Federal prosecutors Tuesday accused members of a Latino street gang of a violent campaign to drive African American rivals out of their South Los Angeles area neighborhood, resulting in at least 20 killings in the last three years.
Capping an undercover investigation conducted over that period, authorities issued indictments that charged more than 60 members and associates of the Florencia 13 street gang with a long list of felonies. Prosecutors say the gang was trying to dominate the area's drug trade as well as extort "rent" from prostitutes, vendors, drug dealers and others.
Much of the violence occurred in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood, a working-class unincorporated community of 60,000 north of Watts that went through a rapid shift in population starting in the 1980s. Once mostly black, the area is now home to many Mexican immigrants.
Officials said Latino gang leaders in recent years had sought to drive the remaining black gangs and their supporters from the neighborhood and had repeatedly ordered members to attack black rivals -- in some cases shooting them on sight.
The indictment's description of sustained, deadly racial gang fighting provides evidence of a type of violence that is often discussed but seldom documented. Homicide statistics indicate that the vast majority of killings take place within racial or ethnic groups.
Florence-Firestone, however, appears to have been a murderous exception. Killings in the neighborhood peaked in 2005, when 41 homicides sparked widespread community outcry. As violence rose, the L.A. County Sheriff's Department sent more than 60 additional deputies to the area and conducted several mass arrests aimed at reducing racial violence. The district attorney's office devoted a special prosecutor to handle only Florence-Firestone homicides for two years.
Last year, homicides plummeted to 19.
Another piece of the stepped-up law enforcement effort was the undercover investigation. Officials said Tuesday that they had determined that 80 shootings since early 2005 had resulted from the gang violence.
In some cases, African Americans with no gang ties were caught up in the violence, prosecutors said. "In their attempt to intimidate African Americans in the community, they targeted innocent citizens," said U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O'Brien.
