Are we really prepared to defend ourselves against gangs?

[Carol]

Meet the street gangs of the late 2000s.

Trained by the U.S. Department of Defense, financed by the American taxpayer, hardened on the Arab street.

[yt]dgwfVJIoBNM[/yt]

Other related stories:

http://michellemalkin.com/2006/05/04/gangstas-in-the-military/


http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=local&id=4140211


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/28/eveningnews/main3107316.shtml

 

[shesulsa]

Damn.

 

[tellner]

Yep. I've been predicting this since we went into Iraq. Guys who would never have been permitted in the military are being snapped up to provide bullet sponges.

Of course, there have always been criminals in the military. "You've got a choice, son. Show up on Monday with your enlistment papers or go to jail." But there are other things at work here. First and most important soldiers and Marines today have become specialists in urban warfare. That makes them much better at urban crime and more of a danger for police. Second, gangs are more mobile and have access to better communications, transportation and technology than they did in the past. And there are fewer jobs for returning vets than there were after the World Wars, Korea, Vietnam or the Gulf War.

The Washington bank robbery carried out with dare I say military precision by a group of Rangers last year is just the first of a whole series of headaches for law enforcement.

 

[Doc_Jude]

Yep. I've been predicting this since we went into Iraq. Guys who would never have been permitted in the military are being snapped up to provide bullet sponges.

Of course, there have always been criminals in the military. "You've got a choice, son. Show up on Monday with your enlistment papers or go to jail." But there are other things at work here. First and most important soldiers and Marines today have become specialists in urban warfare. That makes them much better at urban crime and more of a danger for police. Second, gangs are more mobile and have access to better communications, transportation and technology than they did in the past. And there are fewer jobs for returning vets than there were after the World Wars, Korea, Vietnam or the Gulf War.

The Washington bank robbery carried out with dare I say military precision by a group of Rangers last year is just the first of a whole series of headaches for law enforcement.

Man, we were dealing with this when I first went in ('92) and I'm sure before. When I first got with SOTG we had briefings on this kind of thing along with our counter/anti-terrorist briefs.

Hey, you know what? I have little to no sympathy. It's just one more monster that the U.S. has made, one more of our Frankenstein monsters that we'll have to take down. Hell, we knew about Ho Chi Minh YEARS before he was ever a threat. Our leaders were told by our intel guys, experts we sent in to assess the situation: make him an ally, or kill him now. He wanted to side with us first, we blew him off. He need help, so guess who he ran to?

One more chump move for the U.S. Government, & it has no one to blame but itself.

 

[terryl965]

What do you expect? This is not new and this woll always happen, when the US needs troops.

 

[stone_dragone]

Hell, we knew about Ho Chi Minh YEARS before he was ever a threat. Our leaders were told by our intel guys, experts we sent in to assess the situation: make him an ally, or kill him now. He wanted to side with us first, we blew him off. He need help, so guess who he ran to?

Although our previous century and our current one is riddled with these kind of decisions that come back to bite us in the ***, I'm having a little trouble understanding where this particular decision and others like it have to do with the problem being discussed here.

The United States military is a cross-section of America, albeit a rather lopsided one. The number of Urban Gang members joining the military to learn killing skills is most likely proportionate to the number of people joining the military to learn other skills. One of the major differences is that these folks who harbor their allegiances to their criminal brethren and not to their Nation are a greater concern to the LEO community than the Iowa farm boys who join the Air Force to learn about Information Technology.

 

[kidswarrior]

My only question is, Why are we so surprised? In my day (USN 71-75) gangs as we know them today were at an inchoate state. So we had race riots instead ('being down for yours' meant being divided by color, rather than turf)--kind of a predecessor to formalized, ritualized gang behavior which grew out of it. What did I witness the military do? Mop up after the violence. I was involved in some of that mop up. Very ugly. This problem has been brewing a long time.

 

[TKDJUDO]

Doesn't the military do back-ground checks first ?

 

[Andy Moynihan]

This is the same thing that happened after Vietnam as well, it's generational.

 

[Xue Sheng]

If it is any consolation some of the LEOs have received the same military training.

 

[kidswarrior]

This is the same thing that happened after Vietnam as well, it's generational.

Well, kind of. This series of media reports is specifically about returning vets intensifying the lethality of gangs as we know them today. These gangs didn't exist in this form on any large scale directly post-Vietnam, so those (very few) vets who went off the res. didn't intensify the activity or effectiveness of any violent mobs or gangs that I'm aware of. A few may have acted out their PTSD in antisocial ways, but not nearly as many as the movies would have us think.

If it is any consolation some of the LEOs have received the same military training.

Yes, it is consolation, in that many/most of the returning vets become what they were before the service: law-abiding citizens who contribute to society. I also think it's important to distinguish between those who return with bad intentions (such as gangsters) and those with good intentions who just need more help than is currently (ever?) available.

 

[SageGhost83]

I am horrified, but not surprised. They send the poor to fight, and then they bring them back and still refuse to give them any sort of truly sustainable employment (working poor, anyone?). What are they going to do? Starve and die in the very streets that they risked their lives to protect, or take whatever they have and use it to survive by whatever means necessary? You could make the argument that our system is the very thing that spawns these super ciminals. You could also make the argument that our system, exported to the international community, is what is spawning a lot of the terrorists and insurgents that we are fighting to this very day. We let people fight for us, but then we don't have the common decency to provide them with the means to survive after the fighting has ended, we just blow them off whenever they are no longer useful to us (sound familiar? Afghanistan after the cold war?). Well, it will all eventually come back to bite us in the ***. Now we are being hunted by the very monsters that our racism, elitism, and greed has spawned in the first place. We force a bunch of starving people to help us prepare a full course meal. We kick them out of the kitchen when the meal is ready, then we wonder why there are a bunch of starving people angrily storming the dinner table by force . As you have sewn, so to shall you reap. This sucks. I am depressed. Incoherent rant over.

 

[Doc_Jude]

Although our previous century and our current one is riddled with these kind of decisions that come back to bite us in the ***, I'm having a little trouble understanding where this particular decision and others like it have to do with the problem being discussed here.

It's just another bone-head decision in a long line of bone-headedness.

 

[Doc_Jude]

Doesn't the military do back-ground checks first ?

Many gangs keep their smart kid's clean, no convictions, no records, for just this reason.

 

[Makalakumu]

Many gangs keep their smart kid's clean, no convictions, no records, for just this reason.

Absolutely. You cannot underestimate the sophistication in today's gangs. They are not the groups of thugs that roam the streets as the movies portray. Todays gangs are criminal syndicates that are on the fast track to becoming the American Mafia.

 

[tellner]

The Army has been lowering standards drastically for this war. Now over twenty percent of recruits score in the lowest segment of the aptitude tests where it used to be around four percent. Misdemeanors, drug use and quite a few felonies which would have been automatic disqualifications are now passed. A local pair of recruiters caused a scandal by taking a severely autistic kid and signing him up as a Cavalry Scout.

In short, they'll take just about anyone as a bullet sponge these days.

 

[kidswarrior]

Absolutely. You cannot underestimate the sophistication in today's gangs. They are not the groups of thugs that roam the streets as the movies portray. Todays gangs are criminal syndicates that are on the fast track to becoming the American Mafia.

Unfortunately, I believe this is absolutely true. When you have 50-60 year olds who are still active (of course as the shot callers, not running the streets throwing up signs or 'putting in work' on graffiti), it gives some idea of the depth and thought involved to empire building. These are not stupid people.

In short, they'll take just about anyone as a bullet sponge these days.

This is a sad state of affairs, but they have to keep meeting the all-volunteer quota somehow. Wouldn't it just be easier to go the old route and re-invoke the draft? Just kidding. Bad joke. It's a horrible dilemma, and there are parallels to Vietnam. Back then if you had some semblance of a pulse, you were in.

 

[chinto]

look a few soldiers and others have always gone bad.. one of the first special service force from WWII turned out to be what was referred to as the "purple gang" and blew himself up rather then surrender when caught blowing his way into a vault. there were members of street gangs who went into the service in Korea and Vietnam too.. actually a lot of street gang types straiten out in the military, and some do not of course.

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

If it is any consolation some of the LEOs have received the same military training.

Not nearly enough. Most LEO's I see are 5 foot nothing dweebs in platform shoes with an attitude bigger than thier training justifies. Hows that gonna pan when they come across a 2-tour vet of the the sandbox?

 

[jks9199]

Advance warning: There will be ranting in what follows. And many folks will disagree with me.

So... before I begin, let me set a few things out. First -- I'm a cop. To be specific, I'm a gang detective. I've had more than 100 hours of gang training, participated in numerous interviews, arrests, search warrants, and prosecutions, and convictions of gang members. And I still wouldn't consider myself an expert. (In fact, the guys I call experts don't consider themselves experts, generally, either.) I've dealt with Latino gangs (MS13, 18th Street, SSL, and more), black gangs (Bloods, Crips, Gangster Disciples, and more), white supremacists (Aryan Nation, Peckerheads, Skinheads, and more), hybrid gangs, organized criminal enterprises, and neighborhood gangs.

As much as gangs have spread nationally -- they are also regional phenomena. Their is national (and international!) coordination and communication, and some gangs (especially prison gangs) have very strong national organization. But the "rules" for a gang in one area are not always the same in another. MS is big in my area; in parts of California -- it's barely noticed. You don't see gang neighborhoods in my area anymore; we've worked hard to stomp them down, with combined local, state, federal, and regional approaches. They still control neighborhoods just a few miles away...

Meet the street gangs of the late 2000s.

Trained by the U.S. Department of Defense, financed by the American taxpayer, hardened on the Arab street.

Let me steal from a colleague whom I've had the privilige to meet and discuss gangs in the military with, Hunter Glass. He's a former Army soldier and retired police officer from North Carolina. He's been sounding the alarm on this issue for years. Gangs have been in the military for decades; the military is only today beginning to barely acknowledge it. Hunter uses the example of an elephant in this manner: If I show you pictures of a trunk, grey hide, big ears, tusks, hanging around with other huge critters with long noses, big ears, etc. ... Most of us would look at that, and say "elephant." Not the military; they'd say it might be an elephant... but we'll only call it an elephant if it says it's an elephant, and acts like an elephant.
HBO did a special on Antonio Fernandez (King Tone) of the Almighty Latin Kings; one thing that really bothered me was in footage of a multi-clique meeting -- several people were present in military dress uniforms.

Bangers are in the military. They're learning military urban warfare tactics. And they're bringing them home when they get out -- whether they're kicked out or get an honorable discharge.

And you're not going to change them. People don't join the services and become Baptists or Catholic or Hindu or whatever; they (generally) maintain the religious choice they had when they joined. Well... bangers aren't going to stop being bangers just 'cause you change their uniform, either.

The Washington bank robbery carried out with dare I say military precision by a group of Rangers last year is just the first of a whole series of headaches for law enforcement.

It's not the first. It's nowhere near the first. Andres Raya, a Norteno banger, killed one and wounded another police officer in Ceres, CA, in 2005 using military tactics he'd learned and practiced in service in Iraq as a US Marine. And I'm sure if I did some research I could probably find some others, even earlier.

We in law enforcement are doing our best to prepare for the reality that bangers and other criminals are coming back from military service with experience under fire. I'm not going to detail everything we do; let it suffice to say that we have cops who are vets returning, and we are always improving our training methods. But there's still nothing like real world experience. So -- yes, we're very worried.

My only question is, Why are we so surprised? In my day (USN 71-75) gangs as we know them today were at an inchoate state. So we had race riots instead ('being down for yours' meant being divided by color, rather than turf)--kind of a predecessor to formalized, ritualized gang behavior which grew out of it. What did I witness the military do? Mop up after the violence. I was involved in some of that mop up. Very ugly. This problem has been brewing a long time.

Gangs have been around a lot longer than is generally realized. Chicago street gang culture goes back, easily traceably, into the early Fifties, at least. The Gangster Disciples were formed in the late Sixties; the Bloods and Crips formed not much later. MS is a relative newcomer, having been formed in the Eighties. The Zoot Suit Riots were in 1942; they involved gangs.

Doesn't the military do back-ground checks first ?

No -- they don't. And only "active gang membership" is a disqualifier, and my understanding is that even that isn't an automatic disqualifier! Funny thing... I've participated in the interview of quite a few bangers; many of them consistently deny current membership -- even when we catch them in groups, in "uniform", flying their colors. The military denies "current gang activity" even when soldiers tag up their areas, and even acquire new gang tats! I've seen video of soldiers throwing up their gang signs outside of Fort Bragg, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Europe... and more.

Absolutely. You cannot underestimate the sophistication in today's gangs. They are not the groups of thugs that roam the streets as the movies portray. Todays gangs are criminal syndicates that are on the fast track to becoming the American Mafia.

The popular media has glorified the "gangsta lifestyle." It's ********. Bovine excrement, since I know the filter will catch that. Gangsters are thugs. Some are smarter than others; some are more organized than others. But, as the saying goes... the white stuff that floats on top of chicken crap is still crap.