Gangs

The city's neon lights vibrated in the polished hood of the black BMW as it cruised up Las Vegas Boulevard. The man in the passenger seat was instantly recognizable. Fans lined the streets, waving, snapping photos, begging Tupac Shakur for his autograph. Cops were everywhere, smiling. The BMW 750 sedan, with rap magnate Marion "Suge" Knight at the wheel, was leading a procession of luxury vehicles past the MGM Grand Hotel and Caesars Palace, on their way to a hot new nightclub.

Seven reputed Montebello-area gang members have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in at least half a dozen killings stemming from ongoing rivalries over drugs and turf, authorities said Wednesday. The arrests made by Montebello police and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents, coupled with several dozen federal and state indictments, are part of a bid to clear a backlog of unsolved gang homicides. The operation targeted Southside Montebello, a gang rooted in the community for half a century.

TAPACHULA, Mexico - With the first light of day, a team of investigators using shovels and brushes begins picking through the red dirt of the Garden Pantheon cemetery, a ramshackle resting place where a mass grave sits cordoned off by yellow police tape. Black and blue tarps (and one advertising Coca-Cola) shield the work from the intense sun and prying eyes. Slowly, over the next weeks, the team will exhume dozens of bodies that have been dumped, nameless, in the mass pauper's grave toward the back of the cemetery, in this city near Mexico's border with Guatemala.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is just beginning its markup of the bipartisan immigration bill, but already opponents and supporters of the sweeping legislation are fighting over which immigrants should be allowed to legalize their status and which should be deported. Clearly it makes sense to refuse legal status to immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes. But some lawmakers, including Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), are backing a provision that goes too far, excluding immigrants who have no criminal history simply because their names appear in a database of gang members or on a gang injunction.

Pancho Real was at Our Lady Queen of Angels Church with his wife and daughter one Sunday in October 2006 when his cellphone rang. He was summoned to a park near his home on Drew Street, a drug and gang haven in Northeast Los Angeles, to kill a man he didn't know. The Mexican Mafia wanted a paroled Avenues gang member named Frank "Kiko" Cordova dead. Real left church with his family and called another gang member, Carlos Renteria. At the park that afternoon, they figured out who Cordova was but saw he was among children.

The leader of a street gang that controlled narcotics trafficking in Los Angeles' crime-plagued MacArthur Park area was sentenced to life in prison plus 60 years Monday after being convicted on federal racketeering charges. Francisco (Pancho Villa) Martinez, 39, ran the Columbia Li'l Cycos gang from a prison cell, issuing orders to gang members through his wife, who is awaiting sentencing.

Two Long Beach gang members could face life in prison without parole for allegedly killing a young actor and wounding another man outside an Anaheim Denny's two years ago, prosecutors said Tuesday. Damon Hill, 24, and Jarrell Kelly, 20, were charged with one count of murder, one count of attempted murder and three counts of second-degree robbery, plus sentencing enhancements for gang activity. They are serving three-year state prison terms for unrelated crimes. The suspects confronted the victims at the restaurant in the early morning of March 17, 2006, after a night at the nearby Boogie nightclub, according to Orange County prosecutors.

Police were searching Saturday for a group of youths who attacked a longtime Fullerton minister and his sons, chasing them into their church and pelting them with rocks. The Rev. Willie Holmes, president and founder of Majesty Christian Fellowship, said he was driving his two sons and another passenger back to the church from a Fullerton Union High School concert about 10:20 p.m. Friday when they were attacked near Valencia Drive and Highland Avenue.

Villagers in central Kenya clashed with a criminal gang using machetes, axes and clubs, killing at least 29 people and leaving the streets stained with blood, police said Tuesday. Residents near the town of Karatina fought Mungiki members overnight because the gang had been extorting money from them, deputy police spokesman Charles Owino said. "The majority of the dead are Mungiki members," Owino said. At least three others were seriously wounded.

Los Angeles Police Sgt. Larry Walker slowed his squad car, pointing to freshly spray-painted red gang graffiti on the side of a Baldwin Village apartment building, down the block from where a 3-year-old girl was shot and killed this week. "Usually, kids are off limits," he said, waving to a little boy with a red lollipop who eyed him back. "That little girl just got caught in the crossfire."

Would you do a double-take if I said that that words were a recurring theme in this week's Great Reads? Yes, beautiful language is a mainstay in these stories, but this week, two standouts focused on words. Exhibit A: The words “Los Feliz.” I pronounce it Los FEE-lus. I know it's not correct, but it's “right” (marks me as an old-timer, I know). Exhibit B: The word “delight.” Silicon Valley types have been tripping all over themselves to use the word. At least it's better than another buzzword that makes me go urghhh: freemium.

An inmate charged with murder in a 2010 Baldwin Park gang shooting was mistakenly released from the Los Angeles County jail system last month because of a clerical error, sheriff's officials revealed Friday. The department waited nearly a month before alerting the public that Johnny Mata was on the loose. Mata was set free April 4 from the Sheriff's Department's Inmate Reception Center in downtown Los Angeles, according to Capt. Chuck Antuna. "A clerical error occurred and he was released," Antuna said.

A Monday morning shooting in El Sereno appeared to be gang-related, Los Angeles police said. A man, described as Latino and in his 30s, was shot multiple times about 7:10 a.m. while in his pickup truck. The man managed to briefly continue driving until he crashed near Huntington Drive and Monterey Road. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. No suspects have been arrested and no one else was injured. Authorities closed the intersection while they investigated.

Paramount Pictures may stand to gain a great deal from its forthcoming "Pain & Gain," but for Marc Schiller, it's only generating pain.  Schiller, an accountant who resides in Boca Raton, Fla., was a victim of the Sun Gym gang, whose exploits are documented in the upcoming movie. The film, starring Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson, centers on bodybuilders who went on a crime rampage involving kidnapping, extortion and murder in South Florida in the 1990s. In 1994, Schiller was abducted and tortured by the gang.

Canadian police are reopening their investigation into the alleged gang rape of a 17-year-old girl who later hanged herself, saying new information has come to light, according to Canadian news media. Police have faced a torrent of criticism for not pressing charges against four youths accused by relatives of Rehtaeh Parsons, whose alleged assault, continued bullying and later suicide spurred outrage in Canada and abroad. Her parents said classmates shared photos of the attack online but that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told them there weren't grounds to bring the case to court.

Outraged Canadians are demanding police action after an alleged gang rape and suicide in Nova Scotia, a tragedy that has drawn parallels to recent assault cases in Ohio and California . Seventeen-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons hanged herself last week after enduring more than a year of bullying in the aftermath of an alleged rape. In an impassioned message posted on Facebook, her mother, Leah Parsons, wrote that four boys assaulted Rehtaeh in November 2011 and spread a photo of the act online, branding the teen a “slut” and launching an avalanche of harassment from her classmates.

Oxnard gang member Julio Cesar Chavez testified Friday that he kept silent during his recent murder trial to avoid answering questions about who participated in the fatal beating and stabbing of a man during a back-alley fight two years ago. Chavez broke his silence at his sentencing hearing and denied any role in the slaying for which he was convicted two months ago. He suggested that unnamed gang associates acted in self-defense after being approached by rivals from an El Rio neighborhood.

Ethan Esparza wasn't old enough for school, but his classroom was the front porch of his family's home in a working-class section of Pomona. There, his 8-year-old sister, Belinda, would show him her school textbooks, watch him doodle and go over the alphabet. "He only learned half his ABCs," Belinda said from the porch Tuesday, looking out at the frontyard where Ethan was fatally shot Sunday night during a party celebrating his fourth birthday a day early.

If you're going to the Louvre Museum anytime soon, watch your wallet. The world's busiest museum reopened Thursday with the presence of uniformed police officers aimed at deterring aggressive gangs of pickpockets who target visitors and staff, Agence France-Presse reports . About 200 museum workers walked off the job Wednesday and forced the museum to shut down, leaving disappointed visitors without a chance to see the Mona Lisa, Venus...

A classic political cartoon by the great Thomas Nast depicts members of the Tweed Ring standing in a circle (naturally), each one pointing to the next in answer to the question in the caption: "Who stole the people's money?" That's the image that comes to mind watching the lawyers associated with Prenda Law Inc., try to dodge sanctions by U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II in Los Angeles by blaming one another. Prenda is the firm I wrote about Wednesday , describing its practice of filing scattershot lawsuits against Internet subscribers, accusing them of illegally downloading pornographic movies and threatening to make their actions public unless they pay a nominal settlement fee. Hauled into Wright's courtroom last week to explain their legal strategy, several of the Prenda lawyers pleaded the 5th Amendment.