Criminal Gangs Influence Locals
Benton County Dealing With Two Gang-Related Murders, Police Say
Last updated Saturday, March 29, 2008 6:49 PM CDT in News
By Robin Mero
The Morning News
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Case 1: On a damp, chilly Friday night, a black teenager met two pretty blonde sisters outside a nightclub. The girls invited him to a party given by their neighbors, young El Salvadorian men. The black boy was cheerful, wearing a white beanie hat. At the party he played cards, listened to music, drank beer and called the men "homeboys."
The next morning, the boy's body was discovered in a driveway; he was robbed and had a bullet wound in his forehead. The men were giving the boy a ride home but then forced him from the car and killed him - and admitted they target blacks, the sisters told police.
Case 2: A white man was getting a ride home from work on a Saturday afternoon from a black co-worker. They pulled out in front of a car carrying three Mexicans, who became angry, drove ahead of them and deliberately slowed. At a stoplight, the back window of the Mexicans' car rolled down a few inches, a gun emerged and several shots were fired, killing the white man.
The Mexican men said they were shooting so the other men would respect Hispanics, or "La Raza," a witness said.
Defendants in both cases have ties to gangs in California, police and prosecutors believe - and, with that influence, gang-related crime this area is becoming more violent. The criminal gang element is migrating from larger cities to smaller, quieter areas like Northwest Arkansas, experts say, and a popular hip-hop, gangster culture could make youth vulnerable to their influences.
Perhaps Derrick Jefferson, the 17-year-old black boy whose death was first described, is an example.
Jefferson lived in Centerton and had some brushes with the law during his teenage years. He took a fake gun to Bentonville High School in 2006, causing police to execute a search warrant on his mother's home. He was arrested in April 2006 for a minor in possession of alcohol charge.
Jefferson's MySpace page boasted pictures of him making gang gestures, probably promoting the nationwide Westside and Folk Nation groups, Springdale police said, but they don't believe he was a serious gang member.
The Morning News could not reach Jefferson's family for comment about his past.
Hispanic gangs formed in California prisons as a form of protection against other inmates and guards, and south California inmates became enemies with north, according to the research of California gang expert Al Valdez. Rivalries spread to the streets, with gang members identifying with either red or blue, the letter "M," the 13th letter of the alphabet - or the letter "N," the 14th. A prospective member sometimes had to commit a crime to earn membership, and going to prison was a status symbol, researchers say.
Insults, no matter how small, were answered - and gangs refused to cooperate with police.
Black street gangs originated over control of parties or hangout spots - and eventually neighborhoods - and evolved through drug sales and in prison, as with Hispanic gangs.
Street gangs offer a sense of family and belonging, and the opportunity to earn respect and admiration.
Rap music merged with gang culture in the 1990s, spreading criminal street gang culture across the nation.
In Northwest Arkansas, gang crimes have largely been limited to graffiti, drug offenses and theft. Washington County Prosecutor John Threet said his office has prosecuted few gang-related crimes. The Benton County murders are the first violent crimes that may be directly linked to gangs.
In 2006, Fernando Rodriguez was sentenced to life in prison for stabbing his brother-in-law to death at a family baby shower in Bentonville. Rodriguez admitted membership in a Mexicans Causing Panic gang.
The FBI is unaware of formal gang leadership cells, but activity has increased during the past two or three years and caught the agency's attention, said Steve Frazier, public information officer for the FBI in Little Rock.
Bob Balfe, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, said "we've evolved past the point of debating whether gang activity exists here. Gangs resemble any other business venture - and look for financial opportunity. That makes this area appealing to take over and expand. They're getting squeezed out of other areas, and we are vulnerable."
Springdale Police Chief Kathy O'Kelley said she received a phone call from Ohio officials last year, saying their intelligence showed a major leader of the Hispanic gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, in Ohio was hiding in Northwest Arkansas, because of affiliated groups here. The man was sought as a witness in another case in Michigan. Police confirmed his presence but did not apprehend the man, she said.
"We do absolutely have some pretty bad characters here, like this guy, but they are hiding and haven't done anything to get our attention," O'Kelley said.
Most local people still join gangs for a sense of identity, camaraderie, and power, Balfe said. Benton and Washington counties in February were named High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas - a "focal point" for distribution of Mexico-manufactured methamphetamine. The high drug traffic could be a financial draw for bigger players, he said.
Gangs are not distributing meth here in an organized fashion, but "if it were to become tied to gang activity, that would be much more significant because we'd have a profit motive," he said.
Street gangs, prison gangs and outlaw motorcycle gangs are the predominant organized distributors of illegal drugs and become more threatening as they grow sophisticated, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center.
Center data shows that gangs begin as local, turf-oriented groups - but evolve into sophisticated, profit-driven, organized criminal enterprises that develop relationships with Mexican drug dealers.
Greener Pastures
Manuel Camacho, 27, is charged with accomplice to capital murder in the "road rage" case from Lowell in May 2006.
Camacho was born in Mexico, spent formative years in Salinas, Calif., and moved to Northwest Arkansas about six years ago. He was deported at least once, and has several gang tattoos - including "831" on his neck, a California area code, and "13" on his right arm, a symbol of the Hispanic gang Sureno 13, according to court records.
Camacho's attorneys claim he moved to Arkansas to escape gang connections. Yet, Rogers Police encountered him more than a dozen times. In October 2005, Officer Brian Hanna warned Camacho not to be on a property at West Lela Street. Hanna asked if he belonged to a gang, then noted on reports Camacho claimed the 18th Street gang - a faction of Sureno 13 and the Mexican Mafia.
About six months later, Camacho drove the car when Daniel Francis, 32, a father of four, was shot and killed, police say. Attorneys for co-defendant Serafin Sandoval-Vega, who is accused of pulling the trigger, plan a defense that includes Sandoval-Vega being dominated and controlled by Camacho, according to court records.
The Francis murder case is a priority for Benton County Senior Circuit Judge Tom Keith before he retires this year. Attorneys are haggling details of questionnaires to be mailed to potential jurors in June. Jury selection is set to begin July 8 and Keith set aside six weeks.
In a hearing scheduled for Friday, defense attorneys will fight to keep any mention of gang affiliation from jurors. Prosecutors and defense will each present testimony from a gang expert.
Valdez, retired supervisor of a gang unit for the Orange County district attorney, will support prosecutors' theory that gang activity was a motive. Valdez studies slang, graffiti, tattoos and clothing to detect gang membership, according to his Web site, and is a published author on gang issues and history.
Defense attorneys for Camacho hired their own expert, Brian Contreras, a former gang member from Camacho's home town of Salinas, Calif. He will argue gangs weren't a factor, said attorney Tim Buckley. According to Contreras's Web site, he directs a gang prevention and intervention center.
Keith will rule whether jurors can hear the gang allegations, which could determine motive for the killing and be justification for the death penalty.
Prosecutor Van Stone said a person's character is an issue for sentencing so, even if evidence of gang affiliation isn't allowed at trial, it could be presented during the sentencing phase if Camacho or Sandoval-Vega are found guilty.
"The nature of these crimes are outrageous, and we prosecute violent criminal acts as hard as we can, whether or not they are gang motivated," Stone said.
A third co-defendant, Roxana Hernandez, who rode in the passenger seat that day, may plead guilty and testify about what she saw and heard, her attorney said. She's been housed in a different jail than Camacho and Sandoval-Vega for almost two years, for her safety, her attorney said.
In the December 2006 murder of Derrick Jefferson, the 17-year-old black boy, prosecutors and police allege at least one defendant had connections with MS-13 of southern California.
Erickson Dimas-Martinez, 22, who is charged with capital murder and aggravated robbery, lived in Springdale for five months before Jefferson's shooting, according to police. He was in the United States on a worker's permit, making $8.35 an hour at a poultry company. He spent three years prior in California and had two convictions there - for stealing a car and driving under the influence.
Wes McBride, a retired police sergeant and executive director of California Gang Investigators Association, said he's heard about increasing gang activity in Arkansas from his former partner, who retired here.
"When you have these small towns with poultry industry, they bring cheap labor in the form of immigrants," McBride said. "(Mara Salvatrucha) follows the cheap labor market. You don't notice at first but then they start fighting, in particular the Salvadorians and Mexicans."
Los Angeles County had 600 gang murders last year. Many involved mixed races and resemble these Northwest Arkansas cases, McBride said.
"If they have any roots in L.A., that (racial tension) is exactly what happens. We're having interracial warfare here. These gangs never liked each other, but they're bumping up against each other and when that happens they fight."
McBride started the first gang database in the country, now called Calgangs, which tracks identifiers such as nicknames, associates and vehicles.
"This goes beyond fistfights. Gangs are criminal entities and they will destroy a neighborhood," McBride said.
Transitions
National trends show gang members are migrating, leaving big cities for smaller, said Valdez, the gang expert from California, who recently taught a class in Northwest Arkansas for local police through Balfe's office.
"They're hiding from the cops ... starting a new life," Valdez said. "They tend to become a big fish in a little pond. Some go back to gang life because they like the respect and honor - or, as it's called, the 'street creds' they get from the local kids."
O'Kelley agreed Northwest Arkansas is seeing an influx of gang members from the West Coast.
"In some of these families it has been a way of life, and it's passed down to the kids. And, particularly in the Hispanic community, the trust factor with law enforcement is at an all-time low," O'Kelley said.
Gangs can have a different quality from the 1980s and 1990s, when members sought money and protection in a hidden, underground world.
Today, gang members flash the lingo, sign language and clothing. They idolize rappers and movie stars, and crave entertainment and fast money, said one former Little Rock member of the Bloods, a black street gang that originated in Los Angeles.
Aaron Agnew now lives in Springdale but was raised in east Little Rock, where he "walked around with a pistol and my finger on the trigger all the time," he said.
He moved to Northwest Arkansas in 2003, running from warrants and the law and considers himself one of the 5 percent of his neighborhood pals not dead (80 percent), in prison (10 percent), or "still on drugs, doing the same things (5 percent)."
At 26, Agnew is now a husband, father, pastor and business owner. He said a relationship with God made the difference.
"Fatherlessness makes young people turn to something else. I see it in their faces - a sense of depression and paranoia. They need somebody," he said.
Gangs prey on children of working parents, said Hilda Gomez of Bella Vista, president of the local chapter of League of United Latin American Citizens, and many Hispanic neighborhoods are in crisis with gang members on the streets, especially at night.
"I'm seeing the criminal element from California coming to Northwest Arkansas, bringing their hatred here, and we're starting to have a lot of the same problems as big cities," Gomez said. With economic pressures on families, "kids are going home to an empty house, and feel rejected. Gangs show them how to make money with little or no effort, and they say, 'If you don't join our gang we'll hurt your family.' And you'll always have kids with bigger brothers in gangs - they look up to that."
Gomez interprets for Hispanic families in Rogers schools.
"I deal with a lot of these parents, they say, 'I don't know what to do.' Older siblings are a bad influence. The younger kids hear an older child brag that he dropped out of school in ninth grade. Parents ask me, 'Can the court system take my child?'"
Gomez is a third-generation American, raised in a rough El Paso neighborhood. She has lived in Northwest Arkansas more than 10 years. She believes many gang members don't fear police because they want to be in prison "to become a bigger gang member, for the free food and medical care."
The Hispanic community is ashamed of crime, Gomez said.
"The bad thing about Northwest Arkansas is that, when a Hispanic commits a crime, people assume all Hispanics are criminals. Around here, we have to be thrown in one bucket no matter who we are.
"The road rage - that case made (Hispanics) mad. These people, it seemed like they shot that man for fun."
Balfe said minorities themselves suffer the most from gang violence.
"What you'll find in other cities is that minorities are most victimized by gang activity; they are the people who are crying the loudest for something to be done," Balfe said. " Overall we live in a very safe community. It's the community I choose for my family, for my kids to grow up in. But after 14 years as a prosecutor, I'm paranoid. I worry about these issues a lot."
Prison Gang Facts
Inmate population of Arkansas Department of Corrections: 14,500
Number believed to be in gangs: 1,200
Prison officials watch for signs as subtle as growing out a fingernail, rolling a pant leg or sleeve.
Inmate letters and phone calls are monitored, and visitors must have background checks.
"Whatever they did on the streets, that's what they want to do in prison," Tyler said. "It goes way beyond the Bloods, Crips, Aryan Nation and MS-13. We have every gang represented in prison. We have black and white gangs and, as the Hispanic population grows in Arkansas, we are getting Hispanic gangs, too - but their numbers are much lower."
Source: Dina Tyler, spokesperson, Arkansas Department of Corrections
Area Police Departments On Gang Activity
"We don't see as much gang activity here. Fayetteville is still so much a college town. If someone meets the criteria, we have them entered in (Arkansas Crime Information Center)."
Shannon Gabbard, Fayetteville Police Department spokesman
"If we find somebody, we notify Rogers. For us to be right next door and have so little activity, it's crazy. We're such different communities. I can't put my finger on the dynamic causing it. We're keeping an eye on the middle, junior and high schools for any gang activity whatsoever. We look for pure prevention."
James Allen, Bentonville Police Department chief
"Gangs are one of the problems that come with growth. It's one of the worst things that can happen to a community. We continue to monitor, get training, and work toward that goal of no gangs. If we let the pressure up, they'll come back."
Steve Helms, Rogers Police Department chief
"We started a full-time crime suppression unit this week. It's a growing problem, not just in Springdale."
Shane Pegram, Springdale Police Department sergeant
Reader Comments (19 comment(s))
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ralphy mendez wrote on Mar 29, 2008 10:20 PM:
Child by night wrote on Mar 30, 2008 6:47 AM:
The only candidate I've seen sounding the warning is Cradduck. I've never met him personally, but I think voters need to take a good hard look at the candidates.
The times they are "a-changing". "
arkietex wrote on Mar 30, 2008 8:14 AM:
ozarks wrote on Mar 30, 2008 9:09 AM:
Weenie wrote on Mar 30, 2008 9:30 AM:
ralphy mendez wrote on Mar 30, 2008 9:42 AM:
nwacitizen wrote on Mar 30, 2008 11:46 AM:
politically correct wrote on Mar 30, 2008 12:12 PM:
ozarks wrote on Mar 30, 2008 1:11 PM:
politically correct wrote on Mar 30, 2008 5:30 PM:
Tspud wrote on Mar 30, 2008 7:52 PM:
sovereignty wrote on Mar 30, 2008 8:35 PM:
masonstorm1958 wrote on Apr 1, 2008 8:12 PM:
10-4 wrote on Apr 4, 2008 9:32 PM:
Who'sit wrote on Apr 5, 2008 3:31 PM:
As a concerned voter, it has me puzzled as to which is worse, a sheriff that was aware of the gang problems and did nothing about it while in office or a Sheriff that has the authority now and denies there is a problem . "
Ozarks wrote on Apr 5, 2008 5:34 PM:
arkietex wrote on Apr 6, 2008 7:23 AM:
Not already registered?
flamingo79 wrote on Mar 29, 2008 8:06 PM: