Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
May 21, 2009
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For almost four years federal an L.A. County law enforcement agencies have been investigating the inner workings of a gang known as "Varrio Hawaiian Gardens." This morning, officials announced an early morning sweep that netted 90 of the gang's members, leaders, and associates in the southeastern part of the county. KPCC's Adolfo Guzman-Lopez has the story.
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez: The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, Thomas O'Brien, said the L.A. County Sheriff's Department approached his office after a Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang member shot and killed a sheriff's deputy.
Thomas O'Brien: Working together, federal, local, and state law enforcement, we investigated the gang and its affiliates. We now have the largest gang takedown in United States history.
Guzman-Lopez: Fourteen-hundred agents working for 17 agencies arrested 90 people based on a five-count federal indictment. The 193-page document alleges that the gang engaged in murder, robbery, kidnapping, drug trafficking, and weapons smuggling. Just as troubling, O'Brien said, was that gang members sowed racial fear in Hawaiian Gardens.
O'Brien: The general message is that if you live in this city you better not be African-American, and one of the motivating factors for this particular street gang is to drive African-Americans out of this community.
Guzman-Lopez: O'Brien couldn't describe specific instances of the gang's violence against blacks. In recent years his office has prosecuted other Latino street gangs who've targeted blacks in Highland Park and the Florence area near Huntington Park.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge Salvador Hernandez said Varrio Hawaiian Gardens is affiliated with the larger Mexican Mafia prison gang that permeated city life. Of the 15,000 people in the small city, he said, 1,000 are known or suspected gang members.
Salvador Hernandez: Imagine living in a community in which one of every 15 of your neighbors swears allegiance to an organization committed to the spread of violence, weapons distribution, drug distribution; violence that takes the form of kidnapping, murder, extortion, carjacking, even home invasions.
Guzman-Lopez: Hawaiian Gardens Mayor Mike Gomez praised the arrests at a news conference. He emphasized that his is not a lawless city.
Mayor Mike Gomez: There's not a criminal on every street corner in our city. People walk the streets fine. But there is the element. So getting this out of there is going to go a long ways toward helping our community.
Guzman-Lopez: Officials said the gang has plagued the region for 50 years, with several generations that only know the gang life. Mayor Gomez said that perhaps he grew up in isolation, but he didn't know about this particular gang.
