Gangs

Police have arrested two alleged gang members on suspicion of murder and a hate crime in the fatal stabbing of a Corona teenager in May. A third suspect remains at large. Dominic Redd, 15, was stabbed multiple times May 11 in the Cantadora Apartment Complex in Corona, about a mile from Centennial High School, where he was a freshman. The two suspects in custody, 15 and 16 years old, are members of a Corona street gang, said Sgt.

SAN DIEGO —Two members of a Mexican organized crime group that terrorized border communities were found guilty Wednesday of taking part in the strangling deaths of two men whose bodies were later dissolved in lye and dumped at a ranch outside San Diego. The mens' ruthless tactics were the trademark of a gang that broke off from the drug cartel waging war in Tijuana nearly a decade ago, according to prosecutors. The Palillos, or Toothpicks, came to the San Diego area in 2003 after splitting from the notorious Arellano Felix drug cartel.

On the West Side of San Bernardino, most everyone knew Johnny and Gilbert Agudo. They'd grown up in the tight-knit barrio. Handsome and charismatic, they were the presidents of two cliques of the West Side Verdugo street gang: Johnny, 31, of 7th Street Locos and Gilbert, 27, of the Little Counts. United, they led their gangs in feuds with rivals from other parts of town. But then things took an unexpected turn.

Seven deputies from the Los Angeles County sheriff's gang unit have been placed on leave on suspicion that they belong to a secret clique that celebrates shootings and brands its members with matching tattoos, sources confirmed. The move is a sign of the intensifying nature of the investigation of the "Jump Out Boys. " Suspicion about the group's existence was sparked several weeks ago when a supervisor found a pamphlet describing the group's creed, which promoted aggressive policing and portrayed officer shootings in a positive light.

More than 200 opponents of Oxnard's 2-month-old gang injunction have filed court papers alleging it is being used to harass innocent people and trample civil liberties, while stigmatizing dozens of youths as "urban terrorists." Attorneys for the Colonia Chiques, the gang targeted in the June 1 injunction, will use the declarations filed by community members to make the case that the court-ordered crackdown is too punitive and should be thrown out.

Police on Thursday arrested the last remaining suspect in last week's slaying of a Corona teenager -- as thousands gathered the same day for the victim's funeral. Corona and Riverside police, acting on a tip, arrested Edward Juan Cuellar, 16, of Corona about 1 a.m. after the sport utility vehicle he was riding in with five other people was stopped on Van Buren Boulevard in Riverside, said Sgt. Neil Reynolds of the Corona Police Department.

A Santa Ana gang leader was found guilty of federal drug trafficking charges Thursday, capping a two-year investigation that authorities said broke the back of one of Southern California's largest drug distribution networks. Jose Castellon faces life in prison when sentenced March 19. He was convicted of heroin and cocaine trafficking, and manufacturing methamphetamines. The Castellon-led ring, authorities said, was responsible for making $1 million worth of methamphetamines a month.

The FBI and Los Angeles police have arrested a 25-year-old man in the shooting deaths of at least three rival gang members, officials said Thursday. William Vasquez was taken into custody Oct. 13 at the apartment complex where he lived in the Westlake district, investigators said. He pleaded not guilty Tuesday to three murder charges and was being held on $2-million bail. "They believe he may be tied to other murders," said Lt. Paul Vernon, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department.

More than 750 law enforcement officials conducted sweeps in five counties Thursday, aimed at breaking the back of the Vagos Motorcycle Club, an organization founded in the 1960s that authorities say is tied to dealing drugs and weapons. Twenty-two people were arrested in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange and Ventura counties, culminating a three-year investigation aimed at curtailing the operations of the Vagos organization.

As the story goes, the East Coast Crips robbed a Florencia 13 drug connection of a large quantity of dope nearly a decade ago. Since then, the tale of how a black street gang ripped off a Latino rival has taken on mythic proportions. But to this day police are uncertain if the fabled heist ever occurred. "You hear so many different variations of this crime," said Terry Burgin, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department gang detective. "Who knows what really happened?

In 2005, leaders of a gang that sold crack and other drugs near MacArthur Park decided to add a new business venture: extorting the vendors who crowd the streets each evening, selling clothes, pirated DVDs and electronics to supplement a hardscrabble existence. The new effort led to a bloody consequence in September 2007, when an 18-year-old tasked with gunning down a defiant vendor accidentally shot to death a 3-week-old infant. The baby's death triggered a large-scale crackdown on the clique that culminated with a two-month trial that began in March.

It's a heroic narrative that Carmen Trutanich has used while running for election: As a young prosecutor nearly three decades ago, he was investigating a murder in a South Los Angeles park when he was surrounded by gang members who fired shots at him. "Even faced with the gang members, Carmen Trutanich wasn't afraid," retired district attorney's Senior Investigator Jim Bell says in an online campaign video titled "Tru Stories. " Trutanich has touted that experience of coming under fire in a voter mailer, at a candidates' debate and on campaign videos during his campaigns for city attorney and now district attorney.

His mother said a quiet prayer of thanks. His father dropped his head and rubbed his eyes. Four years after Los Angeles High School football star Jamiel Shaw II's death, the gang member accused of gunning him down because he was carrying a red Spider-Man backpack was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder. Jurors deliberated for barely half a day before returning the guilty verdict against Pedro Espinoza, now 23. The panel found to be true allegations that Espinoza committed the crime in association with a gang and that he personally discharged a firearm.

Several violent incidents, including the shooting of a 13-year-old boy, have sparked worries of renewed gang activity in a northeast Los Angeles neighborhood where city authorities have invested many resources to combat a notorious gang. Years after a largely successful effort to clear a subgroup of the Avenues gang from Drew Street in Glassell Park, authorities say it appears that rival gangs are looking to exact revenge on, or humiliate, a once powerful and predatory enemy. "I think there's payback a little bit there," said LAPD Lt. David Kowalski, supervisor of the Northeast Division's gang unit.

The 17-year-old football star's skin was black and his backpack red. Were it not for those colors, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday, Jamiel Shaw II might never have been murdered by an 18th Street gang member eager to earn his stripes. Deputy Dist. Atty. Allyson Ostrowski said Pedro Espinoza, now 23, shot Shaw execution-style in 2008 thinking he was a Bloods gang member because he was African American and was carrying a red Spider-Man backpack. Shaw, who played for Los Angeles High School, was killed in March of that year just a few houses away from his Arlington Heights home.

Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas has spent three years defending an indefensible tactic that denies individuals the right to due process before they are named in a gang injunction. A federal judge has ruled it unconstitutional, but Rackauckas has now appealed that decision. He should abandon this costly and misguided legal battle that is little more than an attempt to bend the rules. Injunctions are powerful tools that can help law enforcement combat gangs. The theory is that by placing restrictions on the conduct of gang members - such as imposing curfews on them or limiting where they can congregate - the injunction will undercut a gang's ability to control the streets and commit crimes.

A TV police drama that filmed a scene in Lincoln Heights featuring graffiti with the name of a real gang and the moniker of one of its members has infuriated residents, who are demanding that the scene not be included in the upcoming episode. The graffiti on the front of a house was primarily painted by a production company artist, who inadvertently allowed a man police say is a gang member to add his moniker, said Scott Brazil, executive producer of "The Shield."

Federal drug agents on Friday announced the confiscation of an estimated $1-million worth of methamphetamine and the arrests of three Santa Ana men who are suspected of being major distributors of the drug. The arrests, which authorities said was one of the largest of its kind in Orange County this year, followed a two-month undercover investigation by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. "This is a lot, actually, for methamphetamine," said agency spokesman Ralph Lochridge.

When he came to, Giovanni Macedo was fast tumbling down the side of an embankment somewhere along a road between Tijuana and Mexicali. It was a few seconds before he remembered what had happened. Fleeing to Mexico after a botched shooting. Downing a bottle of vodka and teetering up and down Avenida Revolucion in Tijuana. Reaching a second too late to deflect a rope as it was slung over his neck. A week earlier, the 18-year-old had been "putting in work" in the name of the 18th Street gang in 2007 when he fired shots in the middle of a bustling Westlake street, accidentally killing a 3-week-old infant.

Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives have launched a probe into what appears to be a secret deputy clique within the department's elite gang unit, an investigation triggered by the discovery of a document suggesting the group embraces shootings as a badge of honor. The document described a code of conduct for the Jump Out Boys, a clique of hard-charging, aggressive deputies who gain more respect after being involved in a shooting, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation.