Latino gang members firebombed black residents to drive them out of Boyle Heights project, prosecuto
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Latino gang members firebombed black residents to drive them out of Boyle Heights project, prosecutors allege
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ramona-hate-crime-20160707-snap-story.html
Seven Latino gang members have been charged with firebombing the homes of black families living in a Boyle Heights housing project, an attack that federal prosecutors allege was designed to drive African Americans out of the neighborhood.
A federal indictment unsealed Thursday describes how the gang members allegedly planned and carried out the May 12, 2014, attack, which came at time when black families were increasingly moving back into the Ramona Gardens public housing complex after previous violence that prompted most African Americans to flee.
Prosecutors allege that the men broke the apartment windows before hurling Molotov cocktails inside – a move designed to “maximize damage” – and struck homes where families, including children, were inside. Three of the four apartments were occupied by black families.
“This crime was particularly heinous because they attacked people’s homes, where children were sleeping,” said Eileen Decker, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California. “The fact that children were endangered made this a particularly disturbing type of crime.”
The charges are the latest in several criminal accusations over the last two decades against Latino street gangs that used violence to push rival black gangs out of certain neighborhoods. A few years ago, federal prosecutors charged members of a Latino gang with a campaign to push blacks out of the unincorporated Florence-Firestone neighborhood that allegedly resulted in 20 homicides over three years. In the Harbor Gateway district of L.A., a Latino gang was accused of targeting African Americans, including 14-year-old Cheryl Green, whose death became a rallying point against such attacks. Members of the Avenues, a Latino gang in Highland Park, were convicted of a series of assaults and killings in the early 1990s.
In the Ramona Garden case, prosecutors described the defendants as members of the Big Hazard street gang, an Eastside gang that dates back to the 1940s. The charges included conspiring to violate civil rights, interfering with housing rights, committing violent crime to aid racketeering, and using fire and carrying explosives to commit a federal felony.
For more than a generation, keeping blacks out of the housing complex seemed a point of pride for Big Hazard.
On Aug. 30, 1992, an explosion ripped through the pantry of a Ramona Gardens apartment where a black couple and their seven children lived. When they ran outside they realized that another black family across the street had been attacked just minutes earlier.
At the time, only seven black families lived in the project. But after the attack they began to quickly pack up and leave.
The firebombings ushered in a nearly 20-year period in which virtually no blacks lived at Ramona Gardens. Big Hazard had deep connections to the Mexican Mafia prison gang, which influenced Latino gangs and directed attacks on blacks
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ramona-hate-crime-20160707-snap-story.html
Seven Latino gang members have been charged with firebombing the homes of black families living in a Boyle Heights housing project, an attack that federal prosecutors allege was designed to drive African Americans out of the neighborhood.
A federal indictment unsealed Thursday describes how the gang members allegedly planned and carried out the May 12, 2014, attack, which came at time when black families were increasingly moving back into the Ramona Gardens public housing complex after previous violence that prompted most African Americans to flee.
Prosecutors allege that the men broke the apartment windows before hurling Molotov cocktails inside – a move designed to “maximize damage” – and struck homes where families, including children, were inside. Three of the four apartments were occupied by black families.
“This crime was particularly heinous because they attacked people’s homes, where children were sleeping,” said Eileen Decker, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California. “The fact that children were endangered made this a particularly disturbing type of crime.”
The charges are the latest in several criminal accusations over the last two decades against Latino street gangs that used violence to push rival black gangs out of certain neighborhoods. A few years ago, federal prosecutors charged members of a Latino gang with a campaign to push blacks out of the unincorporated Florence-Firestone neighborhood that allegedly resulted in 20 homicides over three years. In the Harbor Gateway district of L.A., a Latino gang was accused of targeting African Americans, including 14-year-old Cheryl Green, whose death became a rallying point against such attacks. Members of the Avenues, a Latino gang in Highland Park, were convicted of a series of assaults and killings in the early 1990s.
In the Ramona Garden case, prosecutors described the defendants as members of the Big Hazard street gang, an Eastside gang that dates back to the 1940s. The charges included conspiring to violate civil rights, interfering with housing rights, committing violent crime to aid racketeering, and using fire and carrying explosives to commit a federal felony.
For more than a generation, keeping blacks out of the housing complex seemed a point of pride for Big Hazard.
On Aug. 30, 1992, an explosion ripped through the pantry of a Ramona Gardens apartment where a black couple and their seven children lived. When they ran outside they realized that another black family across the street had been attacked just minutes earlier.
At the time, only seven black families lived in the project. But after the attack they began to quickly pack up and leave.
The firebombings ushered in a nearly 20-year period in which virtually no blacks lived at Ramona Gardens. Big Hazard had deep connections to the Mexican Mafia prison gang, which influenced Latino gangs and directed attacks on blacks
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Eventually black families started moving back to Ramona Gardens, a sign of progress in a community and a city that had largely put aside the violence of the 1990s. But even then, a gang said to no longer hold the sway that it once did tried to intimidate black residents into leaving. Some threats were verbal. Others came in the form of slurs, like the one written in the dust accumulated on the car of one black resident. In at least one case, a rock was flung through a window.
Still, things seemed to be improving, until two years ago when Molotov cocktails were thrown at the four apartments in Ramona Gardens. Police said they strongly suspected the attacks were racially motivated. At least one resident said at the time that she would ask for an emergency transfer out of the complex, though she noted that things had been calm until the fiery attack. Others insisted they would stay.
At the time of the 2014 attack there were 23 black families living in Ramona Gardens. As of this February, 3% of Ramona Gardens residents were African American, according to the L.A. city housing authority.
The 25-page indictment unsealed Thursday alleges that a sophisticated level of planning went into the attack and describes Big Hazard’s longstanding efforts to scare African Americans away from the project. Gang members would “monitor the activity” of African Americans and threaten those who lived in Ramona Gardens “that they risked harm if they remained,” according to the indictment.
The attack was discussed at a gang meeting in early May 2014, prosecutors allege, where Carlos Hernandez, 31, told gang members that they would use Molotov cocktails to firebomb apartments where black families lived. On May 11 — Mother’s Day — the group met again to plan the attack, according to the indictment.
At that second meeting, prosecutors allege, Hernandez assigned each gang member a specific job: breaking apartment windows, lighting the devices, throwing them inside. He also handed out disguises and gloves, the indictment said.
The group didn’t carry their cellphones so police couldn’t track their movements, prosecutors alleged, and purposely followed a route through Ramona Gardens where security cameras couldn’t record them.
Shortly after midnight, prosecutors allege the group drove into the project and attacked four apartments. In one, the firebomb landed on a couch where a woman and her baby had been sleeping moments earlier, according to the indictment. The woman moved when she heard the window break.
None of the families were hurt in the attacks. Prosecutors said Hernandez cut his arm on broken glass while throwing one of the Molotov cocktails and went to a hospital for treatment.
The threats didn’t stop with the attack, according to the indictment. In September 2014, prosecutors allege, one of the gang members confronted a family and “warned that they should leave Ramona Gardens or that they too would get firebombed.”
On Thursday, Irena Vega sat outside her Ramona Gardens apartment and recalled a firebombing in the 1990s that targeted a black family. As the apartment burned, she said, the family managed to escape with their children through the kitchen.
They were the only black family Vega remembers living in the housing project at the time.
“They left,” she said.
Vega and her 12-year-old grandson said more black families have moved into the housing project, which they said has become safer thanks to increased police patrols and the installation of security cameras. Gang members aren’t as common, Vega added.
“The gangs were heavy around here,” she said. “Now they aren’t.”
Rosa Gonzalez, another longtime resident, agreed that more black families were living at Ramona Gardens and that it was safer. But, she said, the gang still lingers.
“Some are dead, some are in jail, some left," she said. "The gang is small, but it hasn't gone away." -
But people got angry at me when I said build the ? wall
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they are already here idiot what would building that wall accomplish now?
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they are already here idiot what would building that wall accomplish now?
Prevent more of them from coming in you ? idiot -
But but but black and brown people are in the same struggle ? those taco eating ? in the words of G Money "we all we got"
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All this ? is real. And down played as ? in LA. ? out here really try to pretend like that vast majority of Mexicans (older but a smaller portion of younger) think we're less than dirt, just cu they got a few Mexican homies.
there's been race riots at many of the high schools in la, including one just 2 or 3 months ago... The guy from machete spoke at the parent teacher conference.
But the root of the issue is that there is a spills over of the prison politics of the Mexican mafia that controls to an extent the SUR13 Gangs, which then influences behaviors within schools, which is often racially segregated sharply like prisons, with school staff even enforcing that to an extent. I lived through the ? myself. Riots and everything -
All this ? is real. And down played as ? in LA. ? out here really try to pretend like that vast majority of Mexicans (older but a smaller portion of younger) think we're less than dirt, just cu they got a few Mexican homies.
there's been race riots at many of the high schools in la, including one just 2 or 3 months ago... The guy from machete spoke at the parent teacher conference.
But the root of the issue is that there is a spills over of the prison politics of the Mexican mafia that controls to an extent the SUR13 Gangs, which then influences behaviors within schools, which is often racially segregated sharply like prisons, with school staff even enforcing that to an extent. I lived through the ? myself. Riots and everything
Them SUR13 ? do not like me wherever I go. I don't bang but I grew up with hella XIV members. Call them scraps and watch they eyes light up. -
All this ? is real. And down played as ? in LA. ? out here really try to pretend like that vast majority of Mexicans (older but a smaller portion of younger) think we're less than dirt, just cu they got a few Mexican homies.
there's been race riots at many of the high schools in la, including one just 2 or 3 months ago... The guy from machete spoke at the parent teacher conference.
But the root of the issue is that there is a spills over of the prison politics of the Mexican mafia that controls to an extent the SUR13 Gangs, which then influences behaviors within schools, which is often racially segregated sharply like prisons, with school staff even enforcing that to an extent. I lived through the ? myself. Riots and everything
u aint neva lied..
iunno bout the SUR13 but i know about the G13s in gardena.. and Lennox.. we had a major riot every other yr from Middle School on up..
mexicans are only embolded when they outnumber u on some 6:1 or more ? which brings into questions why would ? move into Boyle Heights of all places!!? -
All this ? is real. And down played as ? in LA. ? out here really try to pretend like that vast majority of Mexicans (older but a smaller portion of younger) think we're less than dirt, just cu they got a few Mexican homies.
there's been race riots at many of the high schools in la, including one just 2 or 3 months ago... The guy from machete spoke at the parent teacher conference.
But the root of the issue is that there is a spills over of the prison politics of the Mexican mafia that controls to an extent the SUR13 Gangs, which then influences behaviors within schools, which is often racially segregated sharply like prisons, with school staff even enforcing that to an extent. I lived through the ? myself. Riots and everything
Yeah, this is what I've heard, read, and seen. Black-and-brown relations generally don't seem to be the best in L.A., particularly in some areas in SoCal apparently. Those surenos are worse than the neo-nazis in all kinds of ways. It's no wonder that they clique up with the ? brotherhood in prison. -
Black folks should bounce from LA
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Exactly why I only give a ? about black people. All that "black and brown in it together" stuff is ? .
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These are illegals, and why I don't get why many support them. Most Latinos are cool as ? , but illegals harbor tons of racism from their home countries and are all about La Raza.
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California is a good place for blacks? I'd love to see this argument -
yeh..
and im ready to destroy that argument. lol -
ThaNubianGod wrote: »These are illegals, and why I don't get why many support them. Most Latinos are cool as ? , but illegals harbor tons of racism from their home countries and are all about La Raza.
Exactly. don't be a chump vote 4 trump! build that damn wall now!!!!!
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BOSSExcellence wrote: »All this ? is real. And down played as ? in LA. ? out here really try to pretend like that vast majority of Mexicans (older but a smaller portion of younger) think we're less than dirt, just cu they got a few Mexican homies.
there's been race riots at many of the high schools in la, including one just 2 or 3 months ago... The guy from machete spoke at the parent teacher conference.
But the root of the issue is that there is a spills over of the prison politics of the Mexican mafia that controls to an extent the SUR13 Gangs, which then influences behaviors within schools, which is often racially segregated sharply like prisons, with school staff even enforcing that to an extent. I lived through the ? myself. Riots and everything
u aint neva lied..
iunno bout the SUR13 but i know about the G13s in gardena.. and Lennox.. we had a major riot every other yr from Middle School on up..
mexicans are only embolded when they outnumber u on some 6:1 or more ? which brings into questions why would ? move into Boyle Heights of all places!!?
Sur 13 represents all the Mexican gangs south of Bakersfield. But yea bruh I've never know a black person to live in Boyle heights. I know why now but Boyle heights is atleast 90% Mexican and that's conservative.
I'm not in east la if I don't have to be -
BOSSExcellence wrote: »
Ok...... -
All this ? is real. And down played as ? in LA. ? out here really try to pretend like that vast majority of Mexicans (older but a smaller portion of younger) think we're less than dirt, just cu they got a few Mexican homies.
there's been race riots at many of the high schools in la, including one just 2 or 3 months ago... The guy from machete spoke at the parent teacher conference.
But the root of the issue is that there is a spills over of the prison politics of the Mexican mafia that controls to an extent the SUR13 Gangs, which then influences behaviors within schools, which is often racially segregated sharply like prisons, with school staff even enforcing that to an extent. I lived through the ? myself. Riots and everything
This is more then real. We had Mexicans in our hood and we pushed them out. From the 30s - 100s on the west side we have no Mexicans in the hood. We're tired of there ? ? and NHCs are MexicanK now -
But being black in east LA isn't the best idea like being Mexican on western ave
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No black people in Boyle Heights? Y'all forgetting bout one of the realest ever
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All this ? is real. And down played as ? in LA. ? out here really try to pretend like that vast majority of Mexicans (older but a smaller portion of younger) think we're less than dirt, just cu they got a few Mexican homies.
there's been race riots at many of the high schools in la, including one just 2 or 3 months ago... The guy from machete spoke at the parent teacher conference.
But the root of the issue is that there is a spills over of the prison politics of the Mexican mafia that controls to an extent the SUR13 Gangs, which then influences behaviors within schools, which is often racially segregated sharply like prisons, with school staff even enforcing that to an extent. I lived through the ? myself. Riots and everything
Idk bout you but I never experienced none of this in middle/high school and I went to school in the hood breh. -
All this ? is real. And down played as ? in LA. ? out here really try to pretend like that vast majority of Mexicans (older but a smaller portion of younger) think we're less than dirt, just cu they got a few Mexican homies.
there's been race riots at many of the high schools in la, including one just 2 or 3 months ago... The guy from machete spoke at the parent teacher conference.
But the root of the issue is that there is a spills over of the prison politics of the Mexican mafia that controls to an extent the SUR13 Gangs, which then influences behaviors within schools, which is often racially segregated sharply like prisons, with school staff even enforcing that to an extent. I lived through the ? myself. Riots and everything
Idk bout you but I never experienced none of this in middle/high school and I went to school in the hood breh.
You have a ? -
All this ? is real. And down played as ? in LA. ? out here really try to pretend like that vast majority of Mexicans (older but a smaller portion of younger) think we're less than dirt, just cu they got a few Mexican homies.
there's been race riots at many of the high schools in la, including one just 2 or 3 months ago... The guy from machete spoke at the parent teacher conference.
But the root of the issue is that there is a spills over of the prison politics of the Mexican mafia that controls to an extent the SUR13 Gangs, which then influences behaviors within schools, which is often racially segregated sharply like prisons, with school staff even enforcing that to an extent. I lived through the ? myself. Riots and everything
Idk bout you but I never experienced none of this in middle/high school and I went to school in the hood breh.
what school Pico??
we not gonna even get on u bein white and female..
jus give me the schools in the hood u went to where blacks and mexicans got along.. -
All this ? is real. And down played as ? in LA. ? out here really try to pretend like that vast majority of Mexicans (older but a smaller portion of younger) think we're less than dirt, just cu they got a few Mexican homies.
there's been race riots at many of the high schools in la, including one just 2 or 3 months ago... The guy from machete spoke at the parent teacher conference.
But the root of the issue is that there is a spills over of the prison politics of the Mexican mafia that controls to an extent the SUR13 Gangs, which then influences behaviors within schools, which is often racially segregated sharply like prisons, with school staff even enforcing that to an extent. I lived through the ? myself. Riots and everything
Idk bout you but I never experienced none of this in middle/high school and I went to school in the hood breh.
Well I experienced race riots twice in 2 years. Attacked by Mexicans who hollered ? killer before hoppin out of their car back when I was I Middle school. I've spoken on all of this for years on here.
