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"Lets Roll" <letsroll@meet-me-in-hell.com> wrote in message news:<10bimsp9lpj6b42@corp.supernews.com>...
> Gangs Find Bucolic New Turf in Va.
> Shenandoah Area Raises Concern
> 
> By Michelle Boorstein
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Sunday, May 30, 2004; Page C01
> 
> 
> STRASBURG, Va. -- As police chief of this idyllic Shenandoah Valley town,
> Marshall A. Robinson typically spends his days checking to make sure
> residents have locked their doors, stopping in on seniors who live alone,
> waving and honking at friends every half-block. But in the past week, he has
> added a new stop to his rounds: a construction site where he believes
> members of one of Virginia's most violent gangs are working.
> 
> "We're used to our little vandalism, larcenies, smoking a little pot," said
> Robinson, who grew up in this town of 4,000 that sits beside the Massanutten
> Mountains, at the northern tip of the Shenandoah Valley. "But now we're into
> this whole MS-13 thing," he said, using the acronym for Mara Salvatrucha, a
> violent gang whose members he suspects are mixing among day laborers in
> Strasburg.
> 
> After years of watching news reports about violent gangs in the Washington
> suburbs -- or "over the mountain," as people here call places like Manassas
> and Alexandria -- residents of the rural belt that parallels Shenandoah
> National Park are finding that gang members in the nation's capital are
> doing what everyone else is doing: migrating farther out in search of a
> better quality of life.
> 
> Their arrival has been marked in subtle ways: "MS-13" spray-painted on the
> side of a red barn, a game warden harassed by gang members while checking
> fishing licenses, gang tattoos showing up at county fairs. The ugliest
> calling card, the one that transformed law enforcement dialogue on the
> topic, was found in the most beautiful of spots. At a particularly lush
> curve of the Shenandoah River, in a vast valley called Meem's Bottom, the
> body of Brenda Paz, 18 years old and four months pregnant, was found knifed
> and floating last summer. Law enforcement sources said Paz had been
> providing information in a half-dozen investigations across the country,
> including a homicide case in Alexandria allegedly involving members of
> MS-13.
> 
> On May 20, federal and local law enforcement officials held a joint news
> conference 80 miles away in Fairfax County to warn about the spread of gang
> violence through exurbia and into the rural Shenandoah Valley. They pledged
> $500,000 in additional funds for a problem that recently escalated with a
> machete attack on a Fairfax youth and the shooting death of a Herndon
> teenager, one of at least seven slayings in Northern Virginia linked to
> MS-13 since 2000.
> 
> Law enforcement officials in the Shenandoah Valley say they believe sprawl
> from the inner suburbs is the main reason for an appearance in the last year
> or two of violent and largely Latino street gangs. But there are other
> likely reasons, including a well-established community of Latino immigrants
> in which to blend, thousands of Mexicans and Salvadorans drawn here for jobs
> in the poultry, plastics and construction industries. Some investigators
> fear that gangs want a piece of the region's large drug market, a trade that
> centers on methamphetamine -- or "meth" -- from Mexico. Others believe gang
> members are still just young Latinos who see gangs as something socially
> binding in a segregated place.
> 
> At this point, law enforcement officials acknowledge that they do not know
> precisely what they are dealing with. Only since Paz's slaying has attention
> turned to the topic, and information-gathering is so new that basic
> questions are unanswered: How big is this gang population? Are they mostly
> teenagers or adults? And most, importantly, what motivates them?
> 
> "We can't do something until they do something, so for now we are going to
> take pictures; we are going to identify them," Robinson said. "For now,
> we're just waiting."
> 
> Todd Gilbert, assistant commonwealth's attorney for Shenandoah County,
> believes that gang members live in the Shenandoah region but that they do
> not have any real infrastructure -- yet. "Our worst-case scenario would be
> to get competing gangs. I can almost get a palpable sense it may be coming."
> 
> A few months after the Paz slaying, gang graffiti popped up in a dozen
> places in Woodstock, the second-largest community in Shenandoah County, with
> 3,500 people. Law enforcement officials began sharing more information with
> one another, holding training sessions with their counterparts in the
> Washington suburbs and becoming more aggressive about gathering
> intelligence.
> 
> Although there is disagreement about how well entrenched gang members are in
> the Shenandoah Valley and what their goals are, law enforcement officials
> agree that the counties along Interstate 81 -- Frederick, Shenandoah and
> Rockingham -- have experienced an increase in gang activity. Authorities
> have inadvertently crossed paths with gang members, either by staking out
> public events, such as fairs, or by running across them in criminal cases
> such as domestic disputes or shoplifting.
> 
> Only one person in the northern Shenandoah Valley has been charged
> specifically with being involved in MS-13 or Surenos (SUR-13), Gilbert said:
> Juan Jose Valencia Ramirez, 19, who police said spray-painted a gang tag on
> a dumpster in Woodstock this year. He was charged with damaging property and
> with doing so as part of a criminal gang. He agreed to a plea agreement that
> convicted him of property damage but gave him a year-long sentence with six
> months suspended -- much longer than the typical penalty without the gang
> association, he said.
> 
> Capt. Garlan Gochenour, commander of a regional task force focused on drugs
> and gangs, said his group has handled dozens of cases in the past year
> involving gang members -- even if the people were not charged with being in
> a gang.
> 
> To whatever degree drugs are a factor, Shenandoah Valley is the place to be,
> Gochenour said. Shenandoah County is one of the country's meth hubs, and
> aspiring drug dealers find it a more pleasant business climate, with less
> violence involved in staking out turf than in the city. According to
> Gochenour, methamphetamine was selling for about $32,000 a pound in
> Shenandoah County in the late 1990s but is now about $4,000 a pound as the
> supply has grown.
> 
> The region had its biggest crackdown ever on MS-13 and SUR-13 early this
> month, when authorities raided 10 apartments, trailers and houses in
> Woodstock in the middle of the night and arrested 47 people, including 17 on
> immigration violations and 30 on drug-related charges. Although no one has
> been charged with gang-related crimes, officials said they believe many are
> gang members. They also said they learned more about the gang infrastructure
> during the investigation, which was extended for months when officials
> realized the gang connections.
> 
> Gangs are not new to the region. There have long been biker gangs, and last
> year, Shenandoah County was at the center of a six-state investigation of
> the Warlocks biker gang that led to 34 arrests, mostly on drug and weapons
> charges. In the mid-1990s, authorities in Winchester cracked down on a
> street gang that was mostly involved in petty crime. The difference with
> gangs such as MS-13 and SUR-13 is their record of brutality, officials say.
> 
> "Usually, gang violence is associated with drugs, money and violence. With
> these people, it seems to just be about violence," said Capt. Allen Sibert,
> who works on drug and gang cases in Warren County.
> 
> Selling these ideas won't be easy in cheery Shenandoah Valley, where road
> signs direct travelers to caverns, fishing holes and covered bridges and
> where crime is uncommon.
> 
> Rick Lambert, whose family owns the red barn that was tagged six months ago,
> smiled in the most undisturbed manner when asked how he felt about being
> targeted by an MS-13 member.
> 
> "A week later, we got an apology letter," Lambert said of the 17-year-old,
> who offered to pay for the damage. "But we said we were tearing it down
> anyway."
> 
> Lambert surmised that the barn was targeted because Lambert's Moving and
> Storage is "on the outskirts of town. Nobody bothers us."
> 
> Lambert's casual attitude was mirrored even at Valley Vista apartments, the
> complex where six apartments were raided a few weeks ago and where officials
> said MS-13 members live.
> 
> "The only problem we have is sometimes they drink in the parking lot and
> play loud music," said Maria Duque, 16, who translated from Spanish the
> opinion of her 48-year-old father, Virgilio, about young men in the complex.
> The family moved to Woodstock from Mexico five years ago, she said, and has
> never seen any evidence of gangs, she said.
> 
> Then Maria Duque and her parents got into their van, which was parked in
> front of a clean red brick wall. Just a few months ago, before it was
> cleaned, the wall was scrawled with black writing: "MS-13."

How lucky the citizen of the valley are to get a first hand chance to
savor diverity. However, they will have to pay for the experience.

Tom