If a violent gang were to have a brand, MS-13’s would be anything resembling savagery and barbarism. MS-13 brings brown where the grass is greener. Put another way, spilled blood turns brown when it commingles with air.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions and MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha) logically go well together in any debate concentrating on the polarity of two entities, with American values balancing in the middle. On October 23, 2017 AG Sessions exhorted federal law enforcement officers to employ all justice toolkit equipment in efforts to stomp MS-13 criminal enterprising and scrub them from American existence.
“Taking another step toward fulfilling President Trump’s goal of stamping out the brutal transnational criminal organization MS-13, Attorney General Jeff Sessions today formally designated the gang as a priority for the Department of Justice’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF),” announced a Justice Department bulletin.
“We are targeting you! We are coming after…you!”
Although AG Sessions wrote that he is giving federal law enforcement “new tools” he is actually authorizing broader leeway and waving a giant green flag for federal cops to feel emboldened to effectively do what they are deftly trained to do. The tools have been in place whereas the prior administration ostensibly stored them in a federal shed.
Coalition-based Gang Suppression
AG Sessions echoed our government battle cry to choke-off criminal enterprises, especially the non-white collar ones who cater chronic violence, mayhem, extortion, and intimidation. At the podium in front of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) recently, America’s top-cop spoke of inuring an alphabet soup of police entities to enforce a smorgasbord of laws: firearms laws, drug statutes, tax code, immigration laws, postal codes, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
The potpourri of law enforcement agencies consist of the FBI, DEA, ATF, IRS, US Postal Inspectors, ICE, US Coast Guard, Homeland Security Investigations, US Marshals, Secret Service, and Department of Labor IG. That is a bevy of national police authority with a blend of skills and specialties wielding badges and firepower. MS-13 does not play nice, so that last factor carries more than the conventional weight necessary to fell the murderous and malicious gargantuan gang. What all of these law enforcement agencies bring to the table will be packaged by federal prosecutors and adjudicated in the courts, should any arrestees decide to tangle with our criminal justice spokes.
In his clarion call while throwing down the gauntlet, AG Sessions said, “I am announcing today that I have designated MS-13 as a priority for our Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces.” He added, “and they all have one mission: to go after drug criminals and traffickers at the highest levels.” Drug kingpins likely feel well-insulated by gobs of drug money, and that is where IRS and Postal inspectors come in. MS-13 may conduct their criminal enterprise via water-borne routes, and that is why the US Coast Guard is pertinent. Each federal agency has an imperative role.
For example, when Al Capone was public enemy number one, tax laws used by federal investigators and prosecutors finally took him down. No gun battle, no major police chase, nothing super-sexy…other than distilling the numbers and applying tax code to determine violations of law.
Cops and Gangs
One of the most static, tension-filled encounters cops confront is contacts with gang members, especially when the thugs are together as a group. Albeit retired, when I were a midnight-shift policeman, I swiftly conditioned to harsh words, standoffish attitudes, and readily-violent reactions of my jurisdiction’s known and/or up-and-coming thugs. Like Teflon, cops must train to let gang member pokes and prods roll right off the skin while also maintaining strict officer-safety protocols and wherewithal to get the mission accomplished. To do otherwise is guaranteed to peg a police officer as a weak link which thugs waste no time seizing upon…and that includes murdering a police officer.
Gang associates have no problem going down in a blaze of glory, and that dynamic speaks to why AG Sessions is implying he is opening the floodgates of feds to go lock horns with the baddest of bad asses who believe they control the streets.
Gang associates have no problem going down in a blaze of glory
Conversely, cops make every effort to salvage the youngest ones from ravages and ruin by “belonging” to a gang. Gang culture comes with plenty of (drug) money which, in turn, is invested in more guns to “defend” the criminal enterprise from rival gangs and/or law enforcement.
Hermanos
Most gang members’ stories are synonymous: no father in the picture; an unloving mother; no nurturing of any kind; feeling disenfranchised from social institutions; disinterest in academia; and any manner of misguided perceptions (misperceptions). Any of these feeds a maladapted mindset ripe for acceptance by like-minded individuals and societal misfits. Enter inclusion in gang culture.
The have-nots in gang-speak translates to just take what we want.
The have-nots in gang-speak translates to just take what we want. And any measure of violence to attain self-worth is wholly supported by co-gangsters in the thug world.
Uproarious, predatory, barbaric behavior from the minds/hands of MS-13 gang members increased precipitously through decades of illegal immigration which saw the barometer of inflamed gang warfare tick higher and higher…until the powder-keg of Salvadoran gang violence reached fever-pitched levels otherwise deemed out of control. Their “MS-13” tag became a common mural component on structures all across the United States, marking insidious encroachment.
As failed immigration policies under the tutelage of Barack Obama enabled a gang playing field where people and property were plundered, election of President Donald Trump veered not hard away but sternly towards gang violence. In President Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions capitalizes on his seeming gusto to reinforce his troops and engineer a traditional thrust against MS-13 vultures.
Wade through the miasma of political correctness and demand hyper-violent gangs such as MS-13 are crushed like abandoned autos, compacted and tossed onto a scrap yard trash heap. Ultimately, that is the Justice Department’s objective, and unleashing highly-trained and hungry federal resources pivots our menagerie of crime-fighters to eradicate the MS-13 scourge.
There is really nothing new here. A band of badges have been in the wings, and AG Sessions telegraphing his blessings for the feds to go out and do The Job is like fuel in the tank for cops. OpsLens Senior Contributor Tommy Lefever elucidated in a piece published on October 22, “Gutless Policing in 2017 — How Leadership Has Failed the Rank and File” pointing out miscues, mis-directions, and mismanagement of some police agencies’ command staff cogs peppering the nation.
Hands-off stances from police administrators allow criminality to fester. Broken windows theory applications have value, but only when law enforcement leadership stands up for cops and permits the police to…police.
Cow-towing and seemingly acting out a script dictated by activist groups and social justice petitioners bemoaning “What about us?” sidesteps the inherent law-and-order mission of law enforcement. Surely, gang members see this and capitalize on the sit-out or, rather, the cop-out.
Today, Homeland Security authorities will inspect and approve prototype border walls erected at the Mexico/San Diego border. The selected prototype will comprise our nation’s southern border barrier to preclude illegal entries and criminal aliens. The wall is intended to keep crossings out while federal agents bleach our terrain.
Suffolk County, NY Sheriff Vincent DeMarco explored the interrelations between Mexican drug cartels who are aiding and abetting MS-13 gangsters by either getting them across our southern border and/or by enabling their criminal enterprising on American soil. Whereas gangs commonly resort to bloodshed regarding rivals, it appears some of the criminal underworld co-opts slices of the pie, mirroring each other’s ugliness.
“President Obama didn’t see this as a national problem.” –Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco
Sheriff DeMarco told Fox News, “President Obama didn’t see this as a national problem.” And here we are to deal with the MS-13 mess.
The problem of crushing MS-13 and other gangs who are already roaming our landscape rests in the capable hands of federal cops and US attorneys. AG Sessions has been earmarking this thrust for a while. In April 2017 he said, “We are targeting you! We are coming after…you!” His inflections unmistakably telegraph conviction, in more ways than one.
Let’s get away from the favoritism, overly-liberal policies, and political sway regarding how police executives operate their respective departments. Sanctuary cities cannot continue to serve as incubators, lest we remain overrun by bad eggs. Make no mistake: all cops believe in the principle of freedom…especially when it is legitimized. Sanctuary cities have time and again harbored vicious illegal aliens. And that, too, must cease.
Let’s get back in the game, go full-bore, and perform duties as constituted by the tax-paying Americans whose emotions are not destroyed by paper cuts. Massive undertakings await, and they are not merely going to vanish without police interventions. Let’s green-light our cops to enforce our laws against anyone who decides to opt-out of order and delves into anarchy under the moniker MS-13 or any other ominous brand.
Let’s hope the wrecking ball swings far and wide…and the federal boom drops large and loud.
