ran to intervene and protect her son. One of the Latinos yelled, "fukk you, ******!" He punched the mother, and grabbed her hair. The father of one of the victims then responded to the commotion. Two of the Latino gang members brandished butcher knives, threatened him, and yelled "I'll fukkin' kill you ******s!"

In August, a male Latino was walking home from a friend's house in Bellflower, a suburb of south east of Los Angeles when two black males jumped out of a vehicle and yelled "fukk you, wet back!" They punched him; knocked him to the ground; and continued beating him in the torso and head.

For many years, there have been individuals and organizations that make a living by calling others racists. To hear them talk, the American White Man is the only race hater that should be watched. These vocal people see the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis under every rock. They are dumb and blind to the more active hate groups that carry out racially motivated violence.

According to the California Penal Code (sections 422.55 to 422.95), hate crime charges may be filed when there is evidence that bias, hatred, or prejudice based on the victim's real or perceived race/ethnicity, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender, or sexual orientation is a substantial factor in the commission of the offence.

Even gang graffiti can be a hate crime when it is disparaging to a class of people protected by hate crime legislation. The use of hate group symbols or slogans and racial epithets in tagging and vandalism can be considered a hate crime.

There are state, federal, and even international laws against racial discrimination and basic human rights. These laws include the 1960 Civil Rights Act (18 USC SS 245 (6) (2)) and more recently the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act signed by President Barack Obama on Oct. 28, 2009.

In the early 2000s, my LASD Major Crimes Bureau unit helped to draft and implement the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department manual and procedure for the investigation of hate crimes. After many months of defining what would constitute a hate crime and codifying how the crime should be prosecuted, I presented an excellent rough draft developed primarily by detectives Chris Brandon and Michael Duran. To my shock, the draft was rejected. Upon questioning my lieutenant as to why, he responded, "Whites cannot be victims of hate crimes." The draft Brandon and Duran crafted had been constructed to protect all races from hate crimes.

Most crime is underreported, but hate crimes are more commonly underreported than most other types of crime. Sometimes the victims are immigrants, and they have cultural or linguistic issues. They often lack a working knowledge of our criminal justice system. Often they come from countries with a history of police abuses and insensitive treatment. As a result, only a small percentage of these incidents are reported.

Even if the victim informs the authorities, hate crimes have a low priority, or there may be no formal hate crime policies and procedures. There is often a reluctance to admit that the city or community has a hate problem. There are often multiple aspects and motivations for these crimes and when multiple suspects are involved (such as when gangs are suspected) all the suspects may not be motivated by the same hate. The investigator is then burdened with proving the bias as a motive. As a result, a lesser included criminal charges are usually what gets filed.

When gang members are suspects in hate crimes, and especially when they are the victims, all these causes for underreporting are magnified. According to the gang's code of conduct, gang members can't cooperate or "snitch" to authorities. The ultimate hate crime of course is to murder the victim, and rarely are gang murders prosecuted as hate crimes.

These hate crimes occur, not only in city streets but in schools, juvenile facilities, jails, and prisons. Commonly called race riots, they have been occurring in these institutions for many years. They're almost never reported as hate crimes. Authorities have great difficulty in establishing which group was the aggressor and who was only attempting to defend himself.

In October, the Los Angeles County Commission of Human Relations released its 2011 report on hate crimes. In an Oct. 24, 2012 article in the Los Angeles Times by Jason Song, the commission's executive director said, "This is a reminder that we're in no way a post-racial society," and "When you have hundreds and hundreds of hate crimes, it's way too many."

According to the report and based on 2010 U.S. Census Records, 27.8% of the Los Angeles population is white, 8.3% black, 13.77% Asian or Pacific Islander, and 47.7% are people who identify as Latinos. The remaining 2.5% was divided between mixed races, Native American, and others. There were 489 incidents of hate crime reported in 2011. This represents the declining incidents to the second lowest total since the high of 2001 with the high of 1,031 reported hate crimes. But it is 15% higher than last year.

Although white hate groups typically are thought of as being the major offender, only 21% of the reported hate crimes were attributed to whites with supremacist ideology, and most frequently these were cases of writing offensive graffiti such as swastikas. This is 3% higher than last year.

Nearly half of the incidents occurring in 2011 were racially motivated. Overall, African Americans were most frequently the victims, comprising 60% of the total number of reported (154) incidents, and 65% of anti-black crimes were committed by Latino suspects. Of the 64 total incidents of Latino-on-black hate crimes 67% were gang related. Blacks as suspects on Latino reported incidents were down from 32 in 2010 to only 11 for 2011. The report went on to say, "Hate crimes committed between these two communities has consistently been one of the most serious hate crime phenomenon in Los Angeles County" and the "rate of violence in these crimes is extremely high."

Between 2010 and 2011, the number of crimes in which gang members were suspects grew by 43%, and the gang category was generally used when the suspects were clearly identified as gang members by shouting out their affiliation or by marking their graffiti with gang identifiers. "The actual number of hate crimes committed by gang members may be much higher than recorded," the report noted.

In the past, Los Angeles street gangs targeted other street gangs of the same ethnic makeup. About 99% of the violence was Latino on Latino, black on black, whites on rival white groups, and Asians on Asians. Many of these groups co-existed in the same neighborhoods or in close proximity but rarely attacked other races.

However, for several decades prison gangs utilized racial hatred to recruit and motivate new members. Brown, black, and white prison gangs teach racial hate. This hate spilled out of the prison in the early 1990s and has infected street gangs and young people in "at risk" neighborhoods.

The incidents mentioned in the beginning of this article are taken from the 2011 Los Angeles Commission's hate crime report. Today, it's the street gangs, primarily black and Latino that are the real problem, and until law enforcement and the public puts these gangs in check, they'll continue to destroy lives and communities while motivated by blind hate.

 

[Dr Dre's ProductionSkills]

Props on the embed

Cultivating Effective Gang Informants
The best narcotics and gang cops develop a stable of good informants.
5
December 05, 2012 | by Richard Valdemar - Also by this author

The best scout we ever had in Vietnam was a North Vietnamese Army (NVA) defector. These former NVA soldiers were called choi hoi (open arms in Vietnamese) scouts. Propaganda leaflets dropped from U.S. aircraft coined the term, suggested that defecting NVA would be received with open arms by the south.

Many U.S. soldiers distrusted these choi hoi scouts and generally disliked vietnamese soldiers from the north and the south. But I noticed that unlike the other Vietnamese soldiers who worked with my unit, this scout would move out and protect our flank each time we stopped. Even in villages, he would circle out and confront and question any approaching Vietnamese when we would stop.

He was small in stature even for a Vietnamese. We nicknamed him "Cowboy," which was the slang term for young thugs and gang members who operated in Vietnamese criminal gangs in the larger cities. Cowboy earned his fast-gun nickname and distinguished himself during the Tet holiday in 1968 in the coastal city of Nha Trang. Unlike the majority of south Vietnamese soldiers who traditionally deserted during the Chinese New Year, Cowboy was with my unit at 2 a.m. on Jan. 29 when NVA mortars, rockets, and sappers hit us hard. The city was under siege and our radios were jammed with the surreal, melodious "Stranger on the Shore."

Cowboy was the only Vietnamese soldier who engaged in house-to-house combat with U.S. units in the first couple of days when we were badly outnumbered by the NVA, and we were getting our asses kicked. He killed many of his former NVA comrades with great skill and courage. Eventually we turned the tide of battle, and after several days we were mopping up by going after the remaining NVA who refused to surrender and died fighting. Suddenly during the mopping up, the missing South Vietnamese Army soldiers reappeared.

Why was Cowboy such a good choi hoi scout? What made him different from other south Vietnamese soldiers? The difference was that he had once been on the other side. Cowboy knew the tactics, the thinking, and the capabilities of our enemy. He also knew that if he were wounded or captured, an especially terrible fate awaited him because he was a defector. He had a personal stake in helping us win. I hope he got out, before we abandoned our Vietnamese allies.

In the long war between police gang fighters and the outlaw criminal gangs, gang defectors can be important and valuable allies. But like my example of Cowboy, some cops dislike and distrust all gang defectors.

Unless someone in your team has the ability to recruit, cultivate, and utilize criminal informants, you're just functioning as procedural processors relying on chance to develop cases. Despite what you might have seen on TV or the movies, law enforcement today almost never uses undercover officers to infiltrate dangerous criminal organizations. Yes, they use electronic surveillance tactics, but they need informants, confidential sources, cooperating witnesses, and snitches.

Because of the unfortunate history of local and federal police misuse of informants, most departments are gun shy about using them. There are often procedural hurdles built into law enforcement policy manuals for fear of these abuses. The more restrictive the policy, the more limited the investigative ability or department investigators.

My own manual said, "Prior to the utilization of the informant, sworn members shall evaluate the informant's background to determine if the informant is suitable for use, including a history of serious criminal offences or other activities, which might compromise an investigation, or the department in any way."

It goes on to state, "Informants shall be instructed not to participate in the criminal activities of persons under investigation unless a feigned participation has been deemed necessary for the purposes of prosecution. Furthermore, informants shall be instructed that their assistance to the department does not give them authorization to violate any laws, nor do they have any official status as agents or employees of the department. Any feigned participation in criminal activities by informants must be thoroughly briefed as to the limits of their participation."

It also added the caveat, "Additionally, the informant's motivation, reliability and potential involvement in criminal activity shall be evaluated against the nature and seriousness of the offence under investigation."

The manual also severely restricted the use of jailhouse informants, requiring officers to obtain a court order before their use. Even greater restrictions should be considered when the potential informant is a juvenile, addict, possible double agent, con man, or sexually promiscuous person.

Unfortunately in attempting to develop sources "in the know" inside the upper levels of a violent criminal street or prison gang every one of these individuals would not qualify under the above described restrictions. Policies like these are written by lawyers and risk managers, not by criminal investigators.

While working in an FBI task force, I found that the feds were even more needlessly restrictive when it came to criminal gang informants. They were not very good at informant development. They relied heavily on local officers and their already developed stables of informants.

I know of several notorious instances where corrupted police officers misused their informants. However, in every one of these cases it was not informants that corrupted these officers. The officers were bad officers to start. They just continued in their normal method of operation but now this included the abuse of informants.

Informant development can be broken down to six stages. Initially, gang officers must be open to spotting potential informants; lose the anti-snitch attitude. In the world of gangs, anybody could be a potential informant. With every contact you make, consider whether this person may provide me with invaluable information I need. The pessimistic attitude that no one will give you any useful information will result in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The second stage is assessing the viability and value of any potential informants. Is this a person associated with gang insiders or is this an active member of the inner circle of the targeted group? Would the risk involved outweigh the potential value of the information?

The third step should be the actual recruiting. How could you approach this potential informant? Do you have any leverage? What can you offer to the individual to gain his or her cooperation? Should you ask for input from the prosecutor's office before making any agreement?

The fourth stage is training the potential informant. This stage is important. You must spend some time making sure the informant knows what he or she can and can't do. Show them how the electronic surveillance equipment works, how to operate the tape or radio broadcast system. Have the informant turn the recorder on before the actual deployment.

Training should include minor tests to see if the informant understands and complies with his handler's instructions. These small tests should verify the honesty and credibility of the informant and should be done periodically at each of the stages.

The fifth stage is dispatching the informant to the target with specific instructions and clear expected goals you expect the informant to accomplish. Start with an easy small assignment and work up to the critical one. Technology only works when you don't need it. All mechanical systems are subject to failure. It is better to have the failure early on a lesser assignment.

The sixth and final stage is the termination of the informant's assignment. This includes a review and debriefing of the informant. Tell him or her that you can no longer provide the informant protection outside the specific assignment. The informant can't act alone, no matter how good the potential action might seem. In the federal system, it might involve "closing out" the informant and writing closure reports.

In gang cases, two or more informants might be involved in the same case. Don't disclose this fact to the informants involved. Cross check each informant's information against the other.

"An informant is not your friend!" This classic cop warning was issued to me many times by other detectives over my 33 years working for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The best narcotics and gang cops I knew were also good at informant development. The cops who were not often accused the good cops of being too friendly with snitches.

Your language preference and race have little to do with it. It is your people skills that make you the better gang cop. I have long time reliable informants who were former Mexican Mafia, Black Guerrilla Family, Aryan Brotherhood, and all types of street gang members.

To this day, I receive calls from my old informants, some from prison. After 15 or 20 years of looking out for one another, they may not be friends (as you think of it), but they have proved to be loyal allies in the gang war.

 

[Dr Dre's ProductionSkills]

LOL AT THE LAST PARAGRAPH.... FUNNY IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT..

Sureño Fight Club
Don't underestimate the fighting prowess of Sureño gang members who've served time.
32
November 26, 2012 | by Richard Valdemar - Also by this author

Sureño graffiti around 1997. CC_Flickr: Daquella manera
Sureño graffiti around 1997. CC_Flickr: Daquella manera
West Coast gangs are often different in structure and philosophy than Midwest or East Coast gangs. While East Coast and Midwest gangs have evolved with a pyramid corporate structure, West Coast gangs are more like a trapezoid. There is no clear top.

Midwest and East Coast gangs often have written constitutions, formal hierarchies and a command structure. They have officers, presidents, ruling councils, and even kings. West Coast gangs are often more democratic and made up of smaller cell-like groups called cliques. Their structure resembles the Al-Qaeda and Hamas organizations more than the corporate pyramid gang structure.

As a result, West Coast gangs give members more autonomy to operate; rely less on influential leaders; and develop more resilient criminal organizations. East Coast law enforcement efforts to dismantle the gangs fail when applied to these West Coast gangs. Because of the cell-like structure, any disruption and damage to any part of the structure is limited to only one or two cells. The other cells continue to function and other gang members fill any leadership vacuums that may occur.

In addition to these differences, West Coast gangs also give allegiance, and form alliances, under the umbrella of prison gangs. All West Coast white gangs are under the leadership and protection of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang. Crips and Bloods fall under the Black Guerrilla Family. The Northern California Latino gangs (Norteños) serve the Nuestra Familia prison gang, and the Southern California Latino gangs (Sureños) serve as foot soldiers in the surrogate army of the Mexican Mafia prison gang.

The Sureños are growing in huge numbers; invading Northern California; and migrating east. They can be found in 50 states and in Canada and Mexico. In fact, Sureño gangs such as Florence 13 (F-13), 18th Street (18th or XVIII) and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) are trans-national criminal organizations with links to international drug and human trafficking cartels.

Because gang members join the military, Sureño gangs are also present in significant numbers in the four service branches. Norteño and Sureño graffiti can be seen in and around military posts even in Iraq and Afghanistan. If in any location outside of California the Sureño gangs find that they are too few in numbers they will unite under the umbrella of "SUR," Sureño 13, South Side, or Kanpol (the Aztec word for Southerner). This unity will occur even though these gang members may have been rivals in the streets of Los Angeles.

These same Sureño gangs control Southern California's huge counterfeit document industry. That means they have access to excellent false identification. They can be anybody they want. Keep this in mind the next time someone you detain hands you California identification.

The prison gangs that control the street gangs are much more criminally sophisticated and experienced in violent confrontations. They've set up a schooling system to train their surrogate army. During a peewee gang member's first juvenile detention, he is taught how to behave. Each neophyte gang member begins by learning the prison gang's code of conduct. He learns how to dodge the law and how to kill.

Each gang member advances in his criminal training as they move through juvenile hall, county jail, youth authority, and state prison. Even the homeboys returning from prison hold impromptu training sessions and school their young homeboys. Sureño regulations require that if one Sureño is fighting, even with staff, all others must come to his aid.

There are three types of Sureño gang members. The first is a Southern California Latino gang member who has moved into your area. The second type is the local grown gang member who has been converted to the Sureño cause and has adopted the code of conduct and dictates of the Mexican Mafia prison gang. The third is the illegal immigrant who was brought into this country through the Sureño gang pipeline. And although this person has never visited California or been a gang member, he or she now claims Sureño allegiance.

I've observed that many local police officers underestimate the danger of these Sureño. In 2011, 163 officers were killed in the line of duty. Of that, 70 were shot and killed and two were stabbed to death. Gang members were involved in several of these officer-involved murders.

While in custody, most Sureño gang members are educated in martial arts fighting tactics and are primarily trained in fighting with edged weapons. The culture of jails and prisons is a knife culture. Jail-improvised weapons start with shanks but can include spears, clubs, zip guns, and bombs.

Officers must understand that gang members coordinate attacks; use multiple aggressors; and perfect and practice these tactics. Sureño gangs have a standard hit-team concept configured in at least three roles—the hit man, the lay-off man, and the lookout (the "eye"). This three-man concept is also used outside custody in a stick-up team that includes the gunman, the back-up man, and the lookout or get-away driver. When you encounter a gang member committing a crime, look for two and expect three.

Researchers learned that some of these offenders began carrying weapons at nine to 12 years old. On average, they were armed "most of the time" by 17. And 80% of the bad guys reported that they regularly practiced with hand guns, averaging about 23 sessions per year. Officers who were victims averaged only about 14 hours of training. Only six of the 50 officers reported firearms practice outside of the department.

In my experience, this practice by gang members does not mean punching holes in bull's eye targets. It is quick reaction and instinctive shooting, and the gang members are often veterans and survivors of numerous prior firefights. They shoot first and expect return fire.

These training hits practiced by Sureño gang members while in custody are done when witnesses are present. Other inmates walk the yards, guards are everywhere and tower guards are armed with rifles. If possible they stage a diversion such as a small inmate fight to draw attention away from the real action. If not, they assault the victim in front of everyone, expecting to be shot by the tower guard.

It's this "don't give a f**k" attitude that catches cops off guard. Researchers in the FBI study "Did not realize how cold blooded the younger generation of offender is. They have been exposed to killing after killing; they fully expect to get killed and don't hesitate to shoot anybody, including a police officer."

Think about this; as big and bad as outlaw motorcycle gang members may look, they don't run any prison yard in California. Those skinny bald-headed, baggy-pants-wearing, tattooed, Latino gang members run the yards. Don't underestimate them.