Thomas Crawford is scheduled to be sentenced after pleading guilty in April to charges stemming from his dealings with a pair of undercover cops in January 2007.
At that time, the now-27-year-old was believed to be second-in-command in the local chapter of the Independent Soldiers street gang.He has since claimed to have left the gang, but Mounties say he sold four ounces of cocaine, a .357-calibre handgun and a box of bullets to a pair of undercover cops posing as mid-level drug dealers.
Alleged Independent Soldiers boss Jayme Russell was also charged following the investigation, but pleaded not guilty to a lone drug-trafficking charge.
Earlier this year, a judge found Russell guilty following a trial in B.C. Supreme Court and he was handed a two-year sentence in a federal penitentiary.It's not yet known which charges Crawford pleaded guilty to, but the firearms charge carries with it a mandatory one-year jail sentence.Crawford was released on bail shortly after the January 2007 transaction, but has been picked up by police a number of times for allegedly breaching his conditions.Last summer, he was arrested and later pleaded guilty to threats charges after leaving a number of intimidating messages on the cellphone of an acquaintance.Earlier this year, he pleaded guilty to breach charges after he was caught out past his curfew with a pair of men — one of whom is alleged to have gang ties — who were allegedly brandishing handguns in a pair of local restaurants.During a bail hearing last year, Crawford claimed to have left the Independent Soldiers and said he is in the process of having his gang tattoos covered up.

 Edit Post

Wanted Guadalupe Ceja on a warrant charging him with Murder. Detective Mark Pollio reports that on February 11th 1996 in the late evening a gang related murder occurred in the 600 block of Stambaugh Street. Numerous members of a criminal street gang chased down and caught a rival gang member. Those persons beat the victim until Lupe Ceja then allegedly approached and shot the victim numerous times while he lay on the ground. The persons who had beaten the victim were subsequently identified, arrested and convicted for their part in the murder. The shooter, Ceja, was identified but never arrested.

 Edit Post

Geoffrey Leslie Armour, 43, pointed to his injuries as he entered court but then crouched behind a wall, apparently trying to protect his identity.As sketch artists worked furiously to catch an image of Armour, his defence counsel objected to any publication of sketches or photographs of him, arguing identity could be a key issue in the case.Police, who will set up an information caravan near the site of the slaying to canvass for additional witnesses, supported the objection. It was felt that if images of Armour were made public they could influence witness decisions.
Police are still searching for another alleged hitman and the getaway driver from the Ascot Vale slaying.Magistrate Dan Muling agreed to a suppression order on Armour's image, ruling that the publication of his image would risk contaminating witnesses' evidence.Mr Muling set Armour's next court date for September 9, the day co-defendants Judy Moran and Suzanne Kane are also due back in court. There was no application for bail.Judy Moran, 64, and Suzanne Kane, 45, who is Armour's defacto wife, appeared in court on Wednesday on charges of being accessories after the fact of the murder. Both women were also refused bail.

 Edit Post

Police said a man in his 60s was shot and killed in a suburb of Australia's second city shortly after noon, but refused to confirm media reports the victim was Des "Tuppence" Moran, the member of an infamous Melbourne crime family.
Gangster has been shot dead in a busy Melbourne street, sparking fears of a resurgence in an underworld war that has so far claimed around 30 lives, reports have said.Australian 'gangster' shot dead in Melbourne notorious gangster has been shot dead in a busy Melbourne street, sparking fears of a resurgence in an underworld war that has so far claimed around 30 lives, reports have said.
Police said a man in his 60s was shot and killed in a suburb of Australia's second city shortly after noon, but refused to confirm media reports the victim was Des "Tuppence" Moran, the member of an infamous Melbourne crime family.
Moran's brother Lewis and his nephews Jason and Mark were all killed in Melbourne's drug gangs war that raged from 1995 to 2004 and was dramatised in Australia's hit "Underbelly" TV series.The Age newspaper reported that Moran was killed in an execution-style hit, quoting ambulance officers saying he had suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the head and witnesses saying three men had fired at him.
A witness named Joan said the shooting occurred on a busy street with children nearby."I was across the road from where it happened, at the post office and I just heard all these gunshots," she told commercial radio."I'm really angry because there were lots of kids and what-not, going about their business. It's a really busy shopping strip... there were people everywhere."Another witness, Han Tarkeek, told national news agency AAP that Lewis Moran's wife, Judy, arrived at the scene within 15 minutes of the shooting screaming "Dessy, Dessy."Moran survived an attempted assassination in March, when a balaclava-clad gunman fired at him while he was sitting in a car. The bullet lodged in the steering wheel.The incident follows this month's shooting of a Sydney businessman with close links to the city's notorious Kings Cross area. Fadi Ibrahim was shot five times and remains in hospital fighting for his life.

 Edit Post

Shots fired into the Marriott Resident Inn in Carlsbad when a fight broke out at a party there early Saturday morning, police said. No one was hit by the gunfire.
Carlsbad police said several gang members from Oceanside and Long Beach were partying at the hotel on Faraday Avenue when they began brawling in front about 12:45 a.m. One of the fighters then pulled out a handgun and fired into the front of the hotel, police said. Police dispatchers received several 911 calls reporting the shooting, and arriving officers found a large crowd running and driving away.
Police interviewed several witnesses, but no arrests have been made.

 Edit Post

Six men, including a father and son from Anaheim and two men from Costa Mesa, all have scheduled court appearances in the coming months related to the infamous fracas between the Set Free Soldiers and Hells Angels inside Blackie’s By the Sea bar near the Newport Pier in July.Six men charged in relation to last summer’s biker brawl by the sea in Newport Beach that left one man stabbed.The latest man to face justice from the incident was Jose Enrique Quinones, 43, of Anaheim, who was sentenced to eight years in prison Thursday for trying to slit a rival’s throat before ultimately stabbing him in the abdomen.Quinones pleaded guilty to one count of attempted murder for the stabbing and one count of street terrorism related to his membership with the Set Free Soldiers, a Southern California biker gang that claims to be a Christian ministry.Police said Quinones was one of a large group of Set Free Soldiers who ambushed the three or four Hells Angels inside. Authorities said the Hells Angels were confronting the other group’s leader, Phillip Aguilar, 61, over rumors that Set Free Soldiers were claiming association with the Hells Angels. Court documents show that the confrontation quickly escalated from verbal to physical when one person threw a punch.Chaos ensued, Quinones stabbed one man, police claim another man smashed a billiard ball into another man’s skull, then everyone fled. Police arrested the defendants days later after a huge, multi-agency raid on homes throughout Orange County. additional defendants from the July biker brawl:
Rodrigo Requejo, 35, Westminster. Pleaded guilty in December to aggravated assault and was sentenced to three years formal probation and 30 days in jail.
Phillip Aguilar, 61, Anaheim. Charged with several felonies including possessing a firearm as a felon, possession of a deadly weapon and street terrorism. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 10.
Matthew Aguilar, 30, Anaheim. Charged with felony possession of a deadly weapon and street terrorism. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 10.
Michael Timanus, 30, Anaheim. Charged with felony street terrorism and two counts of a felon possessing a firearm. Preliminary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 10.
Brian Heslington, 36, Costa Mesa. Charged with two felonies of possession of a controlled substance and felony of possession of a controlled substance with a firearm. Trial is scheduled for July 13.
John Lloyd, 41, Costa Mesa. Charged with felony of having a concealed firearm and a felony of being a gang member carrying a loaded firearm in public. Trial is scheduled for July 6.
Glenn Schoeman, 57, Riverside. Felony of accessory after the fact and street terrorism. Preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 30.

 Edit Post

Jose Filiberto Parra Ramos appears in a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration poster of 10 men it believes have been locked in a violent power struggle since a split in the Arellano Felix cartel last year.Soldiers captured Parra and three other drug suspects Wednesday in Tijuana using unspecified intelligence, the Defense Department and the Attorney General's Office said in a statement.The department said Parra is allied with Teodoro Garcia Simental, who is believed to be waging a bloody battle against reputed Arellano Felix cartel leader Fernando Sanchez Arellano, reputed heir to the Arellano Felix cartel.Masked soldiers led a handcuffed and scowling Parra off an airplane that landed in Mexico City from Tijuana, and paraded him in front of reporters at the airport.Parra led a group of armed men an April 2008 battle between the sides that left 13 people dead, the statement said. He also allegedly killed two federal police agents whose bodies were found at a ranch in the Baja California state town of Tecate that same month.According to Mexican authorities, Garcia left after the April 2008 battle to join forces with the powerful Sinaloa cartel and returned to Tijuana with a vengeance in September, sparking more than three months of intense bloodshed.The Defense Department says battles between the two gangs last year left 749 people dead.The army almost caught Parra twice at parties early this year, Gen. Alfonso Duarte Mugica, the top army commander in Tijuana, told The Associated Press in February.At a three-day bash in January, Parra and Garcia, known as "El Teo," barely escaped onto a beach. Instead, soldiers found Santiago Meza Lopez, nicknamed the "Pozole Maker," after a Mexican stew, because he is accused of disposing hundreds of bodies by disolving them in a corrosive material.Parra and another suspected trafficker, Reydel Lopez Uriarte, were close with Garcia but stayed on good terms with Sanchez Arellano after Garcia fled Tijuana last year, Duarte Mugica said. When Garcia returned to Tijuana in September, they joined him.Mexico has captured several high-profile cartel suspects since President Felipe Calderon launched a national crackdown on cartels in 2006 by sending troops to Michoacan, his home state. But drug violence has surged, claiming more than 10,800 lives since.On Thursday, gunmen opened fire and tossed a grenade at a crowded taco stand in the central Mexican city of Uruapan, killing a police officer and a 15-year-old boy, a spokesman for the state prosecutor's office said n condition of anonymity because his office does not allow him to give his name.The policeman was shot while eating with a fellow officer, the spokesman said. Before fleeing, the assailants shot two tanks of cooking gas that exploded, burning the teenage taco stand worker to death. Four other people were injured.Investigators said the attack apparently targeted the two officers.

 Edit Post

Crackdown on the Monk Mobb follows a Halloween party spray of gunfire that killed a 24-year-old man and injured four of his friends.Early on, detectives suspected Monk Mobb members in the killing. But as they built their case, detectives gathered information that led to nearly a dozen arrests for other violent crimes – including shootings and robberies – and that could lead to more. What detectives hope will be the final blow came this week, when officials arrested eight suspects – six of them allegedly from the Monk Mobb, and one from TNA, an associated subset in the larger North Highlands Gangster Crips organization – in the Nov. 1 homicide."Monk Mobb and TNA have been problem gangs for us for a long time," said homicide Detective Angie Kirby. "Our goal not only was to solve this murder but take down the entire gang and eliminate this constant problem and threat to public safety."Detectives say they have arrested about a third of the still relatively small Monk Mobb crew. But they're confident, they say, that their efforts will be effective in "dismantling" the gang. And the pressure remains: Sheriff's gang detectives and FBI agents are continuing their push. More arrests are expected.The magnitude of the case and level of cooperation within the Sheriff's Department and with outside agencies is "virtually unheard of," said Detective Scott Swisher.The effort grew out of a Nov. 1 homicide on Rogue River Drive. Patrick Razaghzadeh, 24, was hosting a costume party at his home when the suspects crashed the gathering, detectives said. When an argument erupted about their behavior, one of the suspects unloaded a 9 mm handgun into the crowd.Razaghzadeh, dressed as an Oakland A's baseball player, took a bullet to his head and died in his rain-soaked backyard. Four of his friends suffered gunshot wounds.At the party, the gangsters had been throwing gang signs, causing trouble and trying to push drugs – working, Kirby said, as a "gang pack."That pack mentality continued as the assailants tried to cover up the identity of the trigger man, detectives said.Their loyalty, however, apparently went only so far. Some of the gang members eventually cooperated with authorities and fingered one another as being involved, detectives said.According to a criminal complaint filed by the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office, the accused are Corey Andre Carmicle, 22; Charles Steven Ferrell III, 21; Willie Cavil Harris IV, 19; Willie Earl Toliver, Jr., 22; two 18-year-old men who were 17 when the shooting occurred; and a 16-year-old boy who was 15. The Bee is not naming those suspects because they were juveniles at the time of the crimes.The suspects being held at the Sacramento County Main Jail were unavailable for interviews Thursday. Two remained in juvenile hall.Each of the suspects faces one count of murder and four counts of attempted murder, according to the complaint. They also face enhancements for allegedly committing the shooting with a handgun and on behalf of a street gang.The eighth suspect, Leighni Nikkol Hadl, 23, faces one felony count of conspiracy, according to the complaint.Razaghzadeh was the fourth Sacramento County resident to fall fatal victim to the Monk Mobb and TNA – which detectives describe as a "younger set" that includes siblings of Monk Mobb members – according to detectives from the Sheriff's Department and the city Police Department.Sheriff's detectives also allege that the two gangs are responsible for a dozen or more shootings and 70-plus robberies in 2008 alone. The spree has continued: When arrested this week, one of the unnamed 18-year-old suspects in the Rogue River case already was in custody, accused in a February shooting in North Highlands, Kirby said.Razaghzadeh's killing particularly concerned detectives because they saw it as an escalation in the gangs' violence: None of the victims was a gang member, and the alleged assailants were far out of their usual territory.During the investigation into Monk Mobb and TNA, detectives "had an opportunity to gain a whole lot of intelligence about how they operate, who they talk to, what they do and what kinds of crimes they're committing," Kirby said.That allowed them to arrest almost a dozen other gang members on suspicion of unrelated felonies and to seize drugs and weapons possessed by them, detectives said. They also collected information on a number of unsolved crimes, including homicides, though detectives declined to elaborate.In addition to any other arrests that might stem from that intelligence, detectives said it's possible they will make more arrests in the Rogue River case.For now, though, the arrests have Razaghzadeh's family on "cloud nine," said his mother, Trish O'Connor. "I think Pat can finally rest now," she said.Although the seven months since her son's death have been trying, O'Connor said she never gave up hope that detectives would make an arrest. Their regular updates kept her going, she said."They were just so persistent," O'Connor said. "I'm just so elated and thankful to them."Recently, Razaghzadeh's sister gave birth to a son and brought some joy into the family. His name: Ethan Patrick, after the uncle he'll never meet.

 Edit Post

Charged four people including a former member of the Dead Man Inc. gang and two teens alleged to have other gang ties – with firebombing a townhouse in Piney Orchard last week in what may be retaliation for the homicide of a 14-year-old boy.Officials, speaking at a news conference, said the arrests had roots in the May 30 death of Christopher Jones.Police Chief James Teare Sr. said the four suspects believed rumors - which turned out to be incorrect - that the people at the townhouse in the Piney Orchard community had something to do with Christopher's death. "The suspects acted on those rumors falsely," Teare said. They are charged with first-degree arson, first-degree malicious burning, conspiracy to commit arson and three counts of reckless endangerment. The suspected gang ties are a serious twist to violence that left Christopher dead – students said he was threatened by teens with local gang affiliations - said was a Molotov cocktail thrown at the townhouse June 3. No one was injured. Officials said no one in the house had gang ties.The crime and possible gang involvement trouble not only officials but also residents of the community. "It's scary," said Jennifer Wiech, president of the 8,500-household Piney Orchard Community Association, who attended the news briefing. The association pays $60,000 a year for off-duty officers to patrol five hours a day. The adult suspect in the case, Jonathan Richard Myers, 22, who lists addresses in Crofton and Gambrills, was ordered jailed without bond.Teare said Myers told police he had been a member of Dead Man Inc., a mostly white gang that got its start in Maryland's prisons. "That is disturbing," Teare said. Teare said the involvement of a person with ties to DMI was "very concerning to law enforcement." At the time of the firebombing, Myers was out on bond on charges of attempted murder. Prosecutors asked a judge to revoke his bail; a hearing will be Friday. His lawyer, Peter S. O'Neill, had no comment.Teare is to brief members of the county's legislative delegation on gang issues Thursday. Police said the three boys arrested were a 15-year-old and 16-year-old, both from Crofton, and a 16-year-old from Gambrills. They are in the Cheltenham Youth Facility, a juvenile detention center.Teare said two of the teens are affiliated with TNT, a youth gang in western Anne Arundel County that calls itself The New Threat, and the third is friends with them.Youths in TNT and the East Side Diamonds, a West County youth gang feuding with TNT, used to be friendly and play sports together, Teare said. But as they grew apart, fights erupted, he said. Though family and friends said Christopher was not involved in a gang, his family transferred him from Arundel High School to South River High School this spring because of threats at school. But weeks later, on his bicycle near home, he was approached by five to seven people. Police said Javel M. George, 16, and a 14-year-old boy, both of whom live near Christopher's family, admitted to beating him.As he pedaled away, Christopher fell and hit his head. George is charged as an adult with manslaughter, and the younger suspect is charged as a juvenile.Police said race does not appear to have been a factor, though Christopher was white and the youths charged are black.

 Edit Post

Mexican police found 11 bodies inside an abandoned car in the border state of Sonora Thursday in violence attributed to drug traffickers battling for control of the region.Sonora's state prosecutors said in a statement that the bodies were discovered inside a sport utility vehicle on a road between the towns of Caborca and Sonoyta along with a threatening message. The SUV had been stolen in Arizona.
Prosecutors did not reveal what the message said or the identities of the bodies. They said the killings are linked to a fight between local drug traffickers and another group trying to move in.Police are investigating whether the killings are tied to an attack on the village of Plutarco Elias Calles where four people were abducted and assailants opened fire on the police station Wednesday night.Meanwhile, federal police said Thursday they have captured two of 53 inmates who escaped from a prison in northern Mexico last month as its guards apparently stood by.
Marcos Espinoza and Osvaldo Garcia were detained Wednesday in Mexico's central state of Hidalgo along with six alleged members of the Zetas, a gang of hit men tied to the Gulf cartel, federal police intelligence coordinator Luis Cardenas told reporters.Security camera footage shows that guards at the Cieneguillas prison in Zacatecas state stood by as an armed gang walked out with the 53 inmates on May 16. About a dozen of the fugitives are drug cartel suspects.The prison director and all 44 guards on duty have been jailed pending an investigation into their possible complicity.

 Edit Post