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View Full Version : Booby traps targeting California police lead to $200K reward offer


Mikell
03-20-2010, 06:00 PM
"On December 31, 2009, the unmarked headquarters of the Hemet Gang Task Force was targeted by someone who redirected the natural gas line on the roof into the building, filling up the office with deadly gas. Two task force members entering the office smelled gas and backed away before flipping the light switch and potentially causing the building to explode.

On February 23, a task force member at the Hemet headquarters opened a security gate outside the building, which launched a homemade zip gun attached to the gate. The weapon fired, missing the officer's head by inches.

The headquarters has since been moved to an undisclosed location, where extra security precautions are being taken, Hall said."




http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/19/riverside.gangs.attacks.reward/index.html?hpt=T2

4shadows
03-20-2010, 11:39 PM
So much for 'unmakred' locations huh. The bottom line is that when the bad guys want something they can do their homework just like the good guys. It is my understanding that they have arrested/taken into custody about 20/30 members of the vago's mc, we shall see what this brings as the majority of them are mexican.

ilbegone
03-21-2010, 01:50 AM
So much for 'unmakred' locations huh. The bottom line is that when the bad guys want something they can do their homework just like the good guys. It is my understanding that they have arrested/taken into custody about 20/30 members of the vago's mc, we shall see what this brings as the majority of them are mexican.

All the Vagos I have seen over the years were white and certainly none were Mexican nationals, and didn't realized either that they were bikers or associated with one other through the Vagos until I put some twos and twos together. Particularly when I saw them all together once conducting some club "business" with a woman associate and her out of state relatives (not Vagos but certainly in the lifestyle) strangely in public with a diversionary sideshow masking the negotiations, and I believe the woman's life was hanging in the balance.

The Vagos probably do business with Mexican Nationals, but even if there are some with brown skins and Spanish last names, it is highly unlikely that any Vagos are Mexican nationals.

I haven't seen anything linking the Vagos with the Hemet gang task force, and I believe it would be highly unlikely they would be directly involved.

The Mongols were organized by a "Latino", but he is an American citizen.

I believe that familiarity with jailhouse racial reality generally precludes the majority from racially mixing their "clubs", although I know this isn't 100% true. I believe that the case with the Mongols is an exception to the rule.

That wouldn't stop them from using people of other races, but that person would probably be insulated from them and left holding the bag all on his own if there were some sort of difficulty from either law enforcement or criminal elements.

It is also highly unlikely that Mexican nationals would belong to American outlaw motorcycle gangs.

Don
03-21-2010, 05:18 AM
Funny how it was no big deal when Mexicans were just killing citizens and destroying American cities. Now that they've escalated their occupation of our country to killing cops, people are really getting upset. How did we evolve to a state where citizens' lives are completely expendable to achieve the greater good of a "diverse" society, but the lives of crooked, government officials are sacred?

That disgusting RINO Hugh Hewitt said something very similar on his radio show after the killing of Gov't employees in Mexico. An outspoken traitor and supporter of the Mexican occupation, Hewitt said that killing government officials has taken this thing to a whole new level and that Obama will be forced to address the "threat to national security."

There you have it! It's OK for third world primitives to invade our country and kill us common peasants as long as they don't screw with the ruling caste.

ilbegone
03-21-2010, 06:39 AM
Funny how it was no big deal when Mexicans were just killing citizens and destroying American cities. Now that they've escalated their occupation of our country to killing cops, people are really getting upset..

I've seen a couple of reports over the years concerning the Zetas killing LEOs in Texas

Mexican mercenaries expand base into U.S. (this isn't one I've seen before, nor does it seem to have a date)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/aug/01/20050801-122047-2623r/

The transnational gang Aztecas are suspected in the murders of the consulate employees in Juarez:

28 held in move against Azteca gangs http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_14714110?source=most_viewed

Raids Aim to Find Killers of 3 in Mexico http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/world/americas/19mexico.html

However, your post seems to be an inference that Mexican nationals were in on the attempts in Hemet, crimes which the FBI are investigating yet seem to have no suspects.

Twoller
03-21-2010, 08:17 AM
Funny how it was no big deal when Mexicans were just killing citizens and destroying American cities. Now that they've escalated their occupation of our country to killing cops, people are really getting upset. How did we evolve to a state where citizens' lives are completely expendable to achieve the greater good of a "diverse" society, but the lives of crooked, government officials are sacred?

That disgusting RINO Hugh Hewitt said something very similar on his radio show after the killing of Gov't employees in Mexico. An outspoken traitor and supporter of the Mexican occupation, Hewitt said that killing government officials has taken this thing to a whole new level and that Obama will be forced to address the "threat to national security."

There you have it! It's OK for third world primitives to invade our country and kill us common peasants as long as they don't screw with the ruling caste.

There is another take on this. I'd like to see a direct quote from Hewitt, but your quote sounds credible. But these government employees in Mexico are representative of the bleed through between our government and Mexican nationals. There was a posting here on this item.

http://www.saveourstate.info/showthread.php?t=138

Note very carefully the details of the "victims" here.

"An American woman working at the consulate in Ciudad Juarez, just over the border from El Paso, Texas, and her U.S. husband ..."

Why is the woman an "American" while her husband is "US"?

"A Mexican man married to another consulate employee ..."

The Mexican man was married to another employee who was ... Mexican? US citizen? What? We'd like to know.

"The U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, said it was not clear if the victims had been specifically targeted, and the motive for the attacks was unknown."

It's hard to see in the article, but this was two different attacks. One car was chased and the other was boxed in. Does this sound like a mistake?

This is how far the rot has spread, right into a US consulate.

It's too easy to pick on the federal government, especially when it is being corrupted by rot from outside the country.

Twoller
03-21-2010, 08:26 AM
So much for 'unmakred' locations huh. The bottom line is that when the bad guys want something they can do their homework just like the good guys. It is my understanding that they have arrested/taken into custody about 20/30 members of the vago's mc, we shall see what this brings as the majority of them are mexican.

Yes, they can do their homework. But it is just a matter of time, if not already, before their homework simply includes information from an inside source.

Rim05
03-21-2010, 08:32 AM
My opinion is the US government has aided Mexico to eradicate crime and corruption and with so many dollars that it has caused more of the same problems. This has gone on for years and under so many of our administrations I cannot count.
Our LE is infiltrated, the BP in infiltrated and out governmen on all levels are the same. Some of our most trusted members of our government are double agents.
Again, this is my opinion and I offer no links, I should not have to post any.

Twoller
03-21-2010, 09:39 AM
My opinion is the US government has aided Mexico to eradicate crime and corruption and with so many dollars that it has caused more of the same problems. This has gone on for years and under so many of our administrations I cannot count.
Our LE is infiltrated, the BP in infiltrated and out governmen on all levels are the same. Some of our most trusted members of our government are double agents.
Again, this is my opinion and I offer no links, I should not have to post any.

I agree. I think the president himself is all the evidence you need.

I think there is too much criticism of the federal government based on law and bureacracy, not on who is doing what. More fallout from the "liberal" versus "conservative" facade.

Kathy63
03-26-2010, 10:45 AM
I have a friend who lives in Hemet. She's lived there for 9 years and seen it go from nice little place to retire to hispanic gang hellhole. Whatever the origins of the Vagos, they are a hispanic gang in Hemet. They have expanded their "war" from the police to the city itself, firebombing city code enforcement vehicles.

Here is the problem with Vagos and Hemet. The city is full of retirees who have vastly different ideas of community than the more urban dwellers. They moved out there to escape the same kind of life that the Vagos and company want to impose.

These retirees are well armed and unafraid. My friend, an elderly woman who lives alone except for her Belgian Mastiff and Pit Bull dogs has a number of guns, one or two in each room of her home. If this hispanic gang thinks they are going to make a little Juarez out of Hemet they might find themselves on permanent vacation fertilizing the desert.

ilbegone
03-26-2010, 06:27 PM
Law enforcement around Hemet don't believe the Vagos are targeting them.

Nor are the Vagos an exclusively Hispanic motorcycle gang, nor is their gang significantly made up of foreign nationals.

All the Vagos I have ever seen are white American citizens, as well as what I believe to have been the club president strutting around in a Helendale bar in about 1994.

Hemet's shadow war
Police believe a gang is targeting officers with potentially deadly booby traps, vandalism and harassment.
March 25, 2010|By David Kelly

Reporting from Hemet — Roadblocks have gone up behind the Hemet Police Department. Sidewalks outside have closed, blast-proof glass is going in, and $155,000 in barricades and fences are being installed. Linger out front too long and expect a visit from an officer monitoring surveillance cameras.

Such is the new reality for police here, where life has increasingly taken on the feel of a war zone.

Over the last few months, police have been stalked and attacked by what investigators believe is a gang eager to avenge the department's aggressive efforts to crack down on it.

"We have a gang that is focused on doing violence to the Police Department, and it has to end here or it will spread to Nebraska, Kansas and beyond," said Police Chief Richard Dana during an interview in his office Thursday. "We are going to make this ground zero for stopping this kind of violence."

For decades, Hemet was best known as a sleepy retirement community where dairy cows lolled in green fields and sprawling mobile home parks lined the streets. Elderly folks piloting oversized cars at 20 mph were considered more of a problem than gangsters and thugs.

As the years went by, the gracious old homes with stately shade trees gave way to cookie-cutter tract houses and strip malls. Young families searching for affordable housing flocked here, swelling the population to more than 70,000.

Some of the newcomers have included gang members seeking fertile ground for criminal enterprises.

"The violence in this town is getting out of control," said Hilary Wilkinson, 28, a home-loan consultant who moved to Hemet from Orange County 10 years ago. "I have police helicopters flying over my house all the time. There are drugs, gangs... I am getting out of here. This is no place for kids."

Curtis Dufek, 29, says things have changed dramatically.

"When I was a kid you used to walk around and feel safe. Now, when you walk around and someone asks where you are from -- and if you give the wrong answer, they beat you down."

He displayed scars on his leg, which he said was broken by a skinhead who confronted him at a party because he thought his name sounded Jewish.

"A lot of gang members have moved here from L.A. or Moreno Valley or Perris," Dufek said. "Some really want to start a new life, but a lot want to start a new gang."

Local police have fought back aggressively, identifying about 2,000 gang members and 100 gangs in Hemet and theSan Jacinto Valley and working hard to deny them sanctuary.

But at least one gang appears to be turning the tables on them, engaging police in a shadow war of potentially deadly booby traps, vandalism and harassment.

Since December, police have been targeted in at least four attacks. The first happened when someone redirected a natural gas pipeline at the headquarters of the Hemet-San Jacinto Gang Task Force, filling the office with fumes. Police said a single spark could have leveled the entire building.

In February, a homemade gun was planted on the gate outside the task force office. When an officer tried to open it, the weapon fired a single shot that missed his head only because the gate didn't open correctly.

"I was getting out of my car, and halfway to the office I heard a gunshot. I froze and thought, 'What the hell was that?' " recalled receptionist Laurie Ogilvie, who works about 100 yards from where the incident occurred. "I didn't realize that the bullet had just whizzed past me. To see these things done so blatantly is unsettling."

On March 5, a suspicious device was found attached to the unmarked car of a gang task force member. Dana declined to give specifics, but said the device was deadly.

"It could have easily resulted in the deaths of every occupant in the car," he said.

And Tuesday night, in an attack police believe is related to the others, someone torched four code-enforcement pickup trucks in the City Hall parking lot two blocks from police headquarters. There have also been threats to blow up a police car.

"We have caught people watching the station from the library parking lot. We have had officers followed by known bad guys," Dana said. "We can question them, but it's not illegal to sit in a parking lot."

Someone also fired a bullet through Dana's mailbox.

"You are walking around trying to protect people and the whole time you have a target on your back," he said. "You can call us about an emergency and then shoot us when we show up. They want to kill a police officer, but they don't want to take any risks, so they are using booby traps."

Last week, California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and Riverside County Dist. Atty. Rod Pacheco announced a $200,000 reward for the capture of those engaged in what they described as urban terrorism in Hemet.

A day earlier, there was a massive crackdown on the Vagos motorcycle gang in Riverside County, Utah, Arizona and Nevada.

The gang has a history of violence toward police, but gang members were not named as suspects in these attacks.

"I personally know a couple of Vagos members and I can tell you this is not their style," said Richard Wilfong, 45, who was riding his bike near City Hall recently. "They do not want to bring more attention to themselves."

Dana agrees.

"I don't think it's the Vagos, and I am not just saying this as an investigative tool to relax them," he said. "I think it's a gang, but another one."

Not everyone is sympathetic. One man who refused to give his name said he had been stopped several times by police because they thought he was a skinhead.

"The cops come in and want to be hard . . . and they are surprised when people get sick of it," he said. "Most of the guys around here are a joke. They are just kids. I wouldn't even call them gangs. I get stopped because I am covered in tattoos. I have been put in handcuffs and pushed around."

Dana said he rewards officers who track gang members. Such efforts, he said, have denied the gangs territory and kept a lid on violence.

But it's been difficult. The department has been hit hard by budget cuts and is down from 91 to 68 officers.

Dana has received help from other police departments along with the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the district attorney's office, but even so, he said, "The morale is about as bad as it's been.

"How much of that is due to the assaults and how much is due to force reduction is hard to say," he said. "You are getting paid less, you work more, and now someone is trying to kill you."