A day after a violent machete attack and shootings by alleged gang members in Southold, authorities say that they believe the increase in gang presence on the North Fork is on the rise.
“I think the amount of potential gang members in our area has definitely increased,” Southold Town Police Chief Martin Flatley said Wednesday. “Prior to this past week’s assaults, their activity has not been this blatant. This case, however, has us very concerned of the potential violent acts associated with these gangs.”
Robert DeSena, founder of Council for Unity, an organization aimed at eradicating gang activity in Riverhead and other areas including New York City, said on Wednesday that any community, in any part of the country, whether upscale or poverty-ridden, can be seen as fertile for gang members to flourish.
“The ultimate measurement of gang activity in anywhere stems from the conditions that promote and support gang activity,” he said. “When there is no opportunity for upward mobility, no positive role models, rampant materialism that defines your worth, indifference on the part of society, isolation and so on, gangs are going to swell. They thrive when youth are disenfranchised and hopeless.”
On Wednesday, Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota had no comment to the question of whether the North Fork has seen a surge in street gang crime. “We decline at this time to make any statements attempting to characterize street gang activity. We commend the Southold Town police department officers for their swift arrest of these suspects and our street gang unit will be working closely with the Southold police department as this investigation and prosecution moves forward.”
There has been an increase in MS-13 participants in the Suffolk County Correctional Facility’s Council for Unity group, DeSena said. “That could be symptomatic of what is occurring in key areas like Brentwood, Central Islip, Wyandanch and Amityville,” he said.
But gang activity on the North Fork is not new — and the presence of the violent street gang, the La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, has been noted in crimes dating back years.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations has a Long Island Gang Task Force; Suffolk County Police are members of the group. According to the FBI, MS-13 is “a violent international street gang comprised primarily of immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. With numerous branches, or ‘cliques,’ the MS-13 is the largest street gang on Long Island. Since 2002, more than 200 MS-13 members, including more that two dozen clique leaders, have been convicted on federal felony charges in the Eastern District of New York. More than 50 of those MS-13 members have been convicted on federal racketeering charges. Seventeen of those defendants have received sentences of 10 years or more, and more than a dozen MS-13 defendants have been sentenced or are awaiting sentencing on murder convictions. These prosecutions are the product of investigations led by the FBI Long Island Gang Task Force, composed of agents and officers of the FBI, Nassau County Police Department, Nassau County Sheriff’s Department, Suffolk County Probation, Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department, and the Rockville Centre Police Department.”
In Greenport in 2007, two Shelter Island men were savagely beaten by seven gang members brandishing baseball bats. The motive, police said, was gold chains the victims wore on their necks.
At that time, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa collaborated with former Greenport Mayor David Kapell to bring a chapter to the village after residents expressed concerns about crime and drug activity.
Back in 2007, Sliwa said the presence of MS-13 gang members were “entrenched,” and spreading across Long Island, in communities including Riverhead, Baldwin, Brentwood, Valley Stream, Freeport, and Copaigue.
During the attack in Greenport, several of the assailants allegedly shouted they were part of the MS-13 street gang and told the victims they were going to die.
Less than a month later, a Sag Harbor man, Marvin Velasquez-Moreno, was arrested after beating another man unconscious on the Greenport railroad dock.
The MS-13 gang, considered by the FBI to be the most dangerous gang in the United States, has been forging a path of destruction in the United States, moving into areas not only in southern states such as New Mexico, but also, in Suffolk County.
MS-13 gang members often wear blue and white and have tattoos in visible areas such as foreheads, knuckles and cheeks.
According to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, MS-13 was formed originally by Salvadoran immigrants that came to the United States to escape civil war; some were trained in guerrilla warfare and the use of military weapons.
“The gang is well-organized and is heavily involved in lucrative illegal enterprises, being notorious for its use of violence to achieve its objectives. Fear and intimidation are used in extorting payments from any legitimate or illegitimate business owners for the right to conduct their business in MS-13 territory. MS-13 members have been involved in rapes and witness intimidation. In addition to local crimes, MS-13 is known to participate in numerous transnational crimes; for example, they are involved in the illegal trafficking of stolen vehicles from the United States to Central America. They also participate in weapon smuggling and illegal firearm sales,” the NCJRS states. “They are believed to be a major retail distributor of drugs in Houston. MS-13 also has theft crews traveling across the United States, stealing over-the-counter medications from retail stores that are then sold in the illegal market. There have also been reports of MS-13’s involvement in human smuggling. ”
In 2004, the FBI created the MS-13 National Gang Task Force, which coordinates cooperation among local and state law enforcement agencies, including facilitation in the flow of information among these agencies in order to dismantle MS-13, the site states; other strategies involve the deportation of MS-13 members to their home countries. “This effort, however, has exacerbated the gang problem by fueling its international proliferation,” the site says.
Students as young as middle school are joining or being recruited into the gang, according to an MSNBC report in 2006.
Flatley said in 2007 that gang activity was a problem even then in Suffolk County. To that end, local police departments got involved in county discussions to help address gangs.
In 2006, after an East End Drug Task force effort, of 30 arrests, three defendants belonged to the Bloods gang and one to the Crips. Suffolk County District Attorney Tom Spota said in a 2007 a Riverhead crackdown on drug dealing and gang activity; six Bloods gang members were arrested.
SoutholdLOCAL photo courtesy of FBI.gov.
