Mexican Mafia

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.

Black supervisors in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department were acting out of racism when they called a group of Latino deputies the "Mexican Mafia" and disciplined a member, jurors found Thursday. Angel Jaimes, a 19-year veteran of the department, was harassed because of his Mexican origin by his supervisors, who, according to testimony, said the station "was run by Mexicans and they were going to change that," the panel concluded.

He was a 16-year-old inmate doing time at the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy, Calif., who came up with the idea of forming a Latino "gang of gangs" inside the prison walls. These convicts would put aside Mexican American street gang rivalries, protect themselves from overzealous guards and band together to battle black and white inmates.

Federal officials said Friday that they dismantled one of the most prolific drug rings in the Coachella Valley on Thursday in an operation that resulted in the arrests of 16 people, including one "shot caller" for the Mexican Mafia, and the seizure of 50 guns, methamphetamine and a pipe bomb. A joint gang task force of state, local and federal officials tracked members of the network for 10 months by recording cellphone conversations and posing as drug buyers, officials said.

They call themselves the Regulators. They wear tattoos of a skull-faced man holding a shotgun, fire screaming from its barrels. They refuse to testify against their buddies. They've been accused of extorting and intimidating those outside their ranks. No, they're not members of a street gang. They're Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies at the Century station in Lynwood. And their "club" is part of a culture that's dogged the nation's largest sheriff's department for years.

Under orders from the Mexican Mafia, Florencia 13 gang members allegedly patrolled their neighborhood to "cleanse" it by assaulting and killing members of rival black gangs. At the same time, the Latino gang also allegedly sold large quantities of drugs, and in some cases, guns, to blacks, including Crips gang members. This complex and contradictory picture of underworld life in which race, drugs and gangs collide emerges from four federal indictments announced last month against Florencia 13.

A reputed member of the Mexican Mafia prison gang was one of two men gunned down in a Pomona sports bar Tues- day night, authorities said. Frankie "Frankie B" Buelna, 61, of Pomona was shot several times in the torso during a confrontation at Characters Sports Bar on 1st Street. He was flown to County-USC Medical Center, where he died, said Pomona Police Sgt. Rick Baker. Enrique Sanchez, 26, of Chino also was shot and killed at the bar.

An investigation into the killing of a man who had confronted graffiti taggers has revealed an unrelated murder plot by Mexican Mafia leaders battling over control of the illegal drug trade in the San Gabriel Valley, authorities said Thursday. The case provides a rare glimpse of how the prison gang controls Latino gangs on Southern California's streets, and of the role mafia wives and girlfriends play in ordering robberies, extortions and even murders on the outside.

A day before Thanksgiving 1998, Donald "Pato" Schubert was shot to death in the carport of his apartment building in the San Gabriel Valley city of Rosemead. A member of the Lomas Rosemead street gang pleaded guilty to killing Schubert, a plumber and former gang member. With that, the case was filed away, forgotten by nearly everyone except Schubert's family. Then, earlier this month, the case suddenly returned to life.

An Anaheim man imprisoned after two police officers and a civilian were killed in a 1987 helicopter crash while pursuing him has been charged with selling methamphetamine. Vincent William Acosta, 38, who authorities say is a north Orange County leader of the Mexican Mafia, is also charged with possessing a gun and drugs. He appeared in court Wednesday where a $1-million bond was set. He could receive a 136-year prison sentence if convicted on all counts.