Yep, this is what America has to look foward too, within 20 years we
will look just like Mexico and Brazil with all of their problems.
Tony
Wed, Jun. 15, 2005
Mexican Mafia grows in Staten Island
BY CARRIE MELAGO AND JOSE MARTINEZ
New York Daily News
NEW YORK - (KRT) - At the foot of the Bayonne Bridge, in the Staten
Island neighborhood known as Little Mexico, crime is down - falling by
more than 6 percent this year. But troubling signs remain.
Fights regularly break out in the Port Richmond neighborhood's Latino
nightclubs, and even more unnerving are the graffiti scrawlings for
M13, a street gang with ties to the notorious Mexican Mafia.
"We've got a lot of problems right now with the gangs," said a
28-year-old Mexican man who ran with a gang for five years before
being jailed. "They're even going after the 14- and 15-year-old kids."
A federal sting operation last month in Staten Island netted 20
members of the Mexican Mafia, shining a local spotlight onto one of
California's oldest and most violent prison gangs.
Its members have been accused of killing Bill Cosby's 27-year-old son,
Ennis, in Los Angeles in 1997, targeting mob turncoat Salvatore (Sammy
Bull) Gravano in an Arizona prison in 2002 and devising a
sophisticated plot last February to murder three guards at one of
California's most secure prisons.
The thought of the Mexican Mafia migrating to the East Coast and
laying down its roots in the city is disturbing to many.
"A lot of these kids are looking for an identity, and if they get
together in a gang, there is strength in numbers," said the Rev. Terry
Troia, who sponsors a gang-intervention program through the nonprofit
Project Hospitality.
"But a gang should not be the center of a community," she said.
Thanks to Troia and teams of cops and community leaders fed up with
seeing children swept into a life of crime, the gangs in Little Mexico
are feeling the heat.
The NYPD has created an "impact zone" within the 102nd Precinct,
flooding cops into Port Richmond's commercial hub, shuttering a
nightclub known as a gang gathering spot and sinking crime in the zone
by more than 70 percent since last year.
"It used to be a war out here," said Jose Rodriguez, who works in a
deli on Port Richmond Ave. "Compared to what it was, this is a
paradise now."
The Staten Island district attorney's office indicted 85 gang members
last year, and charged 39 with violent crimes - both increases from
the previous year.
"There's no area that you can say is immune from gang activity," said
District Attorney Daniel Donovan.
Police officials believe Port Richmond serves as a base for many
Latino gangs who spread their mayhem elsewhere.
Federal authorities say they are seeing evidence of the Mexican Mafia
infecting neighborhoods throughout the city.
"It's not exclusive to Staten Island," said Martin Ficke, special
agent in charge of the U.S. Homeland Security Department's Immigration
and Customs Enforcement division in New York. "We have Mexican Mafia
now in other boroughs."
In Staten Island, the gangs try to recruit children in schools and on
the streets, according to a former gang member. They don't take
rejection well.
"If you don't join up, they will go after you," he said, recalling how
bat-wielding thugs trashed the house of a young man who defied them.
"The truth is, the gang life is not a good life."
But for new arrivals to the United States, especially young men, it
can often seem like the only life, Troia said.
Many of the kids who her group works with are undocumented immigrants
who see little future beyond standing on a corner looking for work,
she said.
In a gang, they find a ready-made community.
"They feel alone out here," she said, pointing out that many of the
young immigrants have never been to Manhattan or even ridden a subway.
Troia's group organizes weekly outings to other parts of the city. The
idea is to give them reasons to steer clear of thug life. She is also
helping to establish so-called "safe spots" in neighborhood stores
where kids can escape pressure from the streets.
"We want to make sure no one goes around in fear," she said.
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