A ton of emails, too long for the comments section, take me to task regarding the figure of 600 Mexican street gangs in LA County. Most point to the name similarity. Therein lies one of the problems in busting them up. All these little gangs have turf. Hoover Crips have staked out Hoover street around a certain area. There are lots of sub-sets of the big gangs. There is an 18th Street that owns Broadway & 7th Street; The 18th Street Columbia Lil Cyco; 18th Street Shatto Park controls Shatto Park area; 18th Street Pico Union dominates Pico Union; they are like terrorist cells in that if you bust one group the others simply expand into the vacuum. They are separate, but are unlike terrorist cells in that a guy can leave one territory, move to another, and then become a member of the small gang in that “turf.” The sub-sets pay tribute to the main man which apparently are the prison Mexican Mafia chiefs. The most powerful Mexican gang in LA is the 18th street gang, but it is a collection of smaller gangs. It is said that they can act in concert once in a while. The police here are hamstrung by Special Order 40, which states:...."…initiating police action where the objective is to discover the alien status of the person”—is illegal and the cop is the criminal. It is estimated that 60% of the gangs memberships are composed of illegals operating with relative impunity. The Washington Dispatch published a must read piece that included this gem

The results of this Special Order 40 grow with startling speed. “In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide, at 1,500, target illegal aliens,” MacDonald said. “Two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants, 17,000, are for illegal aliens.”

The LA City Council will soon be worse, because Antonio Villaraigosa, a card carrying MEChA member, is about to become mayor. Mexifornia is here.