LA Times, "Huge raid targets gang," June 26, 2008, Joe Mozingo, Sam Quinones and Molly Hennessy-Fiske.
Heavily armed police and federal agents stormed into a Glassell Park neighborhood Wednesday morning to wrest control away from a street gang -- and loyalists with deep family ties to its members -- that has in effect turned the sequestered swath of run-down apartments into rogue territory.
With a sweeping federal racketeering indictment, more than 500 agents, including 10 SWAT teams, arrested 28 people in an attempt to root out the Avenues gang members who have ruled the area with violence and near impunity.
The indictment, which grew out of a 10-month investigation, names 70 defendants -- mostly connected to the Drew Street clique of the larger Avenues gang . . .
Prosecutors allege that the gang committed three murders, shot at police, extorted businesses, conducted home invasion robberies, taxed drug dealers for the Mexican Mafia and threatened potential witnesses . . .
Francisco "Pancho" Real, 26, who was identified as the leader of the Drew Street clique, brought in $1,200 a day in drug money alone, according to a wiretap . . .
In March, Real ordered the owner of a local tire shop to pay him $30,000 within 24 hours, prosecutors allege, or he would kill him and burn down his shop. When the owner of an adjoining tire shop told Real that he did not understand why they had to pay him, Real said they were operating in his territory, the indictment alleges.
Real is one of 13 children of Maria Leon, the matriarch of the gang . . . She has a criminal record with three drug arrests . . .
This is what our police and Federal agents should be doing in Los Angeles, cracking down on these gangs that control parts of our city. I may not always have the highest regard for the LAPD, but in this case a definite "Cheers" is given.
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