Posted on 01/26/2005 12:33:44 PM PST by JustAnotherSavage
Norte o Gangs Moving North
By Barry R. Clausen
January 2005
During the last several years there have been a large volume of raids on Mexican Mafia marijuana gardens throughout our country. Information is now available on who these Mafia gang families are. In Northern California “Norte o” gangs are invading many cities and rural communities. One of their identifying pieces of clothing is a red bandana or a San Francisco 49ers bomber jacket while their counterparts; the Sore o’s from the south wear a blue bandana.
The Norteno’s are comprised of any Hispanic gang member north of Fresno. Lau and Pulido along with Nuestra members being most prevalent in Siskiyou, Shasta, Tehama and other northern counties. According to documents these organized families are believed responsible for the murders of upwards of 300 of their own Mexican brothers.
Northern California has been and will continue to be one of the most desirable areas for these cartels/gangs to produce their marijuana crops as a result of the hot weather and access to the I-5 corridor.
Marijuana Eradication Teams (MET) are comprised of both local and federal agents. At the conclusion of this last summers growing season, MET agents from the Siskiyou County Sheriff Department, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management made arrests in Merced, California. Unprocessed marijuana from Northern California gardens were sent to an isolated barn just off of I-5 in Merced where one raid resulted in the arrests of 64 Mexican Nationals connected to the Pulido Family, the seizure of 20 weapons including automatics, two pounds of meth and over 4,300 pounds of marijuana.
Ceres, California is just 50 miles north of Merced and on January 12, 2005 that town became the scene of the shooting of two Ceres Police Officers. During a gun battle with police Andres Raya allegedly injured Officer Sam Ryno and killed Sgt. Howard Stevenson. Raya a member of the “Norte o’s” is also a 19-year-old Marine that had recently returned from Iraq. Another former Marine and a member of the Nuestra Family is Gerald “Pistol” Rubalcaba is currently in Pelican Bay State Prison following the “hit” on another inmate while he was at Susanville’s California Correctional Center, which authorities say he was held responsible for.
In Siskiyou County there have been threats against local residents of the county. According to Sheriff Rick Riggins, a Hispanic marijuana grower held a man and his son at gunpoint. The grower took down their driver’s license information and they were told there would be consequences if they said anything.
Two years ago Sheriff Riggins said, “We lost $1.5 million from our budget and this year we lost over $900,000 last year.” In 2005 Riggings faces another problem – the increased in cost for helicopter flying time. The company that supplies the helicopter for Siskiyou County is increasing costs by $200 per hour and he also facing additional budget cuts.
Sheriff Riggins has been effective with his MET operations even with the budget cuts. His community awareness program is allowing more citizens to become involved. “We have had more citizen reports this last year than any other time,” Riggins told the Pioneer Press. People can report illegal activity without becoming involved. “We don’t even need their name, all they have to do is give us a direction and we will investigate,” said the Sheriff. Last year we investigated the Lau and Pulido families. Next year the sheriff has plans to investigate other arms of the Norte o families.
Riggins used an example from this last year, were there was a tip to sheriff officials, which resulted in a raid only 2 miles from the Etna City limits where over 3,000 plants were seized. This resulted in a police chase of an armed Mexican national who eventually eluded capture.
Redding Police Department, Sergeant John Hawkins of the Anti Gang Enforcement unit points out that in Redding, “There is an increase in Hispanic Gang involvement and there is also an increase in drug involvement in this area.” Hawkins is hopeful that the existing nation wide problem in urban communities is something we not see in Northern California. Commander Dan Callahan of the Shasta County Narcotics Task Force emphasized, “There is no end of crystal meth in the area.”
In Tehama County the drug problem with youth has caused devastation to many families. With Meth being the drug of choice by county youth, one only has to look at the problems that meth has created with the minors that are now incarcerated in the Tehama County Juvenile Justice Center.
Tehama County Sheriff Clay Parker has the same financial problems that all other sheriffs are facing. His department does what they can, but in order to be totally effective all counties need more resources and in addition community involvement has become most important.
In Tehama County there are know members of the Norte o’s and the number of youth involved with this known criminal enterprise is increasing. One of those claiming to be Norte o is Gabriel Farias (18). In the past, Farias has been under investigation for possession of automatic weapons. There were no formal charges filed. He is currently being held in the Tehama County Jail under $175,000 bail. He is being investigated for conspiracy to commit a crime, robbery, kidnapping, firearms violations and making criminal threats.
In Del Norte County Detective Sergeant Bill Steven explained that Del Norte County is financial strapped and as a result his drug enforcement team is at a bare minimum with both resources and manpower. Stevens did acknowledge the meth problem in his county and is hopeful that when the California budget crisis is over there will be help forthcoming. He was positive that in the future there would be changes made to help eradicate many of these illegal organizations.
A hopeful side of drug investigations comes from the Yurok Tribal Police Chief of Public Safety, Mike Ross. Ross has 40 years in law enforcement including his two terms as Sheriff in Del Norte County. He was with the Sonoma County Sheriff Department, holds a masters degree in Law Enforcement and consults to other agencies. Ross verified that there has been a drug problem in the entire area for years and that, “Meth has been the white drug of choice during that time.”
“We are aware that in the past and currently there is a drug problem up river [Klamath] but our information is non-specific. The locals want it stopped but they don’t want involvement,” said Ross. He went on to explain that the Tribe has adopted a no-tolerance drug policy and, “The Tribe is looking at a grant that will target drug manufacturing along the river, on tribal grounds and near the Tribes boundaries.” With the grant in place, one of Ross’s goals is to assign three marine deputies to work the 44 miles of the Klamath River between the Towns of Klamath and Weitchpec, California. The goal is to obtain intelligence information and to ultimately curtail the flow of drugs from that area.
Just across the border between California and Oregon is the town of Klamath, Oregon where the problem is a little different. The concern there is not only local drug producers but also the flow of drugs from California. As Officer James Williams with the Interagency Narcotics Team stated, “We have a lot of Hispanic gangs bringing narcotics in from California.”
The trial of money from these Mexican gangs through drug sales, prostitution, extortion and other gang related activities has now led to Pelican Bay State Prison where some of the money is being laundered. Pelican Bay authorities have acknowledged that inmates have accepted checks and money orders from Mexican drug families and distributed the funds to their own family members. According to a November 22, 2004 Associated Press story, “One gang member told authorities he spent upwards of $60,000 one year on his children’s college fund.”
All law enforcement agents interviewed agree, these dealers know no boundaries; there are no county lines or state lines. Whatever it takes to sell drugs and make money is acceptable. In California the problem has become a “major epidemic” and needs to be stopped.
So now they're gettin ta be organized labor and replacin the old dope smokin cowboys with milkin machines, right???
Welcome back to tha wild... wild... WEST!!! (git along little dubies)
Perhaps TLR can give you some insight.
And this is exactly what he is giving us.
Some ancient history:
Founding Fathers' Attitudes toward Immigrants
The founding fathers were aware of the benefits of encouraging immigrants to settle in the American colonies, but even with the benefits, many of our political leaders had their suspicions concerning immigrants.
Benjamin Franklin had his concerns over the rising number of German immigrants who were pouring into Pennsylvania. He had "misgivings about Germans because of their clannishness, their little knowledge of English, the German press, and the increasing need of interpreters. Speaking of the latter he said, ‘I suppose in a few years they will also be necessary in the Assembly, to tell one-half of our legislators what the other half say.'" (Keely 1979, 9)
On July 7, 1775, the General Washington had issued a General Order that no man should be appointed a sentry who was not a ‘native of the country,’ and three days later he approved an order to the recruiting service ‘not to enlist any person who is not an American-born, unless such person has a wife and family and is a settled resident in this country.’ For service in his own military guard the General permitted only native-born Americans. He inveighed against the relatively large number of foreign officers and adventurers among his troops. ‘My opinion, with respect to emigration,’ he advised John Adams, ‘is that except of useful mechanics and some particular descriptions of men or professions, there is no need of encouragement, while the policy or advantage of its taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the language, habits, and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them.’ (Bennett 1963, 7)
Thomas Jefferson favored immigration restriction. In 1782 he stated in part in his Notes on Virginia:
‘But are there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale against any advantage expected form a multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners? It is for the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as possible in matters which of necessity they must transact together. Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent. Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours, perhaps, are more peculiar than those of any other. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English Constitution with others derived from natural right and reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet, from such we are to expect the greatest number of immigrants. They will bring with them the principles of governments they leave, or if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as usual, from one extreme to the other. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely atthe point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers they will share legislation with us. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp or bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass.’ (Bennett 1963, 8)
Once the Revolutionary War began with Great Britain, the Continental Congress assumed political authority for the thirteen colonies. The Continental Congress approved in 1781 The Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the United States.
In regards to immigration laws, the Continental Congress, under the Articles of Confederation, did not claim its authority to regulate immigration. The authority for immigration continued to be at the state level. "Under Article 4 of the Articles of Confederation adopted in 1778, the citizens of each state were made citizens of every other state, but each state retained its own naturalization and immigration laws and standards. This resulted in continued confusion and ineffective legislation concerning immigration." (Bennett 1963, 9)
http://www.oriole.umd.edu/~mddlmddl/791/legal/html/immi1700.html
These mexican mafia gang-bangers can't even be original.
The "blue bandanas" and the "red bandanas" have already been claimed by the Crips and the Bloods long ago.
/half sarcasm
As written, the 14th Amendment was NOT intended to grant citizenship to the children of foreign subjects.
The Slaughterhouse Cases are the first Supreme Court interpretation of the 14th Amendment on record. The author of the majority opinion is a contemporary of those who drafted and debated the Amendment. The following text is from the majority opinion (about 3/4 of the way down the linked source page):
Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1872) (USSC+)
Opinions
MILLER, J., Opinion of the Court
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
The first observation we have to make on this clause is that it puts at rest both the questions which we stated to have been the subject of differences of opinion. It declares that persons may be citizens of the United States without regard to their citizenship of a particular State, and it overturns the Dred Scott decision by making all persons born within the United States and subject to its jurisdiction citizens of the United States. That its main purpose was to establish the citizenship of the negro can admit of no doubt. The phrase, "subject to its jurisdiction" was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.
What a dangerous piece of inanity! No, family values do not stop at the Rio Grande, nor at the Pacific or Atlantic. Is the President denying the very concept of the Nation? That his duty is to his own people, to our families, not the families of the rest of humanity?!!
I am sorry if I offend some fellow Conservatives, who have embraced the Bush Administration as one of ours. I do not believe that a rational assessment supports that embrasure or the conclusions that go into it. The evidence becomes daily more compelling that we are in a Clinton/Bush era, where the ideal is seen as membership in an undifferentiated humanity; not the ideal of your or I, or our rooted neighbors; but the ideal of those who have come for a moment in time--a 16 year moment in time--to control the Federal Government of the United States.
May God forgive us, if we fail to reverse this sickening trend! We will not deserve such forgiveness. To better address the whole question of Immigration, see Immigration & The American Future.
William Flax
"was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States."
Thanks, I read that every time you post it. HOW did it get so perverted to include anchor babies? nevermind....
"The multibillion-dollar Mexican cartels have discovered it's safer and more profitable to grow marijuana in the United States than to try to smuggle it across the border, he said. Instead, they're often importing guards and handing them firearms with orders to shoot at anyone coming by."
This will only get worse as border security tightens. Unless demand for marijuana decreases, which is unlikely, what we're going to see in the future is more and more domestic production, both outdoor and indoor grown. As they crack down on the outdoor grown, we'll see more and more indoor grown and average THC levels will rise accordingly. At least more of the money will stay here, but of course pot is dirt cheap in Mexico and lions share of the money that is made from pot is made here anyway. The problem is that most of the pot on the streets today is from Mexico and Mexicans control most of the wholesale distribution of it here in the states. A lot of them send much of their money back home to Mexico.
What you said ....almost precisely except for the Oregon part.
Sensenbrenner introduced his immigration bill today. I'm going to try to find it. Cross your fingers that it may actually be worth something.
BTTT
...and folks here claim we can only win in 08 with someone more liberal.
...victory is bittersweet.
this guy is a bit behind the times. Nortenos have been all over the valley for years. even surenos are all over the SF bay area. why not nortenos all the way to the oregon border??
It was a succession of Supreme Court cases in which they twisted the concept of who has jurisdiction over foreign nationals, of which BRIDGES v. WIXON, 326 U.S. 135 (1945) was the first. The issue was discussed in more detail along with some other interesting materials in the thread on which I first posted that opinion.
Ouch!
You're kidding me. He's actually repeating these inane lines?
What are Rove and Co. thinking?
Good luck with your attempt. ;^)
All the busts in Siskiyou were in my District - 3000 sq. miles, mostly tiny to small communities separated by National Forest and Wilderness.
Unfortunately for Sheriff Riggins, the Governor's budget proposes to cut $500,000 from rural crime monies for our County. It also increases our mandated share of other General Fund programs such as IHSS. The County budget does not look any better for him this year. He is the largest General Funded Department and, therefore, is most likely to get the largest budgetary hit.
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