Gangster has been sentenced to death for murdering two people, including a 14-year-old girl who was shot as she crouched outside a Compton market.

Steven Cheatham has been sentenced to death for murdering two people, including a 14-year-old girl who was shot as she crouched outside a Compton market.A judge in Los Angeles sentenced Steven Cheatham on Friday.Cheatham, 32, was convicted in October of two counts of first-degree murder and four counts of attempted murder.
Prosecutors say Cheatham confronted Elvira Ramirez and her two friends as she went to use a pay phone near the market in 2001. He wounded her friends, then shot the girl in the back of the head and again in the leg after she fell to the ground.None of the victims had any gang affiliation.Cheatham also was sentenced for fatally shooting an unarmed man in the face in 1998 and wounding two people in 2000.

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Two teenage males are dead after an afternoon shooting in Highland Park

Two teenage males are dead after an afternoon shooting in Highland Park that police say may be gang related. Officer Karen Smith of the Los Angeles Police Department said the shooting occurred about 3:30 p.m. near Figueroa Street and York Boulevard. According to initial reports, the two victims were fighting with a man when another man pulled out a gun and shot the pair. One teenager was pronounced dead at the scene; the other was transported to a local hospital in critical condition and died there. A witness to the shooting told police that the shooter was a gang member, Smith said.

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Bruce Jeffrey Pardo Santa suit melted onto his body before he fled.

The gunman who killed nine people in a Christmas Eve bloodbath at his ex-in-laws' home intended to flee to Canada but was severely burned before he killed himself, law enforcement officials said Friday. Police said that after the shooting, 45-year-old Bruce Jeffrey Pardo used a homemade device to spray racing fuel around the home and that the vapor was ignited by a pilot light or candle. He suffered third-degree burns on both arms when it exploded. Authorities say Pardo's Santa suit melted onto his body before he fled. After Pardo shot himself to death at his brother's home, authorities found $17,000 on him and a plane ticket for a flight from Los Angeles to Canada. A ninth body was found Friday morning at the charred site of the massacre where Pardo arrived dressed as Santa.Pardo reached a Dec. 18 settlement with his ex-wife, who along with her parents was believed to be among the dead. His lawyer and a fellow church usher were among those who said they had never seen anything to indicate he was capable of such a brutal crime. Pardo's attorney, Stanley Silver, said his client seemed cheerful when he left a message two days before the shooting and was trying to pay $10,000 to finalize the divorce proceedings. "All of my dealings with him were always pleasant and cheerful," Silver said. "I'd never encountered him when he was ... angry or unpleasant at all." Pardo left the scene of the killings and was found dead Thursday, of a single bullet to the head, at his brother's house. The body of his ninth victim was found Friday morning when investigators resumed searching what was left of the two-story home in Covina, 25 miles east of Los Angeles. Eight bodies were recovered Thursday from the destroyed house; it was not yet known where the gunfire or the flames killed them. None of the dead or missing has been identified. The bloodbath began about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday when an 8-year-old girl attending a Christmas Eve party answered a knock at the door. A man dressed as Santa and carrying what appeared to a present pulled out a handgun and shot her in the face, then began shooting indiscriminately as partygoers tried to flee. The gift-wrapped box Pardo was carrying actually contained a pressurized homemade device he used to spray a liquid that quickly sent the house up in flames. Police said Pardo had recently worked in the aerospace industry.

Pardo had no criminal record and no history of violence, according to police, but he was angry following last week's settlement of his divorce after a short marriage.

A court summary of the divorce case shows that Sylvia Pardo filed for a dissolution of marriage on March 24, 2008. The summary indicates she and Bruce Pardo reached a settlement on Dec. 18 and were separated after about two years of marriage. Court documents show Sylvia Pardo got the couple's dog, the wedding ring and $10,000 in the settlement agreement, while he got the house. In June, the court ordered Bruce Pardo to pay $1,785 a month in spousal support and put him on a payment plan of $450 a month for $3,570 that was unpaid. Pardo's attorney said the man had trouble making the payments after he lost his job in July, but spousal support was waived in the settlement signed earlier this month.Late Thursday, a rented car parked outside the property was discovered to be loaded with 300 rounds of ammunition and a pipe bomb. The car burst into flames as bomb disposal experts moved in, Raney said.Pardo had rigged a sophisticated booby trap inside the car which would be triggered when officers attempted to move his discarded Santa Claus suit.

"He basically wired the Santa Claus suit with a device to explode," Raney said. "When it was lifted from the car it would pull a trip wire or switch, ignite a flare inside the car igniting black powder and several hundred rounds of ammunition was inside the car."While the squad was rendering the device it did activate and the car did burst into flames and was destroyed."Authorities have yet to publicly identify those killed by Pardo

, but local media reported the victim's ex-wife and in-laws were among the dead.Los Angeles County Coroner's Office assistant chief Ed Winter said none of the nine bodies recovered from the crime scene were identifiable."The bodies were burned and are charred to the point that are not recognizable," Winter said. "We're going to need both medical X-rays and dental X-rays before we can make positive identification."

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Father of a suspect charged in a string of violent Dunkin' Donuts store robberies in South Florida is a member of the notorious Los Angeles-based Crip

Father of a suspect charged in a string of violent Dunkin' Donuts store robberies in South Florida is a member of the notorious Los Angeles-based Crips gang, a link that paved the way for his son to start his own group here, a Broward Sheriff's Office gang expert said.Jonathan Jackson, 23, of Lauderhill, told investigators his father, Jerome, belongs to the Crips, and said he was "blessed into" the gang at age 8 because his father was a ranking member, said sheriff's Sgt. Dan Fitzpatrick. He is being held without bail in the Broward County Click here for restaurant inspection reports Jail on three counts of armed robbery.Jackson, who described his gang rank as "OG" or "original gangster," said the other robbery suspects had to be initiated into the gang, Fitzpatrick said."It's rare that we will find gangs here in South Florida that actually do have ties to the L.A. gangs," Fitzpatrick said. "A lot of them will brag that they are a recognized Crip set or a Blood set, but they are not."Jackson and four other gang members have been charged in a two-county crime spree that left two people dead and four others shot. The suspects are facing charges ranging from murder and attempted murder to armed robbery and aggravated assault with a firearm.During the robberies, four people were shot Nov. 26 in a Delray Beach Dunkin' Donuts store. A man shot on Thanksgiving in a Tamarac store died later of his injuries. Three suspects also have been charged in a Nov. 14 shooting death in Lauderhill.Detectives contacted the Los Angeles Police Department and had them check their database for Jackson's father.Although Jerome Jackson's name didn't emerge as a documented Crips member, investigators are taking the claim seriously because his son knows much about the gang's inner workings and practices, Fitzpatrick said.His father could have given a false name if taken into custody or there could be other reasons his name didn't surface, Fitzpatrick said.During a search of Jonathan Jackson's Lauderhill townhouse, detectives found notebooks containing Crips prayers, rules and meeting notes, Fitzpatrick said.Members were required to pay $20 weekly dues and a log indicated who was paid up, Fitzpatrick said.The five in custody were the "hard-core" members, Fitzpatrick said.
Interviews with them indicate 15 Broward-based members of their gang remain at large.
Sheriff's Office detectives are working with Sunrise and Lauderhill to identify those other members, Fitzpatrick said.He said probably two or three other Crips sets, with a dozen or so members, exist elsewhere in Broward. Numbers are about the same for the Bloods, he said, adding that members with real national ties are few and far between.During interviews, the five suspects spoke openly about their gang affiliation, showing investigators their hand signals, and explaining the color blue is used for everyday identification but switches to gray when they are at "war," Fitzpatrick said."Who are they at war with? The 'Slobs,' a derogatory term they use to describe the Bloods," Fitzpatrick said.One of the suspects, Calvin Weatherspoon, 20, of Lauderhill, told detectives he joined the Crips when he was 17 in Virginia, according to Fitzpatrick.Weatherspoon said his initiation consisted of fighting three people for six minutes, Fitzpatrick said. Weatherspoon's rank is "YBG," or "young baby gangster," police said.Accused gunman James Herard, 19, also of Lauderhill, said he joined the Crips at age 13 when he lived in Sunniland Park in Fort Lauderdale, Fitzpatrick said.He holds the rank of "gangster" or "G," Fitzpatrick said.Suspect Tharod Bell, 23, holds the rank of "YBG," and his brother Charles Faustin, 18, is "OBG," or "original baby gangster," Fitzpatrick said. They are both from Fort Lauderdale.

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George Christie Jr former Hells Angels leader was arrested

"There is this mystique that the Hells Angels are bad people and we need to get these bad people," he said, "when in reality, it's mostly a bunch of old guys riding their motorcycles around."
County officials said they spent about $2 million on the 2001-02 case against the Hells Angels, but some think the figure is closer to $6 million.
"I think (former District Attorney Mike) Bradbury spent $6 million to get George on probation," said Sheahen. "Maybe (current District Attorney Greg) Totten can spend $6 million to get him on derision."
George Christie Jr., and his attorney said the delay was evidence of a weak case stemming from years of vindictive, costly intimidation against his client."This continues a pattern of harassment," said Los Angeles defense attorney Robert Sheahen.Delays in filing charges, however, are not uncommon, and people shouldn't read too much into it, Senior Deputy District Attorney Derek Malan said. The office has three years to file, he said."We expect to file felony charges against Mr. Christie once our investigation is complete," Malan said, declining further comment.
Christie was arrested last week — the day before his 61st birthday — after members of a Sheriff's Department gang unit found less than 2 grams of suspected cocaine and methamphetamine in his Ventura home, police said. A gram of cocaine can sell for $50 to $100 on the street.The substances were discovered after one of three search warrants was served at Christie's home in the 400 block of Ventura Avenue. Deputies also determined Christie was under the influence of cocaine and methamphetamine, officials said.A second search warrant was served at the home of Joe Cerezo, 34, who deputies said is a member of the Hells Angels. Cerezo, who lives in the 2900 block of Apache Avenue in Ventura, was arrested after deputies found a stolen shotgun in his bedroom, authorities said. Cerezo also has not been charged yet.A search warrant was also served at the Hells Angels clubhouse at 65 Fix Way, Ventura. Several members were detained at the site, but no arrests were made.Wearing a black sweat suit and glasses, Christie stood at his court appearance Friday, which lasted less than a minute because prosecutors said they needed more time to investigate. Christie agreed to return to court May 16.It was his first time back in criminal court since 2004, when a judge denied a request to reduce his probation in a previous case so he could pursue a career in film and television.Christie declined to comment on the new case. But Sheahen said in interviews this week that Christie has relinquished his role as president and unofficial spokesman for the Hells Angels motorcycle club.Sheahen said authorities are wasting taxpayers' money going after Christie. The father of a 4-year-old boy, Christie spends most of his time at home, particularly since a motorcycle accident last year put him under a doctor's care, the attorney said."All of this stuff is loony. It's nonsense," Sheahen said, speculating any drugs found in Christie's system likely were prescribed. "He's been a perfect probationer" since a massive 2001 drug and racketeering case that made national headlines, Sheahen said.Christie was accused of being the leader of a prescription drug ring that targeted schoolchildren and was one of 28 people indicted by a Ventura County Grand Jury in February 2001. Many of the defendants, including Christie, later reached plea bargains and pleaded to lesser charges.
Prosecutors ultimately dropped 57 of 59 counts and enhancements filed against Christie. He pleaded guilty in 2002 to one count of conspiracy to possess the prescription drug Vicodin for sale, and no contest to a count of filing a false income tax return. He received three years' probation and time served for the 390 days he spent in jail.Authorities released few details about last week's arrest, citing an ongoing investigation. The search warrants were sealed. But authorities said they were not buying that Christie is a reformed man.
"He admitted to the drugs" found in his belongings, sheriff's Sgt. Dave Murray said Friday.Deputies searched his house for evidence of a possibly stolen motorcycle, Murray said. Christie cooperated and later agreed to a urine test, which "came back dirty for cocaine, meth and opiates," Murray said.Sheriff's Capt. Mike Aranda, who leads the county gang unit, described the Hells Angels as an active criminal street gang worth the time and taxpayer expense to monitor."The Hells Angels are absolutely a street gang. We've made a number of arrests of Hells Angels members," mostly on assault and drug-related charges, Ventura police Lt. Quinn Fenwick said. "And I believe we will continue to have problems with them."

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Jury has ordered the death penalty for Ralph Steven Flores

Victims
Christopher Lynch (1999)
Miguel Reyes (12/26/2004)
Fenise Luna (12/29/2004)
Claudia Rosio Chenet (2003)
A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury has ordered the death penalty for an Azusa gang member convicted of killing four people.Ralph Steven Flores, 26, sat impassively at the defense table as the verdict by the jury of nine men and three women was read shortly after 11 a.m. Flores was convicted last year in four separate slayings dating back to 1999. His activities were part of a larger crime wave afflicting the usually tranquil city, authorities said.

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Florencia 13: Greater Los Angeles is now home to some 500 Mexican gangs

Mexican gangs in Los Angeles, like Florencia 13, are waging a bloody campaign to drive blacks from neighborhoods.Gangbanging is responsible for much of the carnage. Greater Los Angeles is now home to some 500 Mexican gangs—compared with some 200 black ones—and they’ve aggressively tried to push blacks out of mixed-race neighborhoods. More than just turf wars, the Latinos’ violence has included attacks against law-abiding African-Americans with no gang involvement; a horrifying example was the December 2006 murder of 14-year-old Cheryl Green by Mexican gang members in Harbor Gateway, a brutal crime designed to terrorize local blacks. Three years earlier, the same gang had killed a black man because he dared to patronize a local store that they considered “For Hispanics Only.” Meantime, federal authorities have indicted members of another Los Angeles–based Latino gang, Florencia 13, for random shootings of blacks in South L.A. The indictment chillingly accuses a gang leader of giving members instructions on how to find blacks to shoot


Though blacks have long worried that the country’s growing foreign-born population, especially its swelling rolls of illegal immigrants, harmed their economic prospects, they have also followed their political leadership in backing liberal immigration policies. Now, however, as new waves of immigration inundate historically African-American neighborhoods, black opinion is hardening against the influx. “We will not lay down and take this any longer,” says Anderson. If he’s right, it could upend the political calculus on immigration.
Black unease about immigration goes back a long way. In the 1870s, former slave Frederick Douglass warned that immigrants were displacing free blacks in the labor market. Twenty-five years later, Booker T. Washington exhorted America’s industrialists to “cast down your bucket” not among new immigrants but “among the eight million Negros . . . who have without strikes and labor wars tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities.” Blacks supported federal legislation in 1882 that restricted Chinese immigration to the United States. They favored the immigration reform acts of the 1920s, which limited European immigration, and also urged restrictions on Mexican workers: “If the million Mexicans who have entered the country have not displaced Negro workers, whom have they displaced?” asked black journalist George Schuyler in 1928.

Recent polling data reveal the shift. Though a 2006 Pew Center national survey showed some of the same ambivalence among blacks toward immigrants, it also found that in several urban areas where blacks and Latinos were living together, blacks were more likely to say that immigrants were taking jobs from Americans, and also more likely to favor cutting America’s current immigration levels.

What’s behind the anger, as the Pew data hint, is the rapid change that legal and illegal Hispanic immigration is bringing to longtime black locales. Places like South Los Angeles and Compton, California, have transformed, virtually overnight, into majority-Latino communities. Huge numbers of new immigrants have also surged beyond newcomer magnets California and New York to reach fast-growing southern states like North Carolina and Georgia, bringing change to communities where blacks had gained economic and political power after years of struggle against Jim Crow laws. Since 1990, North Carolina’s Hispanic population has exploded from 76,726 people to nearly 600,000, the majority of them ethnically Mexican. In Georgia, the Hispanic population grew nearly sevenfold, to almost 700,000, from 1990 to 2006.

This Latino “tsunami,” as Los Angeles–based Hispanic-American writer Nicolás Vaca calls it, has intensified the well-founded feeling among blacks that they’re losing economic ground to immigrants. True, early research, conducted in the wake of the big immigration reforms of the 1960s, suggested that the arrival of newcomers had little adverse impact on blacks—one study found that every 10 percent increase in immigration cut black wages by only 0.3 percent. But as the immigrant population has in some places grown six or seven times larger over the last four decades, the downward pull has become a vortex. A recent study by Harvard economist George Borjas and colleagues from the University of Chicago and the University of California estimates that immigration accounted for a 7.4 percentage-point decline in the employment rate of unskilled black males between 1980 and 2000. Even for black males with high school diplomas, immigration shrank employment by nearly 3 percentage points. While immigration hurts black and white low-wage workers, the authors note, the effect is three times as large on blacks because immigrants are more likely to compete directly with them for jobs.

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