Indictment offers harrowing details of L.A. gang's workings

When a stray bullet from a gang member's gun struck 3-week-old Luis Angel Garcia in the heart and killed him in 2007, police, politicians and ordinary Angelenos expressed outrage over the infant's death.

But they weren't the only ones.

Members of the Mexican Mafia, the notorious prison-based organization that authorities say controls Latino street gangs, demanded that those responsible be killed, according to an indictment unsealed this week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

The edict, known as a "green light," was aimed at members of the 18th Street gang, who were thought to have killed the baby during a botched attack on a street vendor who'd refused to pay "rent" to conduct business in the gang's territory near MacArthur Park.

Hoping to avoid the Mexican Mafia's wrath, the 18th Streeters decided to take care of the problem themselves, according to authorities. In the days after the baby's slaying, two gang members lured the shooter to Mexico under the false pretense that he was being hidden from police investigating the murder, the indictment states. Once there, they attempted to strangle him and left "him for dead on the side of a road," according to prosecutors.

The shooter, identified in court papers as "unindicted co-conspirator #1," survived the attack and is now cooperating with prosecutors in their pursuit of his former gang.

Though prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office have declined to comment, most of the account was revealed in a 114-page indictment unsealed Tuesday. The document charges about 40 members and associates of the Columbia Lil Cycos -- a clique of the 18th Street gang -- with being involved in a racketeering conspiracy that allegedly involved murder, drug trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping and other crimes. One murder victim was a 22-year-old man who was mistaken for a rival gang member, authorities allege. Also charged in the case was a defense attorney accused of serving as an intermediary between the gang and the Mexican Mafia.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Brian R. Michael said the charges filed against the gang show that it has broadened its activities by taxing not just drug dealers, but also "hard-working folks who are barely making ends meet," such as the street vendor who was attacked.

That the attack was carried out on a street bustling with shoppers, including women and children, represents "a level of violence that, even for this gang, is pretty extraordinary," Michael said.