Posted on 04/22/2009 9:44:17 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
In semi-rural Hidalgo County which lies to the north of the Rio Grande River separating Texas and Mexico, Sheriff Guadalupe Trevino reckons that there are about two dozen hardcore gangs operating -- a staggering number for a county with about 750,000 people.
"We have a serious gang problem here and have for a long time ... I believe we have more gangs than any other county on the border," Trevino told Reuters.
The extent of the problem -- the gangs often keep their fighting among themselves -- is hard to comprehend driving past citrus orchards or down the busy roads leading to the border. Some of the towns here are among the safest in the country.
But driving in poor, run-down neighborhoods in an unmarked SUV, heavily armed members of Trevino's elite gang enforcement unit point out gang graffiti scrawled on the sides of ramshackle homes. "Brown Pride" and "Tri-City Bombers" are among the many gangs competing for local turf. ....
Gangs and their culture of violence, drugs and crime are one of America's pressing social ills. But in the borderlands the problem has an urgency that has federal investigators worried.
"In the United States the local gangs play a major role in the distribution of the drugs brought in from Mexico. In southern California there has been significant cooperation between the drug cartels and the gangs there," said Matthew J. Desarno, acting unit chief of the Safe Streets and Gang Unit at Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters.
"We believe that the gangs in Texas are following that (southern California) model to establish links with the cartels to expand their own business operations ... Gang members will do what is profitable," he told Reuters by phone.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
“The street gangs originated in the US and were then exported to Latin America.”
They didn’t stay ‘exported’ long, thanks to those who don’t give a whit about open borders and Americans being killed everyday.
I'm not sure what we should do, but it would probably violate “posse commitatus.”
Well, I was specifically talking about what should be done on the Mexican side of the border, but we definitely have to do something about the gang problem on the US side, as well.
The same axioms apply here. Gangsterism will continue to grow, and the destruction of communities will not stop until we make it too painful and costly to engage in that behavior.
So far, our government, from the local level, right up to the federal level, haven’t been willing to use the required degree of force to stop this menace. No - while the government has been tasked with handling it, it’s continued to grow at an alarming rate.
At some point, it’s just going to get so far out of control that the citizens will begin taking matters into their own hands, no matter what the laws say about it.
Fear of Obama putting new restrictions on gun ownership is the biggest driving force behind the recent surge in firearms purchasing, but I don’t doubt that a lot of Americans are also feeling threatened by the growing gang menace, and are reacting accordingly.
In the end, it’s flee or fight. That’s the law of the jungle.
When drugs moved off campus and into the general population that changed.
As for how policies affect that, it is policies that you promote that make it easier for the criminal aliens to exist.
I'm amazed it's taken the populous so long to figure this out. The stupor really shows.
Yeah, right, just like all the guns in Mexico were exported from America, too. Tell me another one.
Ever hear the phrase, "better to be judged by 12, than carried by 6"?
The point is, this scourge will escalate and grow until these gangs become virtual military cartels, ruled by vicious warlords, if we don't stop it.
And it won't stop until the requisite force is applied against it.
Those are the facts. Take them or leave them.
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