Some complaints defy common sense and law enforcement very rarely files criminal "false reporting" charges against a complaining party when the allegations...

The careful study of the Norco incident reveals many outstanding training lessons about non-traditional and unusual criminal groups, multiple advisory...

As we began our shift, we passed a residential area in the Mariana Maravillas gang turf. I saw two middle-aged men coming out of a sliding glass door at the...

Smiley Saenz is no soldier for his barrio. He has brought no glory to his gang, only shame. His brutal murders were cowardly acts of wild uncontrolled...

I find it hard to be too stern with teenage pranksters. Some say most of the best cops could have gone either way in their youth. I don't know about that,...

Less than 10 percent of the kids from even the worst neighborhoods join criminal gangs. Recognizing and giving gang members: “respect,” after they choose to...

Recently the FBI published a study entitled "Violent Encounters: A study of Felonious Assaults on Our Nation's Law Enforcement Officers," which...

Every time law enforcement thought that they had knocked out or retired the Eme organization, they found that the Eme came back again. The Mexican Mafia...

Gang members, especially juveniles, receive little incarceration and lots of probation for car crimes. To gang members this is like a dog with rubber teeth,...

I've always marveled at this irony. Young men who rebel against authority and parental control, who commonly hate school, hate memorizing verses and...

We had just saved the founder of the Mexican Mafia’s life by arresting him and sending him to prison. But he wouldn’t be grateful. He would quickly...

In a federal indictment charging the suspects, it was alleged that the center of their criminal operation was an Iraqi social club in El Cajon, and...

In Los Angeles, the Armenian Power street gang was linked not only to the Sureño alliance and the Mexican Mafia prison gang, but also to their elders in the...

On the strength of 16 indictments, federal agents arrested 119 alleged members of La Cosa Nostra Sicilian Mafia in late-January raids in the Northeast. This...

Anyone who has worked in the jail or prison for any length of time is probably aware of the psychological manipulation practiced by many sophisticated...

LASD SEB (SWAT) was called in. They approached the structures in an armored car. Suspect Kueck engaged the SEB vehicle with his .223 assault rifle giving...

The word "war" is not just hyperbole; it correctly describes what is going on. It's estimated that the violence—kidnapping and murder—has driven 400,000...

An expert should be a credible proponent of the truth, and not an advocate for either the prosecution or the defense. Because of what we do and our...

Vetrovec and I were at the south window in hyper-vigilance mode, when one of the Geraghty homeboys pulled down the plywood covering the living room door,...

It is this use of illicit drugs that first seduces young men into the criminal underworld and later makes the gangs the principal purveyors of this...

Edged-weapon gang culture flourished most prominently in American jails and prisons. Every inmate is expected to be able to defend himself. Gang members...

Homegirl Trinia Aguirre was Spooky’s new girlfriend. While Spooky covered the hostages, Trinia roughly began tying them up, gagging them, and laying them in...

The Black Panther Party was formed to protect and defend African-American neighborhoods from police brutality. By the late 1960s, it represented a major...

The Mexican Mafia informant was making me nervous. He was in top physical condition and we were unarmed and in a very isolated part of the Men's Central...

One afternoon about five years ago, I was summoned from my desk at the detective division of a major Southern California urban sheriff's department and...

No matter how small or large a town they work in, and whether they work urban or rural, gang cops need to know about and recognize the signs of criminal...

Hip-hop stars, drug dealers, and notorious gang members frequented every cock fighting derby. Because guns and other weapons were openly exposed, disputes...

The dynamics of Los Angeles and the Crip and Blood gangs of the 1980s presented certain criminal entrepreneurs with to opportunity to control the drug...

Some human sacrifices to Santa Muerte have been claimed in Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo in 2006. In 2008, 11 headless bodies were found in the Yucatan and the...

No matter which big bad bloody band of barrio bad boys you might be dealing with, I'll bet they are taking their orders from prison-gang inmates. And when...

Art Romo's association with high powered La Eme members, his loyal service as a liaison to the drug cartels, his close association to Mexican Mafia lawyers,...

Many of the Mexican cartel crimes in the illegal alien community go unreported. The ugly crimes of kidnapping, human trafficking, extortion, gang violence,...

Photos of the suspect Richard Rodriguez show a two-inch-high tattoo of “EMF” on his face under his lower lip and a large “Flores” tattooed across his neck....

The jail-made "shank" is fashioned from this material by sharpened by scraping the metal on concrete floors. A handle is fashioned from paper or cloth....

Whether on duty or off duty, whether you are a federal agent or a county sheriff, whether intended or unintended, close encounters with Blood and Crip gang...

The Black Panther Press' underground "New Afrikan Swahili Dialect Dictionary" is a guide to words and phrases used by black gang members in prison. Break...

So far I have exercised what I consider "commendable restraint" in holding back my public comments on the recent events in Ferguson, Mo. Frankly I have not...

I was assigned to L.A.’s Men’s Central Jail, Module 2400, without the benefit of any custody training at all. There were about 250 inmates divided among...

The season brings the same problems to the ghettos and barrios that face the rest of us, except in an exaggerated way. Problems like poverty, lack of...

“East Los Angeles 24 handle, 23 to assist, 245 just occurred,” came the strangely calm and feminine voice on the radio. The call was directed to my unit....

Advanced computers, scanners, and color printers make counterfeit detection much more difficult. Like good counterfeit currency, most false documents pass...

Most gangs frown on a policy of open Jihad against the police. Their natural enemies are not the police but rival gangs. Traditionally, the police were more...

When most Americans think of Hispanic gangs, they think of East Los Angeles, the San Fernando or San Gabriel Valleys, Boyle Heights, or Downtown Los...

Across the U.S., there are numerous highly placed lawyers, and city, state, and national officeholders who came through the university system in the...

No government or human culture is any more or less susceptible to the corrupting effect of vice, drugs, power, fear or money. Criminal gangs systematically...

Like the dangerous Presa Carnario dogs that are loved by the Aryan Brotherhood, and which have for centuries been bred as fighting dogs, some men don't do...

I don't remember any of these holiday truces actually working, but like those classic holiday movies they seem to make us all feel good for the moment, even...

Thousands of surplus military fragmentation grenades and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) were left over from the Central American civil wars. Corrupt...

If ending corruption is the real goal, let's apply all the regulations equally across the board. I can support mandatory financial disclosure for all...

Gangs have evolved in criminal and technical sophistication from the school dropouts of the 1960s. Today's gang members utilize all the modern electric...