Prison Gang

The trouble began soon after they arrived. The black family - a mother, three teenage children and a 10-year-old boy - moved into a little yellow home in Compton over Christmas vacation. When a friend came to visit, four men in a black SUV pulled up and called him a "nigger," saying black people were barred from the neighborhood, according to Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies. They jumped out, drew a gun on him and beat him with metal pipes. It was just the beginning of what detectives said was a campaign by a Latino street gang to force an African American family to leave.

KAUFMAN, Texas - They burned the gang's tattoo off the arm of one man who failed to follow orders. Another new member was kidnapped, shot and killed for disloyalty; gang leaders wanted his finger severed as a trophy. These are just two of the incidents traced to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a white supremacist prison gang whose motto is "God forgives, brothers don't. " Some fear that the gang may be involved in the recent slayings in north Texas of Kaufman County Dist. Atty.

HOUSTON -- A Colorado parolee died after he was critically wounded by North Texas law enforcement at the end of a high-speed chase Thursday , and officials said he is suspected in the killing of Colorado's state prisons chief and a Denver pizza delivery man. The man was identified Friday as Evan Spencer Ebel, 28,  said Susan Gomez, spokeswoman for the Wise County Sheriff in Texas.  Ebel was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth...

KAUFMAN, Texas - The fatal shooting of a north Texas district attorney and his wife, just two months after an assistant district attorney was gunned down near the local courthouse, could have a chilling effect on recruiting future prosecutors, officials said. "I've always reassured them you really don't have to fear retaliation," Heath Harris, first assistant district attorney in Dallas, said of new recruits. But now, he said, "I definitely think people will think twice about becoming a prosecutor.

State prison officials Thursday cited attacks on two Folsom Prison guards this week as examples of increasingly sophisticated inmate gang activity at the violence-torn prison. The attempted shooting of an off-duty Folsom guard in West Sacramento on Wednesday was the fifth attempt statewide within the last five years to attack a guard off prison grounds, according to Bob Gore, state Corrections Department spokesman. It was the first, however, in which a guard was actually injured, he said.

Two reputed associates of the Nazi Low Riders prison gang have agreed to plead guilty in a federal racketeering trial. After eight weeks of trial, a judge accepted their plea agreement Tuesday but barred public release of the details. Joseph Hayes and Jeffrey Langenhorst were the last of a dozen people charged in a 17-count indictment in 2002. All pleaded guilty, including an alleged senior member who in 2003 was sentenced to nearly 23 years in federal prison.

The star witness in a Mexican Mafia racketeering trial on Thursday explained secretly taped recordings in which the prison gang's reputed leaders allegedly discuss killing rivals for transgressions ranging from failing to pay drug "taxes" to showing disrespect. Former Mexican Mafia leader Ernest "Chuco" Castro spent 17 months working undercover for the FBI after he was arrested in late 1993 on weapons charges.

A white-supremacist network of up to 800 inmates also includes guards and controls prostitution, drugs and gambling at Ohio's maximum-security prison, a legislative committee alleges. Gov. Richard F. Celeste ordered an immediate and comprehensive investigation of gang activity at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville after the House-Senate Correctional Institutional Inspection Committee linked the group to the stabbings of four black inmates.

A former officer at the California Institute for Men in Chino was sentenced Monday to 17 1/2 years in prison for helping a white supremacist prison gang known as the Nazi Low Riders assault inmates and distribute drugs. U.S. District Court Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. found that 44-year-old Shayne Allyn Ziska, who worked at the prison from 1984 to 2000, conspired with the gang to distribute methamphetamine and heroin, and permitted a member to stab another inmate under the eye.

The chief government witness in the federal trial of the Mexican Mafia prison gang took the stand Wednesday to begin testimony that promises to detail the organization's alleged violent activities and the roles prosecutors say the 13 defendants played in the gang.

The gun used in a dramatic Texas highway shootout was the same weapon used to kill the head of Colorado's prisons, officials said Monday. "The analysis done by ballistics experts has concluded the gun used by Evan Ebel in Texas was the same weapon used in the shooting death of Tom Clements," the El Paso, Colo., County sheriff's office said in a statement Monday. "The confirmation goes well beyond acknowledging the same caliber and brand of ammunition being used, but rather is based on unique and often microscopic markings left on the casings at both scenes.

Events surrounding Evan Spencer Ebel's death after a gun battle on a Texas highway last week represent a series of unconnected dots for investigators. Ebel, 28, has been formally identified as a suspect in the doorstep slaying of Tom Clements, who had directed Colorado's prison system for two years. Clements was fatally shot at his home north of Colorado Springs on Tuesday after answering his door. A warrant showed investigators had matched the brand and caliber of shell casings from the Texas gunfight with those found at Clements' home.

A Colorado parolee who was killed in a gunfight with authorities in Texas this week is officially considered a suspect in the death of Colorado's prisons chief, a spokesman for the El Paso County Sheriff's Office said Saturday. Tom Clements, who had served as head of Colorado's prison system for two years, was shot to death Tuesday when he answered the door of his home near Colorado Springs. The suspect, Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, was shot two days later by law enforcement following a high-speed chase that ended about 60 miles west of Dallas.

Two teenagers have been arrested in a shooting that killed a 13-month-old boy in his stroller and wounded his mother, police in Brunswick, Ga., announced Friday. The boys, 17 and 14 years old, were taken into custody a day after the shooting. Sherry West told reporters that the youths approached her, demanded money, and when she said she had none, they opened fire, killing her son, Antonio, in his carriage. At a news conference, Brunswick Police Chief Tobe Green identified the suspects as Demarquis Elkins, 17, who will be charged as an adult with first-degree murder.

HOUSTON -- A Colorado parolee died after he was critically wounded by North Texas law enforcement at the end of a high-speed chase Thursday , and officials said he is suspected in the killing of Colorado's state prisons chief and a Denver pizza delivery man. The man was identified Friday as Evan Spencer Ebel, 28,  said Susan Gomez, spokeswoman for the Wise County Sheriff in Texas.  Ebel was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth...

The trouble began soon after they arrived. The black family - a mother, three teenage children and a 10-year-old boy - moved into a little yellow home in Compton over Christmas vacation. When a friend came to visit, four men in a black SUV pulled up and called him a "nigger," saying black people were barred from the neighborhood, according to Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies. They jumped out, drew a gun on him and beat him with metal pipes. It was just the beginning of what detectives said was a campaign by a Latino street gang to force an African American family to leave.

Thick neck twitching, eyes drifting out of sync, Clifford Eugene Smith is not the most credible of witnesses: He says he is a "drug fiend," estimates having murdered "about" 20 inmates over the years and lies on the stand so often that he recently committed perjury about committing perjury. Yet for the second time this year, federal prosecutors called Smith, 53, to testify against members of his former prison gang, the Aryan Brotherhood.

                       "The Walking Dead" returns for the second half of its third season on Feb. 10, and based on the just-released trailer it looks like the Governor is going to bring the fight back to the prison. When we last left the two bands of survivors, Rick's (Andrew Lincoln) prison group had just made a daring raid on the town of Woodbury, run by the Governor (David Morrissey). They managed to rescue two of their own, Glenn (Steven Yeun)

A leader of the Azusa 13 street gang and his son were sentenced in federal court Monday to lengthy prison terms after pleading guilty to conspiring to attack blacks and force them to leave the city. Santiago "Chico" Rios was sentenced to 19 years and seven months in prison by U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess. His son, Louie "Lil Chico" Rios, who is hearing-impaired and required a sign-language interpreter, received a 10-year sentence. Both Rioses have "Azusa" tattooed above their upper lips.