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Newsela | How Nipsey Hussle's death inspired peace talks among L.A. gangs

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After the death of Nipsey Hussle, South Los Angeles' rival gangs came together and, for the first time in decades, talked about stopping the violence.

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Breaking the Cycle of Gang Violence Episode 1: Interview with Pastor Mike Salazar

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In the first episode, a discussion will be had with pastor Mike Salazar, a former gang member who will discuss how he got into gangs and how he got out.

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Police: Gang revenge fuels latest Chicago violence

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This story is published in partnership with The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence. Sign up for one of their newsletters here.
Earlier this August, a traffic stop left a beloved police officer shot to death and another partially paralyzed, sending shockwaves throughout Chicago. The following morning, Mayor Lori Lightfoot gave a speech pushing a narrative that's dominated city news conferences and court hearings for decades. "We have a common enemy: It's the guns and the gangs," she said. "Eradicating both is complex, but we cannot let the size of the challenge deter us. We have to continue striking hard blows, every day. No gang member, no drug dealer, no gun dealer can ever have a moment of peace on any block, any neighborhood, not in our city."

The mayor's words frustrated residents and former gang members who say it oversimplifies the problem. "How could you say somebody needs to be eradicated? They need help. They need to heal inside," says Sylvester Henderson, 36, who grew up on the city's West Side. "If you really want to change the problem then you got to help the community grow, to build."

Although Lightfoot spoke to the public with certainty, her own police department's records can't verify the narrative. The Trace analyzed incident data for nearly 34,000 shootings and found that in the past decade, detectives labeled fewer than three in 10 of them gang-related. Police categorized the cases this way even in instances when they didn't have enough information to make an arrest. Data shows that police did not identify a cause or motive in the majority of incidents.

The Trace spoke with nearly 30 researchers, city officials, and community members about what, exactly, is known about the impact gangs have on Chicago. More than a dozen were current and former gang or clique-affiliated residents. These interviews, in addition to gang intelligence records and shooting data, reveal that assessing the scope of gang violence in Chicago is difficult, in part because of inconsistent police data and the changing nature of gangs, which have fractured. It's not just a technical issue. People distrust the police after decades of misconduct, so they don't talk to them all that much, leading to fewer shootings being solved.

"If in the course of the investigation of these shootings, CPD is looking in its own data for information about whether the people involved were gang affiliated," says Deborah Witzburg, Chicago's Inspector General for Public Safety, "it's looking at the very same data that we identified as profoundly problematic and which the department acknowledged to be problematic."

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How many cops have gotten their vaccine shots? The question has a definite answer. But no one in Mayor Lori Lightfoot's office or the police department seems able to put a number on it.

Witzburg, who previously worked as a Cook County prosecutor, believes that gangs do contribute to much of Chicago's violence, but she says it's a problem that the data can't back it up.

CPD declined to be interviewed for this story, despite receiving a dozen requests. The Mayor's Office did not comment on the findings, either, but said Lightfoot was referring to eradicating the root causes of gang violence, not gang members themselves.

Chicago isn't the only city pointing fingers at gangs. Across the country, gangs have once again become a scapegoat for politicians and police navigating a violent crime resurgence during the pandemic. New York City is promoting gang takedowns as a cure, despite research showing their ineffectiveness. A county councilmember in Washington State called to reestablish a local gang unit. And city officials in Virginia are spending thousands on gang identification and intervention.

"Saying the word 'gang' makes the victim less sympathetic, it makes the situation less sympathetic, it creates an 'other,'" says Andrew Papachristos, a professor and researcher at Northwestern University who's spent years studying the city's gang networks. "The reality is, gang members are also neighbors, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, [and] employees."

The narrative vs. the numbers

Since the mid-2010s, the Chicago Police Department has attributed a steadily decreasing share of shootings to gangs, The Trace found. Last year, CPD designated 43 percent of fatal shootings as gang-related, down from 70 percent five years earlier.

Over the same time period, the share of nonfatal shootings officially linked to gangs fell from 34 percent to 7 percent. It's unclear what accounts for this decline. A few possibilities might explain it: Gang-related shootings are actually decreasing, detectives are unable to connect shootings to gangs because of their more fluid nature - or, simply, the information the police are able to gather is too limited.

Veteran researcher Roseanna Ander is the founding executive director of the University of Chicago's Crime Lab, a research center that often analyzes Chicago police data. She isn't surprised that CPD has only tied a small share of shootings to gangs. Ander says focusing on gangs distracts from the sheer number of guns available in the city.

"I think we would eradicate gun violence long before we could eradicate young people joining gangs, or cliques, or crews," she said.

Still, it's hard to say how reliable CPD's numbers are. The shooting incident data The Trace analyzed was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. It contains information on each shooting CPD responds to, and includes the date, time, location, and weapon involved in each incident. The Police Department also lists the motive and causal factors for shootings, which are often marked with descriptors like "narcotics," "street gangs," and "retaliation."

CPD was more than twice as likely to label a shooting gang-related if the victim was Latinx, the analysis showed. Detectives were also more likely to attribute a shooting to gangs if it resulted in a homicide. These shootings were largely concentrated in predominantly low-income communities. Even in cases where detectives knew enough to make an arrest - less than 3,000 in the past decade - they labeled only a third as gang-related. The motive and cause for 75 percent of nonfatal shootings and a quarter of fatal ones is either left blank or marked as "undetermined."

One police officer knowledgeable of CPD's gang operations and homicide investigations believes the data undercounts the role gangs play in the city's violence. "I do not think that the data accurately reflects the truth of what the situation is, by far," said the officer, who asked not to be named out of concern for professional backlash. "If we don't get that cooperation [from victims] we really can't put that information in the system like that. Surviving victims, the level of cooperation we get [from them] is usually minimum to nothing. It's very frustrating."

The officer said the changing dynamics of gangs make it difficult to capture the underlying cause of a shooting. "It's gotten so convoluted, how do you accurately report that? That decline is not surprising to me. This is gang related, it's gangs - but it's taken a different form."

A 2019 review by a police association found that the department does not have comprehensive guidance for investigating homicides, which led to inconsistencies in the way they're done. An Inspector General report that year also found that the department's gang databases were inaccurate and out of date, and showed that CPD disproportionately targeted Black and Latinx residents.

It's unclear how much of CPD's nearly $2 billion dollar budget goes toward these types of anti-gang operations, which include publishing annual territory maps and audit reports on suspected gangs. The efforts come even though every level of government struggles to define what gangs actually are; sometimes, the same agency - like the Chicago Police Department - provides conflicting information about who they are and what they do. In general, the Chicago Police seem to define a gang as a group of two or more people with recognized leadership, who come together to commit crimes. CPD's website claims that gangs have "become more violent," despite its own data showing otherwise.

Chico Tillmon is a research fellow with the University of Chicago's Crime and Education Labs. He says the Police Department's data is reliable, but has limitations because of the department's low clearance rate. "The challenge is with the qualitative data," he said. "With a clearance rate at 20 percent, that means 80 percent of the data is missing. They don't fully understand what's happening."

Tillmon, 50, grew up in the city's Austin neighborhood on the West Side and spent most of his youth in gangs. He says these groups reflect the poverty and desperation that communities face.

Chicago remains one of America's most economically and racially segregated cities. Amid the skyscrapers on The Magnificent Mile, wealthy tourists and residents shop at pricey retailers where a pair of sandals can easily cost $200. Just four miles west, in the shadow of that storied skyline, some of the city's young people live in poverty and are surrounded by a pervasive sense of danger, where even a walk to school can feel perilous. These experiences can lead them to join cliques, which provide a sense of safety and community.

"Take a ride down Chicago Avenue. Start from Western, go all the way to Pulaski, and you'll see why it's so violent. It's destitute, it's broken," Tillmon said of his neighborhood. "All those things are a perfect storm for violence."

From gangs to cliques

Gangs have existed in Chicago for more than 100 years, transforming from predominantly white immigrant groups to Black and Latinx ones. The Trace analyzed annual reports published by CPD from 1965 to 2019, and found that the department rarely attributed murders to gangs or organized crime until the mid-'90s, the height of the " superpredator " era.

Over the past 30 years, most of Chicago's historic gangs have deteriorated because of federal racketeering and drug prosecutions. The breakdown in leadership structures - and the city's destruction of public housing projects - resulted in gangs splintering.

Many current and former gang and clique-affiliated residents reiterated a common refrain: They said gangs don't exist anymore. Many of the small groups and cliques in their place don't fit the definition that law enforcement bestowed on them: They often lack central leadership and not everyone who joins does so to commit crime. The reason for joining can be as simple as a desire to hang out with neighbors.

On a recent heat-stricken August day, a group of teenagers and young men shared their experiences with Chicago's cliques - and their opinions on how connected the groups are to gun violence. The Trace is identifying the men by the initials of their last names only, out of concern for potential legal consequences.

Cliques are often named after their neighborhood, street, or a friend who was shot and killed, they said. Some members might focus on activities that aren't based on a specific clique, like social media clout or making drill music, notable for its diss tracks against opposing groups, real or imagined. Some have lost their lives because of it.

If drugs are involved, it's often individuals, and not cliques selling; and it's mostly marijuana. Guns are more likely to be hand-me-downs than trafficked, one man said. Despite the changing landscape, the incentives for joining these groups have remained largely the same: safety and status.

"We don't live differently than anybody else. We got dreams, goals, aspirations just like everybody else do," said D. "The things that we do in our teenage years that are clique-related - it's [a] phase you go through."

Gangs, they said, have become a catch-all term. "They tend to blame everything on gangs and the music we listening to. I don't really think it's that," said B., one of the young men. "I got homies that don't gangbang. They in [a clique], but they go to college."

Members said it's rare for someone to act solely on behalf of their clique, or because its leader told them to do so. "There are no more gangs," said D. "It's Chicago, [the violence] is personal."

They say conflicts, often called wars, can sometimes start over relationships with women - a reason that they don't often discuss because they don't want to be humiliated by friends.

Like people across the city, they're horrified by the constant shootings and readily available supply of firearms. Though they feel the weight of the city's violence is often pinned on them, most of the young men aren't bothered by what officials say causes gun violence. They say they know the real reasons, and they're just focused on surviving.

Two shootings on Wood Street

Kenneth Davis Jr.'s experience offers another perspective on a story that's often one-sided. Before being released from prison earlier this year, he spent more than two decades reflecting on the incident that changed his life.

In 1995, Davis shot and killed a man in a small park on Wood Street in Englewood. Davis was just 18 at the time, and says he shot the man because he was chasing a friend with a machete. Although they were all in gangs at the time, Davis doesn't consider his shooting to be gang-related. "This was not a matter of the Mickey Cobras and the Black P. Stones feuding - this had nothing to do with it," he said. "It was me coming to the defense of my friend. ...It wasn't about the gangs. It was about the same sort of thing that these kids find themselves in today."

Police didn't buy it and neither did prosecutors, who won their case after they argued that the shooting was gang retaliation.

Davis says tales of gang-driven crime are so powerful because government and media amplify them. "It forces society to lose any sense of empathy for - in many cases - kids who simply have no interpersonal problem-solving skills," he said.

More than a decade after Davis fired the bullet that night in the park, another tragedy unfolded about a mile south on Wood Street, where Michelle Rashad grew up.

In 2011, a family friend named Corneilius Jordan was shot and killed. "To this day it just angers me because I remember it was a case of mistaken identity, [the shooter] thought he was somebody else," she said. "He died in the hands of our neighbor."

Rashad, 29, directs Imagine Englewood If, an organization that provides youth development programs in the neighborhood. Her voice gets louder when she recalls reading the news article about Jordan's death, which she says wrongly associated him with gangs.

"It was such a short article. It didn't talk about him being a working man, it didn't talk about his son, or how he would always put on a great fireworks show," she said. "The story didn't care about him being a human being. The story ended with him being gang-related, and that's where it ends for a lot of people."

A glamorous life

While officials have consistently blamed gangs, many people interviewed said they haven't done much to change the reason a young person in Chicago might join one. They sometimes miss it entirely.

Just over a week after the two police officers were shot in early August, Mayor Lightfoot held an event celebrating her INVEST South/West initiative, a multimillion-dollar plan to expand commercial and residential real estate in some neighborhoods. During the news conference afterward, Lightfoot attributed "dangerous gang members" to the city's uptick in highway shootings.

"The biggest thing is, we've got to be united in our focus on rooting out this gang activity and going after the gangs - because that's really what the heart of the problem is," she said. "These are not random shootings."

The Mayor's Office said in its statement that Lightfoot believes the only way to improve safety is by partnering with residents, and that public safety is the city's No. 1 priority.

Like many veterans who came up through Chicago's historic gangs, Guillermo Gutierrez bristles at the sweeping statements people in power often make.
Chip Brownlee contributed reporting and conducted interviews for this story. Daniel Nass contributed to the data analysis.
He grew up in the heart of Little Village, a predominantly Mexican neighborhood on Chicago's Southwest Side. "My dad worked 50-60 hours a week. He was always tired, but unfortunately, he was always broke, too," Gutierrez said. "Right outside my door was that glamor life - these young guys hanging out had money, girls, and cars - so of course that was more attractive."

He became so immersed in the lifestyle that he was surprised to realize he was still alive by the time he turned 21. He slowly began to redirect his time. Now 47, he leads the street outreach team for Enlace, focused on violence prevention and mediation. Gutierrez says violence is often caused by interpersonal disagreements or domestic violence. Recently, he said, it's felt more and more random.

"Violence comes from frustration, from anger, from not having the rent, or not having food, or not having a good job," he said. "Until we address those issues, I think sometimes it's easier just to say it is a gang problem."

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The problems with Chicago's gang-centric narrative of gun violence

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City officials have repeatedly blamed gangs for driving up shootings. But an analysis shows that the police department's data doesn't back leaders' claims.

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Chicago Gang Violence in Detroit Documentary 2018 | Insights DC

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Shootouts & Snitches: The Brutal Gangs of Sheffield (Crime Documentary) | Real Stories

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Introduction

Mexican authorities have been waging a deadly battle against drug cartels for more than a decade, but with limited success. Thousands of Mexicans-including politicians, students, and journalists-die in the conflict every year. The country has seen more than 360,000 homicides since 2006, when the government declared war on the cartels.

The United States has partnered closely with its southern neighbor in this fight, providing Mexico with billions of dollars to modernize its security forces, reform its judicial system, and fund development projects aimed at curbing migration at Mexico's southern border. Washington has also sought to stem the flow of illegal drugs into the United States by bolstering security and monitoring operations along its border with Mexico.

What drugs do the cartels traffic?

Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs)-sometimes referred to as transnational criminal organizations-dominate the import and distribution of cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine in the United States. Mexican suppliers are responsible for most heroin and methamphetamine production, while cocaine is largely produced in Colombia and then transported to the United States by Mexican criminal organizations. Mexico, along with China, is also a leading source of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to fifty times more potent than heroin. The amount of fentanyl seized by Mexican authorities nearly quintupled between 2019 and 2020.

The amount of fentanyl seized by Mexican authorities nearly quintupled between 2019 and 2020.

At the same time, the cartels smuggle vast quantities of marijuana into the United States, even though some U.S. jurisdictions have legalized it. Conversely, California's booming cannabis industry has prompted traffickers to smuggle U.S.-grown marijuana across the border to Mexico, where lawmakers have yet to fully legalize the drug.

Which are the largest cartels?

Mexico's drug cartels are in a constant state of flux. Over the decades, they have grown, splintered, forged new alliances, and battled one another for territory. The cartels that pose the most significant drug trafficking threats [PDF] to the United States, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), are:

Sinaloa Cartel. Formerly led by Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, Sinaloa is one of Mexico's oldest and most influential drug trafficking groups. With strongholds in nearly half of Mexico's states-particularly those along the Pacific coast in the northwest and near the country's southern and northern borders-and operations in as many as fifty countries, it has a larger international footprint than any of its Mexican rivals. In 2017, Mexican authorities extradited Guzmán to the United States, where he is serving a life sentence for multiple drug-related charges. In 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden imposed sanctions on eight members of the group, which is now led by Ismael Zambada García and El Chapo's sons, known as "Los Chapitos."

Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). Jalisco splintered from Sinaloa in 2010 and is among Mexico's fastest-growing cartels, with operations in more than two-thirds of the country. According to the DEA, the "rapid expansion of its drug trafficking activities is characterized by the group's willingness to engage in violent confrontations" with authorities and rival cartels. U.S. officials estimate that CJNG supplies more than one-third of the U.S. drug market.

Beltrán-Leyva Organization (BLO). The group formed when the Beltrán-Leyva brothers split from Sinaloa in 2008. Since then, all four brothers have been arrested or killed, but their loyalists continue to operate throughout Mexico. The organization's splinter groups have become more autonomous and powerful, maintaining ties to Jalisco, Juárez, and Los Zetas.

Los Zetas. Originally a paramilitary enforcement arm for the Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas was singled out by the DEA in 2007 as the country's most " technologically advanced, sophisticated, and violent " group of its kind. It splintered from the Gulf Cartel in 2010 and held sway over swaths of eastern, central, and southern Mexico. However, it has lost power in recent years and fractured into rival wings, the most prominent being the Northeast Cartel.

Guerreros Unidos (GU). Based in southwestern Mexico, Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors) broke away from the BLO in 2009 and became involved in the heroin trade. The group is known to have a partnership with the CJNG, using the same transportation networks to move drug shipments to and from the United States.

Gulf Cartel. Its base of power is in northeast Mexico, especially the states of Tamaulipas and Zacatecas, and it is thought to be working with CJNG members in those areas. In the past decade, the group has splintered into various factions, diluting its strength as it battles for territory with Los Zetas. In 2021, three warring Gulf factions announced they had reached a truce, insisting that they wanted to maintain peace in Tamaulipas.

Juárez Cartel. A long-standing rival of Sinaloa, Juárez has its stronghold in the north-central state of Chihuahua, across the border from New Mexico and Texas. In recent years, the group has splintered into several factions, including La Línea, which controls street-level enforcement.

La Familia Michoacána (LFM). Formed in the 1980s, LFM has its base in western Mexico's Michoacán State. In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama designated the group's members as " significant foreign narcotics traffickers " and imposed financial sanctions on it under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. While still active, LFM has weakened and fragmented in recent years.

Los Rojos. Another splinter group of the BLO, Los Rojos operates in central and southwestern Mexico and relies largely on kidnapping and extortion. Although several of its leaders were arrested between 2019 and 2020, the group remains active, and along with Guerreros Unidos, has been linked to the 2014 disappearance and murder of forty-three students from a university in Guerrero State.

What led to the cartels' growth?

Experts point to both domestic and international forces. In Mexico, the cartels use a portion of their vast profits to pay off judges, officers, and politicians. They also coerce officials into cooperating; assassinations of journalists and public servants by the cartels are relatively common. Dozens of politicians were killed ahead of the country's midterm elections in 2021, with many of the deaths attributed to the cartels.

The cartels flourished during the seven decades that Mexico was ruled by a single party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Within this centralized political structure, drug trafficking groups cultivated a wide network of corrupt officials through which they were able to gain distribution rights, market access, and protection.

The PRI's unbroken reign finally ended in 2000 with the election of President Vicente Fox of the conservative National Action Party (PAN). With new politicians in power, cartels ramped up violence against the government in an effort to reestablish their hold [PDF] on the state.

Cartels use a portion of their vast profits to pay off judges, officers, and politicians.

At the international level, Mexican cartels began to take on a much larger role in the late 1980s, after U.S. government agencies broke up Caribbean networks used by Colombian cartels to smuggle cocaine. Mexican gangs eventually shifted from being couriers for Colombian criminal organizations, including the infamous Cali and Medellín cartels, to being wholesalers. By 2007, Mexican cartels controlled an estimated 90 percent [PDF] of the cocaine entering the United States.

The U.S. government, despite waging a "war on drugs" and conducting other counternarcotics efforts abroad, has made little progress in reducing demand. In 2017, Americans spent $153 billion [PDF] on illegal drugs, including cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine. The growing use of synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, has contributed to a public health crisis.

How are drugs smuggled into the United States?

Most of the illicit drugs entering the United States that are seized by authorities are discovered at official ports of entry, of which there are more than three hundred.

Traffickers employ various tactics to evade detection by U.S. authorities at the border. These include hiding or disguising drugs in vehicles or maritime vessels, smuggling them into the United States through underground tunnels, and flying them over border barriers using drones or other aircraft. After Mexican traffickers smuggle wholesale shipments of drugs into the United States, local groups and street gangs manage retail-level distribution in cities throughout the country.

What measures has Mexico taken to stem the drug trade?

Recent Mexican administrations have responded to cartels primarily by deploying security forces, often spurring more violence:

Felipe Calderón (2006-2012). President Calderón declared war on the cartels shortly after taking office. Over the course of his six-year term, he deployed tens of thousands of military personnel to supplement and, in many cases, replace local police forces he viewed as corrupt. With U.S. assistance, the Mexican military captured or killed twenty-five of the top thirty-seven drug kingpins in Mexico. The militarized crackdown was a centerpiece of Calderón's tenure.

However, some critics say Calderón's decapitation strategy created dozens of smaller, more violent drug gangs. Many also argue that Mexico's military is ill-prepared to perform police functions. The government registered more than 120,000 homicides [PDF] over the course of Calderón's term, nearly twice as many as during his predecessor's time in office. ( Experts estimate that between one-third and one-half of the homicides in Mexico are linked to cartels.)

Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018). Calderón's successor said he would focus more on reducing violence against civilians and businesses than on removing the leaders of cartels. Still, President Peña Nieto relied heavily [PDF] on the military, in combination with the federal police, to battle the cartels. He also created a new national police force, or gendarmerie, of several thousand officers.

Homicides declined in the first years of Peña Nieto's presidency. But 2015 saw an uptick, and by the end of his term, the number of homicides had risen to the highest level in modern Mexican history. Experts attribute this to the continued fallout from the kingpin strategy, territorial feuds, and cartel fragmentation.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-present). Shortly after taking office, President López Obrador, also known as AMLO, announced that his government would move away from militarized attempts to apprehend cartel leaders and instead focus on improving regional security cooperation and reducing homicide rates. His " hugs not bullets " approach seeks to address the socioeconomic drivers of organized crime by creating job opportunities. Since 2018, his administration has launched an anticorruption drive and disrupted cartel finances; it has also proposed decriminalizing all illegal drugs and offering amnesty to low-level cartel members.

Though AMLO has framed his strategy as a novel approach, some experts say his actions-including deploying a new military-led national guard to boost security-echo his predecessors' tactics and are unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the homicide rate continues to hover around record levels.

What has been the toll on human rights?

Civil liberties groups, journalists, and foreign officials have criticized the Mexican government's war with the cartels for years, accusing the military, police, and cartels of widespread human rights violations, including torture, extrajudicial killings, and forced disappearances. More than seventy-nine thousand people have disappeared since 2006, primarily at the hands of criminal organizations such as the cartels, though government forces also play a role. Local search efforts to find the missing and prosecute those responsible have often been stymied by cartel-related violence, government incompetence and corruption, and other factors.

One of the most chilling examples of these abuses occurred in the southern state of Guerrero in 2014, when forty-three student protesters were abducted and presumably killed, though remains of only three students have been definitively identified. The incident prompted mass demonstrations, with protesters demanding answers about the abductions and expressing their exhaustion with Mexico's endemic corruption, violence, and other crime. Investigations into the students' disappearances have purportedly found evidence that authorities, including the police and military, conspired with cartel members in the crimes; the government launched a new inquiry after the students' families, human rights groups, and independent experts questioned the handling of the previous investigation. In August 2022, a judge ordered the former attorney general who oversaw the original investigation to stand trial on charges of forced disappearance, failure to report torture, and misconduct.

In recent years, vigilante groups known as autodefensas have sought to fill in where security forces have failed to protect communities from criminal groups. They have become a formidable force against the cartels in states including Guerrero and Michoacán. However, some vigilantes have committed rights abuses, including the recruitment of child fighters; allegedly maintained ties to cartels in exchange for weapons and protection; and even turned to organized crime themselves.

What assistance has the U.S. government provided?

The United States has cooperated with Mexico on security and counternarcotics to varying degrees over the past several decades. Recent efforts have centered on the Mérida Initiative; since Presidents George W. Bush and Calderón launched the partnership [PDF] in 2007, the United States has appropriated more than $3 billion for it. This assistance has gone toward purchases of military aircraft, surveillance software, and other equipment.

The initiative has evolved to reflect the priorities of national leaders. The Bush administration focused heavily on providing Mexico with security-related assistance, including counternarcotics and counterterrorism support. President Obama widened the scope of aid to target fundamental reforms to Mexico's justice system and to develop crime-prevention programs at the community level, among other efforts, in what became known as "Mérida 2.0" [PDF].

President Donald Trump shifted U.S. priorities for Mérida to issues including border security and combating drug production and money laundering. In a highly controversial move in February 2019, Trump declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border and ordered the deployment of thousands of active-duty military troops there, citing an influx of illicit drugs, criminals, and undocumented immigrants. Mexico later deployed twenty-five thousand National Guard members to secure its borders, which some experts say increased violence and diminished the country's cartel-fighting capacity.

The U.S.-Mexico relationship took a major hit in October 2020, when U.S. authorities arrested General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, a former Mexican defense minister, in Los Angeles for drug trafficking and money laundering. Though the United States later dropped the charges and allowed Cienfuegos to return to Mexico, the Mexican government responded by restricting U.S. law enforcement agents' power to operate in the country.

President Biden inherited a tense security relationship with Mexico, with bilateral cooperation focused mostly on migration, COVID-19, and trade. In October 2021, Presidents Biden and López Obrador announced the creation of a bilateral framework to replace the Mérida Initiative that will seek to address both insecurity in Mexico and the opioid crisis in the United States. But just six months later, the AMLO administration drew outcry from U.S. officials by disbanding a DEA-trained anti-narcotics force that had worked closely with U.S. law enforcement for decades.

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Mexico's Long War: Drugs, Crime, and the Cartels

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Violence continues to rage more than a decade after the Mexican government launched a war against drug cartels.

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Gang-related news from press releases, stories,video, and other information.

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Peace In the Hood: Working with Gang Members to End the Violence

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Amazon.com: Peace In the Hood: Working with Gang Members to End the Violence: 9780897937047: Basheer, Aquil, Hoag, Christina, Carroll, Pete: Books

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By GABRIELA MOLINA

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Ecuador's president has declared a state of emergency in the prison system following a battle among gang members in a coastal lockup that killed at least 118 people and injured 79 in what authorities say was the worst prison bloodbath ever in the country.

Officials said at least five of the dead were found to have been beheaded.

Dozens of police and military vehicles, as well as ambulances, entered the prison compound on Thursday. Helicopters flew over the area.

There could be more bodies or seriously injured people in the prison, said Col. Tannya Varela, the national police commander.

Hundreds of people gathered outside the crime lab in Guayaquil, hoping to collect the bodies of relatives they believed were killed in the prison. The prosecutors' office said on Twitter that police were working to identify bodies.

Henry Coral, a police official, asked family members to help speed the identification of bodies by telling authorities about any tattoo, scar or other distinguishing feature of prisoners believed to have been killed. Some bodies were mutilated or burned, making identification harder.

President Guillermo Lasso decreed a state of emergency Wednesday, which will give the government powers that include deploying police and soldiers inside prisons. The order came a day after bloodshed at the Litoral penitentiary in Guayaquil that officials blamed on gangs linked to international drug cartels fighting for control of the facility.

"It is regrettable that the prisons are being turned into territories for power disputes by criminal gangs," Lasso said, adding that he would act with "absolute firmness" to regain control of the Litoral prison and prevent the violence from spreading to other penitentiaries.

Images circulating on social media showed dozens of bodies in the prison's Pavilions 9 and 10 and scenes that looked like battlefields. The fighting was with firearms, knives and bombs, officials said. Earlier, regional police commander Fausto Buenaño had said that bodies were being found in the prison's pipelines.

Outside the prison morgue, the relatives of inmates wept, with some describing to reporters the cruelty with which their loved ones were decapitated and dismembered.

"In the history of the country, there has not been an incident similar or close to this one," said Ledy Zúñiga, the former president of Ecuador's National Rehabilitation Council.

Zúñiga, who was also the country's minister of justice in 2016, said she regretted that steps had not been taken to prevent another massacre following deadly prison riots last February.

Earlier, officials said the violence erupted from a dispute between the "Los Lobos" and "Los Choneros" prison gangs.

Col. Mario Pazmiño, the former director of Ecuador's military intelligence, said the bloody fighting shows that "transnational organized crime has permeated the structure" of Ecuador's prisons, adding that Mexico's Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels operate through local gangs.

"They want to sow fear," he told The Associated Press on Wednesday, urging the government to temporarily cede control of the prisons to the National Police. "The more radical and violent the way they murder," the more they achieve their goal of control, he added.

Luis Hernández, an analyst on political and military affairs who was a general in Ecuador's army, said imprisoned gang members extend their control from prisons to the streets, managing debts, deliveries and other aspects of the illegal drug trade.

Ecuador is a key transit point for drug trafficking organizations because of its good road infrastructure, three international maritime ports and two international airports, Hernández said.

Ecuador's president said that care points had been set up for relatives of the inmates with food and psychological support. He added that a program to address the country's prisons will be accelerated, starting with investments in infrastructure and technology in the Litoral prison.

The former director of Ecuador's prison bureau, Fausto Cobo, said that inside penitentiaries authorities face a "threat with power equal to or greater than the state itself." He said that while security forces must enter prisons with shields and unarmed, they are met by inmates with high-caliber weapons.

In July, the president decreed another state of emergency in Ecuador's prison system following several violent episodes that resulted in more than 100 inmates being killed. Those deaths occurred in various prisons and not in a single facility like Tuesday's massacre.

Previously, the bloodiest day occurred in February, when 79 prisoners died in simultaneous riots in three prisons in the country. In July, 22 more prisoners lost their lives in the Litoral penitentiary, while in September a penitentiary center was attacked by drones leaving no fatalities.

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Ecuador declares prison emergency after 118 killed in riot

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Ecuador's president has declared a state of emergency in the prison system following a battle among gang members in a coastal lockup that killed at least 116 people and injured 80 in what authorities say was the worst prison bloodbath ever in the country.

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Gangs and guns: stopping Chicago's revenge killings | Unreported World

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Shootouts & Snitches: The Brutal Gangs of Sheffield (Crime Documentary) | Real Stories

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The stereotypical media image for youth gangs is only partially accurate. According to the Justice Department, a gang is a well defined group of youths between 10 and 22 years old." To be considered a "youth gang" a group must be involved in a pattern of criminal acts. The criminal acts, especially acts of violence, serve to cement the group together. Researchers Norman Randolph, Alan McEvoy and Edsel Erickson observe that "sharing the anticipation, danger, harm and excitement of a gang's exercise of brutality against outsiders creates feelings of a common identity and shared purpose." They go on to say:

"Clearly, occasional acts of group violence define group boundaries, create or reinforce group identities, and bind members together in a common cause. Yet it is the shared vicarious reconstruction or anticipation of violence that is so much more relevant to bonding than is violence per se."

Howell points out that violent behavior "is not the only behavior in which gang members partake. For the most part, gang members "hang out" and are involved in other normal adolescent social activities, but drinking, drug use and drug trafficking are also common."

"A pre-requisite for participation in the organization's programs should be an agreement that no gang related activities should be brought into the program. Violation of this agreement should result in suspension and possible termination of participation privileges."

Demographic studies of gangs cited by Howell show that the typical age range for a gang is 12-24 with the average age of gang members 17-18 years old. The average age tends to be older in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago where gangs are well established and have been in existence for longer periods of time. Male gang members outnumber female gang members by a wide margin. Traditional gangs average about 180 members and specialty gangs - drug traffickers - are much smaller with only about 25 members on average. The ethnicity of gang members is 48% African-American, 43% Hispanic, 5% white, and 4% Asian. The preponderance of African-American and Hispanic representation in gang membership is not due to a predisposition to gang activities, but rather overrepresentation in those areas most conducive to gang activities.

Researchers give several motivations for joining a youth gang. These reasons include:

Enhanced status or prestige among friends.

Increased income from drug sales and other criminal enterprises.

Protection from other gangs.

Social relationships giving a sense of personal identity.

Coercion into joining.

Researchers into gang activities recommend that youth-serving organizations be alert to signs that indicate possible gang activity. According to Ronald D. Stephens, Executive Director of the National School Safety Center at Pepperdine University, the signs include:

Graffiti - Gangs use graffiti to mark their territory. When another gang disputes territory they often cross out the rival gang's graffiti and replace it with their own.

Colors, jewelry and distinctive clothing - Gangs generally establish distinctive clothing to signify affiliation with a particular gang. Unwary youths wearing similar clothing may become victims of gang rivalries.

Physical confrontations and staredowns - Increasing violence may signal the presence of gangs.

Beepers, pagers, and cellular telephones - Youths who carry electronic communications tools may be involved with gang drug activity.

Drive-by shootings in the community - Drive-by shootings are most often the result of competition between gangs for territory.

"Show-by" display of weapons - Usually a precursor to drive-by shootings. Gang members will drive by brandishing weapons to demonstrate their capacity for deadly violence.

Racial conflict - There is a high correlation between racial conflict and gang membership. Many gangs are formed along racial and ethnic lines for protection and affiliation.

Community history of gangs - Communities with a history of gangs are more likely to have an established gang presence with gang membership including representation from several generations.

Increasing presence of informal groups calling themselves a "posse," "crew," or some other socially questionable name - Informal groups with seemingly benign, yet revealing, names may be the first step to becoming involved with a gang.

Tattoos - Often, gang members have tattoos that symbolize their gang affiliation.

Use of Weapons

Weapons are a cause as well as a response to the violence that young people perceive in the world around them. In 1997, nearly one-fifth of high school students reported carrying a weapon (gun, knife, or club) in the prior month. Males are more likely than females to carry weapons and Latinos and African-Americans are more likely to carry weapons than their white counterparts. Often, young people carry weapons to protect themselves from the violence that they fear. There is a high correlation between carrying weapons and youth gang activity.

Many school systems and other youth serving organizations have adopted a zero tolerance policy toward weapons - especially guns. The prohibition against guns in school settings is a requirement of the federal Gun Free Schools Act (GFSA) (PL 103 382) passed in 1994 that requires any student who carries a firearm to school to be expelled for not less than one year. The GFSA includes in its ban other explosive devices including tear gas, pipe bombs, and even starter pistols that fire blanks. The requirements of the GFSA extend to any school that receives funds from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Weapons bans extend beyond firearms and explosive devices and include knives, slingshots, brass knuckles, blackjacks and hand held personal defense sprays. Some weapons bans have also applied to implements, such as nail clippers and combs with long pointed handles.

To detect weapons, schools and other youth serving organizations use a combination of metal detectors and personal searches. Dress codes often ban the wearing of loose clothing that can hide weapons. Some organizations and schools also ban large purses and backpacks.

There is a fine line between the implementation of policies to keep weapons out of your organization's activities and respecting the privacy and civil rights of the children in your program.

Risk Management Considerations for Controlling Gang Influence

Organizations offering services to children and youth should check with their local police departments to determine if there is a significant gang presence in the community and the kinds of gangs that may be present. Local police departments may also be able to provide information concerning gang relationships, particularly gang conflicts that may impact the organization's program. They may also provide staff training for resisting the influence of gangs in your program.

Intake or registration information for youths in programs where there is significant gang activity should include a notation of present or past gang affiliation or of gang affiliations of other family members. A pre-requisite for participation in the organization's programs should be an agreement that no gang related activities should be brought into the program. Violation of this agreement should result in suspension and possible termination of participation privileges.

Premises should be kept free of graffiti. Allowing gang related graffiti to remain on your premises is an invitation for other gangs to cover it with theirs - possibly creating a gang war on your doorstep. Graffiti should be removed as soon as possible. Some surfaces may be treated with a graffiti resistant surfacing to make cleaning graffiti easier.

Increased supervision of activities may be necessary to prevent violence between members of competing gangs. Often increased supervision may be obtained from volunteers who live in the community. Former gang members and off-duty police officers should also be considered as potential volunteers.

Involvement of young participants in rule making can increase their commitment to compliance with rules. All participants should understand the value of a violence free program where they can feel secure from physical danger.

© 2003 Nonprofit Risk Management Center

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Perspectives on Gangs and Gang Violence - Nonprofit Risk Management Center

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The stereotypical media image for youth gangs is only partially accurate. According to the Justice Department, a gang is a well defined group of youths between 10 and 22 years old." To be considered a "youth gang" a group must be involved in a pattern of criminal acts.

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