Griselda Blanco, aka the Black Widow. Griselda was the grande dame of the Miami cocaine business, a Colombian mother of three, of impoverished origins, who slaughtered and intimidated her way to the top of a billion-dollar industry.

Hector Portillo, a member of the international MS-13 street gang, and seven others were charged in New York City with multiple crimes, including 29 counts of murder, attempted murder, assault, racketeering, and illegal use of firearms. The charges were announced by Benton J. Campbell, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; Peter J. Smith, special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office of investigations in New York City; Richard A. Brown, Queens Country District Attorney, and Raymond W. Kelly, Commissioner, New York City Police Department.The indictment alleges that on December 24, 2006 three of the defendants, Hector Portillo, Javier Irheta and Luis Bonilla, murdered 15 year-old Pashad Gray in the Flushing section of Queens County.Beginning in 1998, the defendants served as members and associates of MS-13, also known as “La Mara Salvatrucha,” and engaged in a series of violent crimes in Jamaica and Flushing, New York, including conspiracy to murder and assault members of rival gangs, such as the Crips, the Bloods, and the Latin Kings. During one particularly violent 13 month period, the defendants allegedly assaulted or attempted to murder seven victims by stabbing and shooting.Portillo, who was previously charged with racketeering and murder conspiracy, is now charged with a pattern of violent attacks, including, in addition to the Pashad Gray murder, the non-fatal shooting of a teenager on February 17, 2006, and the stabbing and beating of two teenagers in August 2006.“The indictment of this dangerous MS-13 gang member is a positive step toward ridding our communities of the violent transnational street gangs that have instilled fear in our citizens and taken our communities hostage for far too long,” stated ICE Special Agent-in-Charge Smith. “Through Operation Community Shield, ICE and its law enforcement partners will continue to conduct aggressive enforcement actions against members and associates of violent street gangs like MS-13.”“The defendants have spread fear in our community through wanton violence, including shooting, stabbing, and beating their victims,” stated United States Attorney Campbell. “Today’s charges reflect our unwavering commitment to bring members and associates of violent street gangs to justice.” Mr. Campbell thanked the New York City Department of Probation for its assistance.Queens County District Attorney Brown stated, “Rivalries among criminal street gangs all too often turn neighborhoods into urban battlefields with innocent victims being caught in the crossfire. Only through the joint and committed efforts of law enforcement on all levels of government can we reduce gang-related violence and reclaim our streets for law-abiding residents.”NYPD Commissioner Kelly stated, “New York City has not experienced the explosion in gang violence experienced elsewhere, in part, because of continued, successful crime suppression and arrests by the NYPD with support from our federal partners.”If convicted, the defendants face maximum sentences of life imprisonment.The MS-13 is comprised primarily of immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, many of whom are in the United States illegally. With hundreds of members locally, it is the largest street gang on Long Island and has a major presence in Queens, New York. Over the past four years, the coordinated efforts of United States Attorney’s Office, ICE, the NYPD, and the Queens District Attorney’s Office have resulted in felony convictions of nearly two dozen New York City members of the MS-13.

Gang violence appears to be on the rise in B.C. as gangs war over control of the lucrative drug trade, but there are few places where the increase has been more severe than in Prince George. The northern forestry community has been plagued by a year of brawls, shootings, reports of torture and several murders as rival groups brazenly fight among themselves. In late summer, a 19-year-old man was seriously injured in drive-by shooting in Prince George, 500 kilometres northeast of Vancouver. A few weeks later, a young couple believed to be connected to the drug trade -- including a 19-year-old woman -- were found shot to death.
Although the victims were gang members, Mayor Dan Rogers says every violent act ripples into the wider community.
"There are innocent victims all the time," says Rogers, recently elected as mayor after 12 years on city council. "There are parents, there are relatives. It's just tragic." While things have quieted since the grisly October slayings, the head of the RCMP's local gang unit says 2008 was the worst year he has ever seen.

"We never used to have this kind of violence in Prince George," says Sgt. Raj Sidhu, who's been with the Mounties there for 13 years. "It's pretty brutal what's happening."

The violence in the city follows a pattern established elsewhere in B.C.
A new gang crops up, a turf war breaks out, and eventually the violence ends when one group is either beaten down by rivals or rounded up by police. The cycle has been a source of constant frustration for police forces combating violence among B.C.'s 129 identified gangs. "There's always peaks and valleys, and that seems to just repeat itself," says Supt. Dan Malo, head of the B.C. Integrated Gang Task Force. "We've certainly had an increase in gang-related murders (in 2008), but while it keeps moving around, it really becomes the same."
For example, the RCMP homicide team for the Lower Mainland -- excluding Vancouver and Delta -- says there were about 20 homicides connected to drugs and organized crime this year, compared with about 14 in 2007, and 20 in 2006. Gang-related killings tend to rise and fall with the overall homicide rate, the Mounties say.
Violence increases when gangs try to expand their influence into new areas, which is what appears to be happening in Prince George. The latest spate of attacks in that city is related to a turf war between the Independent Soldiers, who appeared two years ago and have ties to a gang in Vancouver, and a smaller, unnamed group that arrived about a year ago. While things have been quiet in the past couple of months, the head of the Prince George gang unit predicts the calm will be short-lived.
"I don't know for how long -- it's always revenge and the greed to take over the drug trade," says Sidhu. "There's always that vacuum. You take out one group and someone else wants to come in. Malo, while seeming resigned to the fact that gangs will be a perpetual problem in the province, says there remains reason to be hopeful. He says the force has dramatically changed its tactics in recent years, starting with the formation of the integrated task force in 2005, followed by a so-called violence suppression team two years later. The suppression team consists of several dozen uniformed officers who track gang members and try to intervene when violence erupts, or prevent it from happening in the first place. The task force is also reaching out to future gang members with a provincewide initiative targeting at-risk youth through community involvement and education.
And there have been successes in actual enforcement. A few weeks ago, the RCMP arrested nine people in Surrey and laid 26 charges related to drugs and weapons. It was part of a year-long investigation that the force held up as evidence its efforts were working. "We've seen a tremendous amount of violence in the past couple of years, and hopefully we're going to be able to suppress that for a period of time," Malo says.

The A73 south of Nijmegan was littered with bullet casings, and one man lay dead in his car with another sprawled wounded in the passenger seat.The survivor refused to talk to police, even though a hired assassin had pursued his vehicle shooting at it without hitting for several miles before finally catching up and riddling it with automatic fire.

Commuters were horrified, but the murder in September was wearily familiar to detectives who have dealt with 25 gangland-style killings in suburban southern Holland over the past three years.

As usual, there was a cannabis connection. The assassin was a hired Bulgarian and his two victims, men in their twenties, had been involved with one of the thousands of cannabis “nurseries” which flourish out of sight in the attics, sheds and spare rooms of small towns – using Dutch horticultural expertise honed from years of growing tomatoes and tulips.Billions of euros worth of cannabis is grown for export – much of it to Britain – in Holland’s modern cannabis industry, which has come a long way since the days of penniless hippies growing pot on Amsterdam houseboats and opening “coffee shops” where stoners could happily puff away in an atmosphere of dope haze, peace and love.Now there is so much money and violence involved that Holland’s police commissioner responsible for cannabis calls it a danger to Dutch society.Since he started his job a year ago Max Daniel has made it his mission to change Holland’s laid-back view of the drug, and as calls mount from politicians and citizens to shut “nuisance” coffee shops he believes that his message is getting through.Mr Daniel said: “For years this was seen as an innocent business and the tolerant Dutch approach was undoubtedly a successful form of harm reduction – it kept users away from hard drugs.

“But now there is so much money to be made that cannabis is sucking in organised crime gangs from abroad and corrupting legitimate businesspeople – especially lawyers, estate agents and bankers. Money laundering is a massive enterprise, and it is bringing together white-collar professionals and the kind of criminals who deal with heroin, prostitutes and people-smuggling.

“Cannabis is a threat to our democracy.”Mr Daniel said police noticed that the business was starting to change about 15 years ago when criminals realised there were bigger profits from growing cannabis in Holland than smuggling it from Morocco, but the violence has become much worse in the past few years.Dutch police believe that the underground cannabis growing cottage industry has now become one of their nation’s biggest earners of foreign currency, worth an estimated 2.7 billion euros (£2.3 billion) in total – about half as much as Holland’s legitimate horticultural business.The public perception has not kept up with the worsening criminality; most Dutch still regard cannabis as harmless, if not quite respectable. A nationwide poll in November found that 80 per cent of Dutch people opposed the closure of marijuana coffee shops.The nation’s 730 coffee shops, where customers can buy herbal cannabis or hashish without fear of arrest, attract tourists and pay more than 300 million euros in tax annually.An estimated 40 per cent of the cannabis grown in Holland is sold in them. Police believe some are fronts for organised crime, but the worst of the violence takes place in the cannabis-growing industry where strong-arm gangs prey on novices who think they can make easy money by setting up cannabis farms.Everything needed can be bought in a “grow shop” – seeds, nutrients, powerful lights and hydration systems. Police say some grow shops sell the addresses of novices to criminal gangs, who months later smash their way in and steal crops or cash.Cannabis growers can’t go to the law for protection, so they arm themselves, electrify doors to shock or electrocute, or buy large dogs for protection. In one case police discovered a trap for intruders, in the form of a pit filled with sharpened stakes dug beneath a doormat. Suburban Holland has never seen anything like it.

Public anger about tolerant drugs laws is mounting along the French and Belgian borders, where rows of coffee shops sell to thousands of drugs tourists every week. They are accused of making a nuisance in the placid and law-abiding small towns.

This month Amsterdam’s civic fathers decided to shut 43 of the city’s 228 coffee shops as they were close to schools, another sign of growing anxiety about the city’s laid-back drugs laws.So far coffee shop owners have been remarkably relaxed in the face of the growing campaign against them.

Kyle Parvez shot a member of a rival gang from close range in the neck will serve a minimum of 10 years behind bars. And the judge who sentenced Kyle Parvez to an open ended jail sentence said his response to almost killing his victim Dilbag Singh was "chilling." Judge Stuart Baker told Parvez: "You seem to be unconcerned for your victim. "Your response to what you have done is in my view chilling, you are a dangerous offender." The judge told Parvez, convicted by a jury last month of attempting to murder Mr Singh in April and possessing a firearm with intent to commit the crime, that he was passing an indeterminate sentence for the protection of the public. He will only be released when assessed by the Parole Board as no longer a danger and will serve 10 years minus time spent on remand before becoming eligible. Parvaz, 21, of Arnhem Road, Callon, showed no emotion as he was led to the cells. He had denied both offences but was convicted by a jury following a trial at Preston Crown Court. Judge Baker warned that evidence from the trial suggested that at the time groups of young men involved in gangs from Deepdale and Fishwick were "prepared to use firearms to settle differences." And he said the courts would pass heavy deterrent sentences. Parvez had armed himself with a sawn-off shotgun which was a weapon used by criminals for one purpose - to kill or maim, said the judge. The jury had found he had intended to kill Dilbag Singh and he shot him at close range, from between nine and 12 feet away on St Paul's Road, Deepdale. Mr Singh, 26, was hit by 56 pellets in the neck and body but survived following emergency surgery. He gave evidence to the trial but it was revealed in court he had subsequently been arrested and has been interviewed on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice. The trial heard that the shooting came in the wake of an earlier abduction of a man during growing tensions between groups from Deepdale and Fishwick with drug dealing backgrounds. Zainul James, 18, of no fixed abode, was cleared on the judge's direction of charges of attempted murder and possession of the firearm with intent but convicted on a charge of aggravated arson in relation to a car in which they travelled to the scene. He set it alight on Manor House Lane and the judge said innocent members of the public could have been injured by this reckless action. Judge Baker sentenced James to five years in a young offenders' institution.

Police are appealing for witnesses to an overnight shooting attack on a house at Green Valley, in Sydney’s south-west.Around 11pm yesterday (Sunday 21 December), a series of shots were fired at a home in Hewison Avenue.Five people inside the house heard the volley of gunfire and ventured outside to find a number of spent cartridges and damage to the exterior of the home.The family contacted relatives, who in turn telephoned police.Officers from the Green Valley Local Area Command attended the address and secured the crime scene.Forensic Services Group experts and the Police Rescue Squad also responded.The spent casings were retrieved and will be subjected to a series of ballistics tests.Police are conducting a canvass of the neighbourhood in the hope someone witnessed the attack.

Nine men's heads were found in plastic bags in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero early Sunday. Eight of them were eventually identified as belonging to soldiers, and the ninth was a lawyer. "grave mistake" for criminals in the illegal drug trade to have decapitated eight soldiers over the weekend, a top Mexican military officer said Monday.Residents of Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, found the heads on a busy city street before dawn, and hours later located the bodies several kilometers (miles) away, local police said."For each member that you kill, we are going to kill ten of yours," read a sign that was found next to the heads. It was signed "You know who," a state security official told AFP.Prosecutors announced late Monday that soldiers had detained seven suspects in the decapitations, all in Guerrero state."The criminals made a grave mistake with this audacious crime," said the local regional commander, Enrique Jorge Alonso, speaking at a ceremony here Monday honoring the slain soldiers.The beheading was "an offense against the (government) institutions and especially to those who wear a military uniform," said Alonso, speaking for Defense Secretary Guillermo Galvan.
The attack was a "sick and despicable act of revenge," Alonso said."There will not be the least concession ... and we will not rest until we have put these criminals where they belong," he added.

The soldiers were apparently kidnapped late Saturday as they left their base in Chilpancingo, located 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of the resort town of Acapulco.

The beheadings were the drug cartel's answer to the Friday slaying of three drug cartel members in a clash with soldiers in the town of Teloloapan, also in Guerrero state, the daily La Jornada reported, citing security sources.President Felipe Calderon, speaking in Mexico City, said that the death of the soldiers "had not been in vain."Mexico "will spare no effort to bring to justice those responsible for these cowardly acts," Calderon said.Feuding drug cartels have engaged in a fierce battle to dominate Guerrero state. In the past two years, decapitated victims were recovered there at least three times. Two of those killed were federal police.Separately, 19 people were killed overnight Sunday to Monday in the northern state of Chihuahua in drug related violence, state officials said.
They include 14 people found dead in different parts of Ciudad Juarez, the most violent city in Mexico, located across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.
Those include a couple, both 25, who were killed in a hail of 49 gunshots, said Alejandro Pariente with the Chihuahua state prosecutor's office.Authorities blame most of the violence there to an ongoing war between the Ciudad Juarez drug cartel -- led by Vicente Carrillo Fuentes -- and the rival Sinaloa drug cartel led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman for control of the city, one of the most lucrative points to smuggle drugs into the United States.More than 5,300 people have been killed this year across the country in a wave of drug-related attacks, despite a government clampdown on cartels .

Jeffrey "Dahmer" Gray, 30, was convicted by a jury following a six-day trial in May.
At trail and sentencing before District Judge Joseph J. Farnan Jr., Gray maintained his innocence.Assistant U.S. Attorney Ilana Eisenstein said Gray was a key cocaine distributor in the Wilmington area and was responsible for the sale of more than 50 kilograms of the drug in Delaware.She said trial testimony showed Gray lived a lavish lifestyle with luxury cars, high-stakes gambling and a pricey Rodney Square-area apartment with no legitimate source of income.According to attorneys, Gray was arrested following a fake drug sale set-up by an agent at the Airport Courtyard Marriott hotel in Pennsylvania on Oct.
30, 2006.Robert W. Shepherd III, a co-defendant, arrived to confirm he was making the buy of three kilos of cocaine but then said he had to leave to go get the money, according to Eisenstein.She said Shepherd then met Gray on South Street in Philadelphia and provided him with a wooden box filled with $60,000 in cash before driving him back to the hotel in a rented Scion.Gray then remained in the car while Shepherd went in to complete the sale, she said.When police moved in, after the fake sale was completed, Gray attempted to escape through the narrow parking lot, driving over landscaping, ramming his vehicle into a chain-link fence and leaping out of the car while it was still moving, to try to flee the scene on foot before being apprehended, according to prosecutors.When police searched the crashed car, they found a gun with a round in the chamber inside and DNA tests connected the gun to Gray and not the co-defendant, Eisenstein said.Gray’s attorney, Joseph A. Gabay, said his client denies being a part of a drug distribution conspiracy.He said Gray told the court that he had simply agreed to give Shepherd, a longtime friend, a ride to the hotel and had no idea a drug buy was going down. Gabay said the government’s case was largely circumstantial in that prosecutors did not tie him directly to the Shepherd’s drug operation, which shipped money to Texas and received drugs in return via Federal Express. “Mr. Gray wasn’t any part of that. He was never at a drop off,” Gabay said, adding only the words of Shepherd and another co-defendant tied him to the scheme.Gabay said Grey had a gun and fled from the scene because “he’d been shot at before” and didn’t know what was going on when he saw men with guns appear.Shepherd, who was the original focus of the government sting, reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and testified against Gray.Prosecutors said Farnan cited Gray’s extensive criminal history and the large volume of drugs involved in ordering Gray to serve 35 years on the drug charges and five additional years in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm.U.S. Attorney Colm F. Connolly said the sentence "should send a message to those involved in the drug trade that they will face serious jail time when convicted in federal court."

Police in Naples, Italy, Monday arrested reputed Mafia member Mose Esposito and said they were closing in on his boss, Giuseppe Setola.Esposito, 29, was arrested at a small villa near Casal di Principe, the base of an alleged murder squad run by the Camorra clan, reported ANSA, the Italian news agency.Esposito's step-brother, now in prison, is suspected in the September slaying of six West Africa immigrants in the town of Castel Volturno, ANSA said Monday. The slayings allegedly were organized by Setola, whose murder squad has killed an estimated 20 people since May, police allege."We are working to flush him out. The circle is closing around him," said Franco Roberti, who heads an anti-Mafia program in Naples.Setola inadvertently was released from prison last Spring on house arrest but immediately went underground and reformed his alleged murder squad, Roberti said.

Three people are dead and another wounded following a quadruple shooting Sunday night at a Kingsland apartment complex, police said.The shootings occurred about 6:45 p.m. at the Sea Parc apartment complex, one mile west of Interstate 95 off Georgia 40.Lt. Todd Tetterton, a Kingsland Police spokesman, said roll call was being taken at administrative offices at the Kingsland Welcome Center when officers there heard between 20 and 25 gunshots. The shots were at Sea Parc, which is a just a few blocks from the welcome center.As officers drove to the scene, Tetterton said neighbors began calling 911 emergency dispatchers to report hearing multiple gunshots. Officers arrived to discover two people in the parking lot with gunshot wounds, he said.One of the shooting victims in the parking lot, Jamie Riddle, 33, of Kingsland, died aboard an emergency medical helicopter bound for Shands Jacksonville. The other victim remains hospitalized in serious condition. Tetterton declined to identify the survivor for his protection.When officers went inside an apartment located on Sea Parc Circle, they found two people dead from multiple gunshot wounds. Tetterton identified them as Michael Key, 25, of Brunswick, and Phyllis Frazier, 28, of Kingsland.Tetterton said both Key and Frasher lived in the apartment. Riddle and the other shooting victim in the parking lot were planning to visit Key and Frasher and had apparently just driven into the parking lot when the gunman emerged from the apartment, Tetterton said.“We know there were several people involved but only one active shooter,” Tetterton said.Witnesses reporting seeing a medium to large dark-colored SUV, investigators said.

Police are searching for a suspect or suspects after a drive by shooting was reported at a Mesa home on Sunday night.According to police, the resident reported that an unknown suspect/s shot at his house around 8:20 p.m. No shells were discovered, but round fragments were recovered from the victim’s vehicle which was parked in the driveway.Rounds, appearing to be from a shotgun, also penetrated the residence nearly missing the victim’s father. According to police the victim is on house arrest for a shooting involving a Jefferson Park Gangster member. According to officials the area is well known for an on-going dispute between the victim and JPG.
The suspect vehicle was last seen traveling southbound on Jefferson from East Arbor and is described as a white Honda passenger car. No one was injured during the incident.

Infamous Shower Posse founder Vivian Blake is set to be released from prison in the United States and deported to Jamaica early next year.Blake's pending release was announced on the BET programme, American Gangster, which aired on Thursday night.The programme looked at the rise and fall of the Shower Posse - a criminal organisation which has its roots in Tivoli Gardens and which established bases in several cities in the US, Canada and Britain.Blake was sentenced to 28 years in 2000 after he pleaded guilty to racketeering and criminal conspiracy. He never faced a jury after inking a plea bargain deal which resulted in the time he served while in Jamaica being used as part of his sentence.Blake spent five years fighting extradition to the US after the American Government accused him of ordering dozens of murders, drug trafficking and other serious crimes.The Shower Posse reigned terror on the streets of the US and its members are reported to have murdered over 1,400 persons in the United States.The group has been accused of funnelling huge amounts of cocaine into the United States and was said to use its profits to smuggle guns and ammunition back to Jamaica.Blake is quoted on the programme as saying "I ran it like a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. The only difference is that instead of litigating in a court of law, we held court in the streets."The gang was said to have major drug operations in New York, Miami, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Los Angeles, Alaska, Washington D C, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Montreal, Toronto and London.In October 1988, Blake managed to elude a nationwide dragnet which saw more than 100 posse members being held during Operation Dragnet, which was set up to nab members of the notorious gang.He left the shores of the United States on December 3, 1988 on a cruise ship and entered Jamaica at Ocho Rios in St Ann. He remained free for 10 years and was the owner of a car, motorcycle and jet ski rental company and a once popular night club in St Catherine.But while Blake was enjoying his freedom, some of his cronies who were slapped with long sentences, began to turn against him. Chief among them was Charles 'Little Nut' Miller, a native of St Kitts who said many of the murders were committed on Blake's orders.Miller was eventually sentenced to life without parole after slipping out of witness protection and leading a ruthless drug-running operation in his home country.Also turning on Blake was Shower Posse enforcer, Kirk Bruce, who admitted to committing more than 100 murders on US soil and is now serving a life sentence.

According to the source,bitter rivalry between 2 gangs came to ahead over a gun and alcohol deal.A meeting between the gang members turned violent after the deal went sour.3 People were killed in the shootout but police were quickly on the scene to bring it to an end and arrested most of the gang.

Two suspected armed robbers were gunned down in a fierce gun battle between them and police officers near the Malindi Airport on Friday night.An AK 47 rifle and a toy pistol were recovered from the slain suspects while one of their accomplices who was armed with a pistol escaped.Malindi Police Chief Ayub Gitonga Ali and the District Criminal Investigation Officer Mr. John Kariuki who visited the scene said the robbers were preparing to rob a house near the airport were gunned down by flying squad police officers who had trailed tem from Malindi town.Ali said the officers had received a tip off from members of the public and started tailing the suspects and eventually caught up with them at about 8.00pm local time. "Police officers ordered the three to surrender, but the one armed with the pistol opened fire on the officers, who responded and gunned down the two," he said.
Ali said the three were among a group of criminals that the police had been looking for."It was not our wish to kill the suspects because had we arrested them they would have led us to the others but since one of them started shooting at our officers the officers had to defend themselves," he said.Mr. Ali said security had been beefed up in Malindi town especially during this festive season and warned armed gangs to keep off the town."We are in the festive season, and I warn those criminals who may be planning to carry out their activities in Malindi that we are alert and we shall catch up with them," he told reporters.Mr. Ali assured residents and tourists that Malindi was a safe place and asked them to enjoy their holidays in the area without fear.

Bulldog gang member was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole for his role in the killing of 16-year-old Courtney Rice in June 2006.Wearing leg and wrist shackles, Joseph Enrique Lopez, 26, told Rice's family in the Fresno County courtroom that he was sorry for Rice's death."I am not the enemy," he said. "I didn't have anything to do with this." But the victim's mother, Stephanie Rice, and the girl's grandmother, Joan Robledo, told Judge Gary Orozco that Lopez should spend the rest of his life in prison."We want justice for Courtney," Robledo said. "She was only 16 years old. There was no regard for her life."The judge agreed, saying Lopez played a key role in her death.Rice, the mother of a 1-year-old, was lured to an apartment complex in northwest Fresno and suffocated by Bulldog gang members, prosecutor Chris Gularte said. Her half-naked and bruised body was found wrapped in a sleeping bag in the back of an abandoned pickup a few days later.In February, a jury convicted Lopez of first-degree murder, attempted rape and false imprisonment. The panel also found that Lopez directed the killing to enhance the image of a gang.
Lopez received 11 years and eight months for his convictions of attempted rape and false imprisonment, as well as for the gang enhancement and his prior criminal activity. He received life in prison without parole for the murder conviction.
Though Lopez was not in the apartment when Rice died, the prosecutor said Lopez directed other gang members to kill her because he feared she might snitch to police about his criminal background. His prior crimes include drunken driving causing injury, selling drugs, auto theft and evading police, the judge said.
The girl "is gonna have to die," Lopez reportedly said while holding a shotgun.
Gularte said Lopez also left fingerprints on the black tape that was used to bind the girl and stole his brother's work truck to haul the body away.
Rice died of asphyxiation, Gularte said during the trial. Pathologist Venu Gopal backed up the prosecutor's allegations, but he was challenged by defense pathologists who said Rice may have died from a heart attack because she was on drugs.Originally, seven people were charged in connection to Rice's killing. They have either accepted plea deals with the District Attorney's Office or have been convicted by a jury.On Friday, Lopez's lawyer, Phillip Cherney, said his client was remorseful. "This may sound ironic, but I know he cared about Courtney Rice," Cherney said.The defense lawyer said Lopez's sentence was unfair because the other defendants, including the ones who actually killed Rice, have received lesser prison sentences

Friends of slain gangster Joe Krantz now say they will not be getting any government money for his burial expenses.Nicole Cooper, who has opened a bank account to fundraise for the murdered Independent Soldier's memorial plot, said in a series of text messages that "social services" is not paying anything.She said only Krantz's friends and family members are chipping in to cover the costs of the stone, plot and engraving for the memorial at Valley View Memorial Garden in Surrey.Last week, Cooper posted to a Krantz Facebook tribute page that she was getting $1,050 from the government to help with the costs and that another $5,000 would be raised from Krantz supporters.Cooper did not return several phone calls earlier this week, but sent a brief text message to counter her earlier comments about the government contribution.Officials in the Ministry of Housing and Social Development refused to comment about any specific application for burial assistance when contacted by The Vancouver Sun.Officials did, however, say that applicants must supply detailed financial information about the dead person's assets, which are independently verified.Krantz was gunned down Oct. 20 at the World Extreme Fighting Club he had operated in Abbotsford for two years. The murder remains unsolved. At the time he owned a 2007 Cadillac Escalade, according to property records.Krantz was arrested last April and charged with nine gun and drug-trafficking charges after a one-month Abbotsford police investigation into an alleged dial-a-dope ring. Police found guns, drugs and cash in his apartment along with clothing bearing the logos of the Independent Soldiers gang, as well as the Hells Angels' Nomad chapter.The 28-year-old, who trained mixed martial arts fighters, was intensely popular, despite his criminal links. At least four online tribute sites were started.A tribute mural was painted at a Langley high school, though it was later taken down by school board officials.

Church leaders work to patch up the bullet holes left in the lobby's burgundy carpet, the church's pastor and neighbors Monday called on the city to make gun violence a higher priority. The family of Darshawn L. Cross, 31, who was shot at least three times inside the church, said prayers at his bedside Monday, moments before he was declared brain-dead. He was surrounded by eight to 10 relatives and friends at Legacy Emanuel Hospital & Health Center. Investigators say they have leads in the suspected gang-related shooting, which turned into a homicide Monday. No arrests have been made.
"Even real live gangsters and the Mafia respect the church -- they may shoot you when you come out of it but won't shoot you when you come in it," said Robert Richardson, a church elder from another North Portland church active in gang outreach ministry. "But when we get to a place where a young man has gotten so ripped with anger, misunderstanding and the malice of a thug-life, he has no conscience for the serenity of a church, it's a real sad commentary." Richardson knew Cross and helped lead prayers at his bedside Monday. "I prayed this would be a wake-up call, not to advance the violence, but to reduce the violence," he said.
On Friday, Cross was attending the funeral service for his friends' mother, Sharon Lynn Kemp, 51, when he was shot. About 150 people were in the main sanctuary for the funeral. The service was nearing the end when gunfire erupted.
Church leaders said they'd seen Cross fighting with a man at the back of the church. People separated the two, taking Cross to a small receiving room beside the sanctuary, and the other man to the lobby. But a door connects the two areas, and they began fighting again. The Rev. Robert C. Jointer, New Hope's pastor, did not lead the funeral service and was in his study on the same floor.

Gang member Sean Mercer, 18, was convicted at Liverpool Crown Court of blasting three bullets across a pub car park in Croxteth, Liverpool, after targeting rivals who had strayed on to his turf.Innocent schoolboy Rhys was caught in the line of fire and shot in the neck.He died in his mother’s arms a short time later.
After almost four days of deliberations, the jury of seven women and five men convicted Mercer of murder unanimously.The verdict was reached yesterday but could not be reported until now.What the jurors did not know was that just two months before he shot Rhys, Mercer was involved in a chilling rehearsal of the killing.
Waving a gun, he rode a motorcycle past members of the public on rival gang territory.The incident was not reported to police at the time.The jurors were also unaware that just weeks after shooting Rhys, Mercer was given a three-year Asbo for terrorising security guards at a sports centre.Fellow gang members James Yates, 20, of Dodman Road, and Nathan Quinn, 18, of Wickett Close, both Croxteth, and Gary Kays, 26, of Mallard Close, and Melvin Coy, 25, of Abbeyfield Drive, both West Derby, Liverpool, and Boy M, 16, were convicted unanimously yesterday of assisting Mercer after they helped Mercer evade the police for months.Dean Kelly, 17, of Sword Walk, Croxteth, who was referred to as Boy K during the trial but can also now be named, was convicted today by a majority of four related charges.Trial judge Mr Justice Irwin lifted reporting restrictions on Kelly at the end of the trial.
The judge also lifted an order banning reporting the fact that Quinn is already serving five years for gun-related offences.When the main verdicts were delivered, only two people in the packed courtroom could not hold back their emotions – Rhys’s mother, Melanie Jones, and the killer’s father, burly Joseph McCormick, who was dressed entirely in black.As Mercer’s "guilty" verdict was announced to the silent courtroom, Mrs Jones, 42, who was sitting opposite her son’s killer, burst into tears and buried her head in her husband’s shoulder to stifle her sobs.
Rhys’s father Stephen, 45, choked back tears as Mercer blinked, looked down and visibly paled, repeatedly puffing his cheeks out.For the first time in the trial the teenage killer looked close to showing emotion as he stared towards the public gallery where his father sat, tears rolling down his cheeks.Mr McCormick mouthed "I love you" to his son – and left the court.But Quinn cracked a joke, inaudible behind the reinforced glass of the dock, and he and other defendants smiled and laughed.
As they were all led away, Mercer shook Quinn’s hand and the pair hugged before they were led down to the cells.During the seven-week trial, the jury heard that Mercer, of Good Shepherd Close, Croxteth, was a leading member of the Croxteth Crew gang, which terrorised the local community and was involved in a long-running and bloody feud with the Strand Gang, based on the neighbouring Norris Green estate.Mercer had an "intense hatred" of Strand Gang member Wayne Brady.When told by Coy and Kays that Brady, 19, and two rivals had been seen cycling near the Fir Tree Pub on Croxteth Crew territory, Mercer set about the murder.Dressed in a black hoodie and tracksuit, Mercer got hold of Yates’s Smith & Wesson .455 revolver and cycled to the pub where he took up position on a grass verge alongside the car park.Standing astride the bicycle with his arms outstretched in front of him, he clasped the gun with both hands and fired three shots at Brady’s friends, moving his arms in an arc to follow their movements on their bicycles.Rhys, distracted by the sound of the first bullet, which struck a shipping container in the car park, turned toward the gunman and was struck in the neck by the second bullet.Mercer then adjusted his position to aim one final shot at his two rivals.The third bullet struck a disused well as the gunman and his targets fled the scene.After the shooting, Mercer cycled to the home of McCormick, where he called on his fellow gang members to help him avoid the law.With Yates, Quinn and Kays, he was driven by Coy to a lock-up garage on an industrial estate where his clothes were burned and his body washed down with petrol.
Mercer gave the murder weapon to 17-year-old Boy X, who was frightened of him and who hid it in a dog kennel.It was later moved, along with a second gun and ammunition, by Kelly to the loft of his house where police found it later.A crucial breakthrough in the police investigation came 16 months later when Boy X, who cannot be named, accepted immunity from prosecution in exchange for giving evidence against the gang.Together with information gained from bugging devices in the homes of Yates and McCormick, much of which cannot be reported, and mobile phone logs, detectives were able to piece together the movements of the killer and his cohorts as they sought to evade justice.

killers of a notorious gangster stabbed 70 times in a "frenzied and sustained attack", burned and dumped in Gloucestershire woodlands have not been caught despite a four-year manhunt, an inquest has heard.
The corpse of Welsh career criminal Courtney Davies, 53, was mutilated, set on fire and left at a popular dog walking spot in Staunton, Gloucestershire, in December 2004.Despite a number of arrests and a collapsed trial, no-one from the criminal underworld has been convicted of the murder, leading a coroner to record an open verdict.Malcolm Martin, 33, who is deaf, was due to stand trial for killing Davies, of Rumney, Cardiff, and hiding his body in the Forest of Dean scrubland. But the case was dropped due to an "unrealistic prospect of success", the inquest in Gloucester heard.Mr Martin, from Cardiff, always denied murdering Davies and leaving the charred body beside the A4136 road leading towards Monmouth.David Scaysbrook, of the Forensic Science Service, found blood on leaves but no signs of a "battering type" injury. The body had probably been superficially burned where it lay, he told the Shire Hall, Gloucester.Dr Stephen Leadbeatter, Home Office pathologist, said: "There were approximately 70 such injuries. Twelve of those were to the right side of the head and neck, 12 were to the right side of the chest and groin and some 40 were to the back. The majority were stab wounds."Acting Detective Superintendent Neil Kelly of Gloucestershire Police told the hearing: "Mr Davies lived alone in Rumney, had previous convictions for offences of dishonesty, drugs, violence and firearms. He was well-known among the criminal fraternity in South Wales and had served long custodial sentences for two armed robberies and supplying Class A drugs.Recording the open verdict, Gloucestershire Coroner Alan Crickmore said: "I'm not able to determine who in fact inflicted the injuries that caused Mr Davies' death. This was clearly a frenzied and sustained attack resulting as it did in the 70 stab wounds discovered by Dr Leadbeatter."But although it was more likely than not that Davies was murdered by underworld criminals of sound mind, without a suspect to bring to court there was always the chance that his killer could be insane, enough to rule out a verdict of unlawful killing.

Hells Angel who was secretly working as a police agent was bent on murdering a rival biker, Whitby Court heard ."He'll be nothing," Steven Gault told Remond (Ray) Akleh of the Hells Angels elite Nomads chapter on Sept. 27, 2006, in a secretly recorded conversation. "He'll become a nothing ... He'll be fertilizer."The conversation was picked up by a police recording device carried by Gault.Akleh, 46, and Oshawa Hells Angels president Mark Cephes Stephenson, 45, each face charges of conspiracy to commit murder and counselling to commit murder for allegedly recruiting Gault to murder Frank (Cisco) Lenti of the Bandidos club in the summer of 2006.However, Akleh told court it was police agent Gault who was pushing hard to murder Lenti.The alleged murder plot against Lenti was never carried out.Akleh was on his fourth day on the witness stand yesterday."Did the club want Mr. Lenti killed?" Akleh's lawyer, Glenn Orr, asked."No sir," Akleh replied. "From what I understood, no. And I did not want Frank Lenti killed."Akleh told court that he feared for his own life when Gault appeared at his home on Sept. 27, 2006, and pushed him to provide a photo to help him track down Lenti and kill him."I'm scared of the man (Gault), sir," Akleh told court. "What am I going to do? Hit (punch) him? And then he comes back in the middle of the night."Akleh said he tried to trick Gault out of carrying out the murder by saying that he feared police had caught wind of the plot.Orr asked Akleh why he would suggest such a thing."You talk about a man and then he disappears," Akleh said. "There's a problem there."Akleh said he could have easily directed Gault to the Club Pro strip club in Vaughan, where Lenti worked in security. However, Akleh said he deliberately avoided telling Gault anything that would help him kill Lenti, who he described as a friend from the late 1990s, when the two men were members of the Satan's Choice club together.