Monday, December 13, 2010

New strategy against gangs

From the NY Times:

When Walter Alberto Torres, a Salvadoran immigrant and a gang member, confessed in October 2009 that he had unsuccessfully plotted the assassination of an immigration agent in New York City, the admission touched off more than just his prosecution.

In the weeks that followed, immigration authorities, working with other law enforcement agencies, conducted raids on suspected hide-outs of Mr. Torres’s gang, La Mara Salvatrucha 13, an international network of violent cliques with a growing presence in New York City and its suburbs.

And that offensive — intended in part, officials said, to signal that the government would not tolerate attacks on its officers — was only the beginning for the New York office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In the months since, agents in the office’s investigative division have expanded their dragnet far beyond La Mara Salvatrucha and across the region, from Ulster County in the Hudson Valley to eastern Long Island.

From October 2009 through September, they arrested 285 suspects they said were gang members or close associates — a record for the office and a fivefold increase over the same period the previous year.

The surge, which has unfolded with little public notice, coincided with the arrival of James T. Hayes Jr., who became the special agent in charge of the investigations division several weeks before Mr. Torres confessed to the murder plot.

Mr. Hayes, 37, said that while the threat to an agent had fired up his team, the arrests also reflected a new emphasis for the investigative unit, which enforces more than 400 federal customs and immigration statutes. When he assumed the job, he said, he reviewed the office’s recent moves against gangs — it had made 57 such arrests in the previous year — and concluded that his team could be doing far more.

He added 3 agents to a force that now numbers 11, “and really gave them a mandate, not just to look at individual gang members but to look at these street gangs as criminal organizations and to use all our tools to disrupt and dismantle them,” Mr. Hayes said in an interview.

The office’s stepped-up action against gangs reflects a nationwide shift in priorities by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, which says it is now focusing on capturing immigrants who pose a threat to public safety and security, rather than those with civil violations. The New York offensive has come under the banner of Operation Community Shield, a five-year-old national campaign by the immigration agency to dismember violent street gangs by prosecuting and deporting their members and associates.

Several law enforcement officials in the New York area said gang activity appears to have grown in recent years, particularly among immigrants, spurring the formation of new anti-gang units and greater collaboration between local and federal agencies. Yet even as that has produced an increase in prosecutions, officials said, the very nature of gangs — quick to form, grow and change shape — has made them particularly hard to track and tackle, and the immigration agents’ contribution has helped.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good Job!

Anonymous said...

The problem isn't so much the gangs mentioned like MS13. Our problem is the biggest gang of them all. One that's quick to add members and operates in the shadows - people never knowing what they do. The federal government gang is bankrupting our nation.

This effort while laudable will most likely peter out. Most Federal employees can't be relied on to put in an honest days work.

Anonymous said...

the very nature of gangs — quick to form, grow and change shape —

I applaud the efforts to rid criminal illegals especially gangs, but the gang members easily do business in plain site among the so call non-criminal criminal illegals (oxymoron)
because they are hiding in plain site!

As previous Mayor Rudolf Guiliani taught the nation about crime fighting and taming crime in NYC during his years in office: all laws broken, from littering on up is enforced to the worst crimes so that nothing is excluded in order to tame crime.

The same applies to why these criminal gangs thrive, they provide protection (extortion) to those illegals who work here so that they will not be reported. So these gangs do as they like and move on to very serious crimes against our citizens.

To be successful in fighting crime there is no difference between the illegal alien and the illegal alien gang member.

Anonymous said...

Wow...it didn’t take long for someone to comment on something completely unrelated to the story.

I'm glad there getting these illegal street gangs.

Anonymous said...

Si.....BUENO!
GREAT JOB!

But nearly every time some citizens reported continuing MS 13 gang activity in their Flushing nabe... they were shrugged off by the complacent 109th PCT...despite the fact that their gang grafitti can be found in the area.

I guess the cops are too busy protecting Asian whore houses and skimming off their take.

Anonymous said...

So Crappy, what about the gang that runs Queens.

You seem to be going easy on them of late - whas up?

Gary the Agnostic said...

Anon No. 6 --

You keep making this point over and over and I want to tell you this:

1) Your reading comprehension skills must be quite low. the Crapper keeps going after the political establishment in this borough and city (you notice everything written about the Mayor, for example?).

2) What is your agenda? To alienate people from this website? There seem to be a couple of people (or maybe one person) who have this intent. Whoever is pulling the anit-semitic routine hasn't succeeded, so now you''re trying this, maybe?

In any event, as other people have noted, there are a ton of other websites. If the content here bothers you, go away.

Keep on crapping, Crapper.

Anonymous said...

109th pct is told by CB7 and Councilmans office who to protect, and what to admit to.

MS 13 please they dont exist, nor do car thefts, break ins, home invasions, vandalism, and so on and so forth . Otherwise the developers will pull out of CB 7 confines and non of these S.O.B's turn a profit.

Anonymous said...

I applaud Mr Hayes's efforts, but you can bet some jackal posing as an official will go to bat for the illegal scum in the name of "anti-racism" and "diversity" and see that Hayes is fired or prosecuted for "racial profiling." It is, sadly, inevitable -- in this bizarro world of PC and "celebrating diversity", if you dare to seek out and confront individual hispanics while cracking down on what are by definition hispanic gangs, you are guilty of "racial profiling" and "racism."

Anonymous said...

more please. get rid of gangs.

Anonymous said...

Gary -

you have a problem with people expressing their opinion?

The fact is that this blog has become little more than a news service - issues like zoning have fallen for tree pruning, and the clumsy assholes that run this godforsaken borough are increasingly getting a free pass are points that are, and should be noticed.

You don't like people expressing their opinion? Tough.

Or better yet, work for one of the local hacks. They can't stand difference of opinion.

Drives 'em nuts!... eh?

ew-3 said...

essentially these are counter-insurgency operations.

first rule of CI is to stop the enemy at the source. once they are inside your area they are many times harder to find and stop.

Gary the Agnostic said...

Anon No. 11

I think you're the one working for the hacks.

What Crapper is doing is providing information that people aren't getting from most other places. There are some people who don't want this information that get out.

The item about tree pruning (or tree assault) just shows the vandalism that's taking place against the character of our neighborhoods.

Tell the guys at Parkside nice try.

Deke DaSilva said...

Well, it's about time!

The old policy just wasn't very effective - ICE officers using feather dusters, and politely going up to gang members - "Excuse me please, Mr. Gang Member, would you kindly refrain from using violence and committing crimes? So sorry to bother you, and I would like to add that as a member of ICE, we respect your culture very much!"

But it goes to show that NOTHING is ever done until something personally impacts the lives of these schmucks directly.

If you want Bloomberg to crack down on drunken driving by "undocumented guest workers", he doesn't care if you or one of your family members is killed by a drunk driving illegal alien. If Bloomberg's family member or crony gets hit by a drunken "guest worker", then he will spring into action.

If you want ICE to crack down on illegal alien gangs, they won't - until one of their own people is impacted.

Anonymous said...

If you want ICE to crack down on illegal alien gangs, they won't - until one of their own people is impacted.

Well put, but it's a shame.

Anonymous said...

Subcontract their elimination to the president of the Phillipines.
He'd whack 'em.