Police sweep attempts to break gang’s grip on L.A. neighborhood
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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, write The Times’ Joe Mozingo, Sam Quinones and Molly Hennessy-Fiske in L.A.
U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O’Brien called the sweep ‘the largest gang take-down in recent L.A. history.’
According to the story, ‘the gang dates to the zoot suit era in Northeast Los Angeles and is closely connected to the Mexican Mafia prison gang. Twenty-six defendants were already in custody and 16 are at large.’
‘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 -- all as part of an enterprise to distribute methamphetamine and rock cocaine in the area. Authorities say undercover agents conducted scores of drug purchases from the gang during the investigation.’
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City