Judge sentences Davenport man for gun crime

Judge sentences Davenport man for gun crime: "Alex Vanarsdale, 22, also was sentenced Wednesday to concurrent, five-year sentences for second-degree criminal mischief and criminal gang participation.
He pleaded guilty to charges stemming from an incident in September. He was arrested Sept. 11 along with Shad Aaron Murphy, 21, and Shawn Wayne Murphy, 23, who were sentenced last month to five years each for intimidation with a dangerous weapon"

Ivan Garcia, 26, was convicted in February of street terrorism and attempted murder for shooting David Puga

Ivan Garcia, 26, was convicted in February of street terrorism and attempted murder for shooting David Puga after the homeowner saw him tagging a block wall on a cul-de-sac.Garcia was tied to the brutal April 2008 attack by his DNA, which was left on a discarded spray paint can near the crime scene, prosecutors said. As a result of the shooting, part of Pugh’s brain had to be removed and he was left with memory loss and a lack of motor and verbal functions, they said.Before the sentence was handed down, Puga's wife, Dorothy, told of the impact on her husband.“All I have to say to you, Ivan, is that you will suffer in jail like my husband has to suffer for the rest of his life,” she said in court, according to prosecutors. “You have not only hurt our family, but by the way I see your mother crying in the courtroom, you have hurt your family as well.”Puga and his wife were returning home from the grocery store the night of the attack. Puga went out to move a car from the street to the driveway and spotted Garcia and another man tagging a block wall by crossing out a rival gang's graffiti.Garcia then pulled out a gun and shot the 45-year-old Puga three times in the neck, arm and foot and continued to fire as Puga tried to escape by crawling back into his home, prosecutors said.After hearing the gunshots and finding her wounded husband, Puga’s wife called 911. Witnesses saw Garcia and another gang member toss the spray-paint can into a Dumpster near a convenience store.In August 2008, forensic experts matched it to Garcia’s DNA, which was in the state criminal database because he had been convicted that year of being an accessory after the fact in a gang murder.One of Puga's daughters, who was 16 at the time of the attack and whose name was not released, recalled the attack in court before Garcia was sentenced.“I will never forget the way my dad was looking at me as he lay on the driveway on his back with blood pouring out his neck,” she stated, according to prosecutors. “I was screaming out loud, 'Dad, please don’t die!'”

Chloe Goodman, who has been locked up for three years, "celebrated" guns and gangs and got a "buzz" out of associating with gang culture

shocking images show a teenage girl posing with a replica of one of the world's most powerful machine guns as she fulfils her dream of becoming a gangster's moll.Chloe Goodman was 17 when she posed with the replica Mac 10 in what looks like a school locker room as a friend stands back-to-back with her brandishing a similar firearm.In a second photo Goodman poses with a gun in a lavatory and in a third holds a toy gun as she plays an arcade game.A court heard how Goodman thought it would be 'cool' to hang out with hoodlums but the pictures were found on her Facebook page when she was arrested for taking £300 to hide a loaded gun for a thug from a vicious crime gang.Chloe Goodman, who has been locked up for three years, "celebrated" guns and gangs and got a "buzz" out of associating with gang culture.The 18-year-old also boasted she was "looking after some heat" for a local criminal.The criminal, Daniel Brown, had told her not to touch the weapon as it could "blow her head off".He handed the gun over, wrapped in a sock, and with five of its six chambers loaded with .44 magnum bullets.Goodman, from Stephen Street, Urmston, Greater Manchester, and a 17-year-old girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were to be paid £150 each to keep it for Brown, who was associated with the Lostock Man Dem, a gang in south Manchester.Goodman posed with imitation guns.The gun was placed in the 17-year-old's handbag but later that day, Sunday May 9 last year, Goodman's house was raided by police, the pair arrested and the gun seized.Goodman's mobile phone and computer were seized by police and examined.One text message from her read: "Hiya Danny, make sure you shout out whenever you need a favour, hold it, safe, yeh."Police also found the photos on her computer of her posing with imitation guns.Ian Metcalfe, prosecuting, told the court: "The examination of the same home computer exposed a slew of photos of Chloe Goodman in a series of poses which seem to be in celebration of either the gun or gang culture."Both girls later pleaded guilty to possessing a prohibited weapon and possessing ammunition without a certificate.Goodman was locked up for three years and the 17-year-old was also imprisoned for two years.Brown, 21, of Barton Road, Stretford, admitted possessing a firearm with ammunition.He also pleaded guilty to the blackmail of a man who owed him £300 and was jailed for five years.

crackdown on Bulldog gang members after a violent, deadly weekend.

There were two shootings inside city limits on Friday. No on was hurt. 2 people were killed in a separate shooting hours later at the Parks apartment complex off Fruit and Ashlan early Saturday morning. Police now believe all 3 shootings are related.Police Chief Jerry Dyer told CBS47 on Monday that he strongly believes the 3 shootings stem from a fued between two sets of groups in the Bulldog criminal street gang.Police will step up pressure on Bulldog gang members for the next several weeks and target those who are particularly violent. As part of the effort police will also conduct more traffic stops, parole and probation searches, prepare more search warrants, and saturate neighborhoods where Bulldog gang activity tends to take place. The goal is to reduce any chances of retaliation because of the recent shootings."Doing everything we can to take away their anonymity, and doing everything we can to make them very uncomfortable so that the last thing on their minds is committing some type of retaliation," said Dyer.Police have strong leads in connection with the recent shootings, but haven't identified any suspects.

practice of "beaner hopping" that led to the hate crime death of Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero.

in court a Long Island teen candidly described the much-talked about but little-understood practice of "beaner hopping" that led to the hate crime death of Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero. “It’s when you go out and you look for a Hispanic to beat up,” 19-year-old Nicholas Hausch told a packed courtroom, recalling several sprees of name-calling, BB-gun shooting and beating. In his testimony, Hausch testified that his friend Jeffrey Conroy told him he'd stabbed Lucero, reports CityRoom. “Imagine if I get away with this,” the Swastika-tatooed teen allegedly boasted to his peers.
On a Friday night in November 2008 Hausch said he drove to Patchogue with two friends and a BB gun, using it to shoot a Hispanic man on his porch. On Saturday they went out with a larger crew, this time stopping the vehicle to yell "beaner" and "Mexican" at a man on a bike. After punching and kicking him, Hausch revealed that he took the victim's baseball cap "as a trophy." In the parking lot of the train station they found their next targets, who yelled back when the slurs began. After a teen punched him in the face, one man—Lucero—started swinging his belt at them. Hausch told the court he started walking off but at that moment, Conroy approached, telling him they had to go. “That’s when he told me that he stabbed him,” said the witness.Lucero later died, and it's possible that Conroy will be sentenced to life in prison. As for Hausch, he's pleaded guilty to lesser charges and though he's one of the first to tell the story in any detail, he didn't offer any justification for his actions and wasn't asked if he felt remorse. Four others from his gang have pleaded guilty, and two more who've pleaded not guilty will take the stand soon.

Condemned prisoner Franklin Dewayne Alix was headed to the Texas death chamber Tuesday evening for fatally shooting a Houston man during a robbery.

Condemned prisoner Franklin Dewayne Alix was headed to the Texas death chamber Tuesday evening for fatally shooting a Houston man during a robbery. Alix, 34, faced lethal injection for the capital murder of 23-year-old Eric Bridgeford, who interrupted Alix as he robbed the apartment of Bridgeford's sister. The sister also accused Alix of abduction and rape. Authorities say Alix conducted a six-month crime rampage. The execution would be the fifth this year in Texas, the nation's busiest capital punishment state. Alix's lawyer, Robert Rosenberg, said appeals to the courts to stop the execution were exhausted. "I know I messed up," Alix told The Associated Press recently from death row. "I killed the dude. I wasn't trying to but I did. The dude wasn't bothering me. I was bothering him. "I don't want to die. I'm remorseful. But I won't apologize."
According to trial testimony, Alix abducted Bridgeford's sister Jan. 3, 1998, forced her into the trunk of a car, drove around and raped her, then brought her home. As he was ransacking her apartment, Bridgeford came in, saw Alix with a gun and ran off but was shot in the back. Alix fled and was arrested a few days later. Alix denied the rape, said he spotted the woman outside her apartment at night and considered her "easy prey." He said he threatened to put her in the trunk of a car and she "volunteered to give me her TV" if he wouldn't kill her.
"That's how I got in her house," he said. "Her brother came home. It was just a simple robbery. My intention was never to kill anybody. I'm looking to rob, not kill." He said he was behind a door when Bridgeford entered the apartment. "I swung around, put the gun in his face," Alix said, "If I wanted to, I could have shot him between the eyes. I pushed off, and the gun went off. It happened in a second. It felt like hours. I looked at him and took off running."
Asked what he took in the robbery, he replied: "I didn't get nothing." At his 1998 trial, his lawyers tried to persuade the jury he didn't intend to kill Bridgeford. Jurors deliberated five hours before convicting him of capital murder. Alix said a debt of "a couple of thousand" dollars to a friend got out of control and forced him to turn to robbery to get money.
Harris County prosecutors said the slaying was one of three plus two rapes and dozens of robberies they tied to Alix from August 1997 through January 1998. "He was just a major league crime spree," Luci Davidson, a former prosecutor now in private practice, recalled last week. "He's probably one of the worst criminal defendants I ever tried as a prosecutor."
She said he confessed to most of the crimes. Alix said he confessed to the rape of Bridgeford's sister because he believed it would help him not get the death penalty. "I'm on death row because I was confused," he said. "I came here with confusion. I'm leaving a better person."
DNA evidence used in his trial also played a role in a scandal involving the Houston Police Department's crime lab when retests discredited the initial results. But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, affirming a federal district judge's findings, said the DNA evidence was part of a "larger body of proof," including Alix's long history of violence, that showed jurors he was dangerous and should be sentenced to death.
Scheduled to die next, on April 22, is William Berkley, 31, condemned for the March 2000 abduction, robbery, rape and fatal shooting of 18-year-old Sophia Martinez, whose body was found in the desert outside El Paso.

Stephen Baker, representing the drug mastermind Curtis Warrens , lambasted island authorities for failing to censure those within Jersey police

Stephen Baker, representing the drug mastermind Curtis Warrens , lambasted island authorities for failing to censure those within Jersey police who had lied to install an illegal bug in the car of one of the co-accused.Curtis Warrens 13-year jail sentence for conspiring to smuggle £1m of cannabis into Jersey should have been reduced because of the authorities’ “cheating”, his lawyer has argued
The advocate argued Warren's prison tariff should have been lessened to send out a warning that law enforcement agencies breaking the rules should never be tolerated.
Dame Heather Steel, judging the appeal of Warren and his five-strong gang, revealed that a decision about the gangster's challenge against conviction and sentence could take over a week.

Compton Gang Shooting

RAIDED Nationwide Import Car Salvage on North Shepherd late last week, as well as at least three homes.

RAIDED Nationwide Import Car Salvage on North Shepherd late last week, as well as at least three homes.The plot they allege to have uncovered underscores not only the growing role of Guatemala in the international drug and weapons business, but also is unique in that it involved an organization run and operated by people with no previous criminal records. The Houston group would have perhaps evaded the law if it weren't for a gun dealer dropping a dime on them by calling the feds, according to testimony by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Gaetano Beato.
Agents seized computers and financial documents and arrested the business owner, Guatemala native Joel Linares, 35, as well as a Conroe couple who were allegedly his employees in crime. They are accused of being part of a Linares-led plot that moved at least 105 illegally bought guns from Houston to Mexico and Guatemala, where some ended up in the hands of cartel gangsters.In seeking their release on bond, their lawyers have sought to show that the defendants have clean backgrounds and have never been accused of any crimes, and are not a violent threat to the community.What may have been the crew's final undoing was what federal agents contend was an attempt to sneak $2.5 million worth of heroin into the United States by stashing it in the drive shaft of a pick-up truck.A team of ATF and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were watching in November 2009 as Linares met outside the salvage yard with two other men, Fernando Huezo, 28, a California native who lives in Conroe and had family in Guatemala, and Felix Dallas-Ortega, a Cuban who lives here. Dallas' age is unclear, as is where he is charged.Acting on Linares' orders, prosecutors contend that the next day, Huezo and Dallas headed to the border in separate vehicles. Huezo guided him into the border city of Matamoros, located across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, as well as put him in touch with people there who would trade out his drive shaft for one loaded with 17.9 kilograms of heroin.Three have confessed As he came back into the United States, Dallas was arrested and confessed, according to ATF. Also later caught was Huezo and Huezo's his common-law wife, Jenni Cortez, 26.
Cortez and Huezo have confessed to their roles in the plot, Beato testified. All documents related to Cortez's case have remained sealed, even five days after she was arrested.She is said to have purchased at least 43 semiautomatic pistols and rifles since September 2008 at a cost of about $42,000, according to a news release from the Justice Department. She allegedly received about $200 for each purchase.At least 15 of those guns were recovered in Mexico or Guatemala and later traced back to Cortez. The others were allegedly purchased by her husband.A recent U.S. State Department report notes that Guatemala's role in the drug world has expanded as the government of neighboring Mexico has intensified pressure on drug cartels, leaving organizations looking for new ways to move places to expand as well as bring mayhem and bloodshed.Authorities repeatedly have said that a vital part of the cartels doing business is being able to outfit their private armies with U.S.-made weapons.

teenager shot in the neck and another getting shot in the face.

The Amador County Sheriff's Office learned of the gun play almost immediately after it happened. Deputies rushed to the scene and discovered two young, Hispanic men bleeding amidst the slot machines and lights. Each had been hit with pistol fire at close range. Law enforcement officers from around Amador converged on the Rancheria to quickly set up a perimeter. The entire gaming facility was then evacuated as the sheriff's SWAT cleared the parking structure. The heavily-armed team members, along with deputies and detectives, began searching every vehicle on the grounds. They carefully combed the area where witnesses had observed the shooter and connected suspects fleeing. Eventually, four suspects were netted between two parked cars. As the cuffs were being slapped on those individuals, a bystander reported seeing two suspicious males coming out of the brushy, wooded area near Dalton Road. A California Highway Patrol officer was in position to apprehend them while sheriff's deputies raced to the scene. Using surveillance video of the actual shooting, detectives confirmed that one of the two suspects coming out of the brush was the trigger man. That shooter, a Hispanic man in his late teens to early 20s, has yet to be identified by authorities. Amador County Undersheriff Jim Wegner stated that all parties involved in the confrontation were from Stockton and had known associations with the violent street gangs the Nortenos, and the Surenos. The groups are deadly rivals in California's gang culture. It's still unclear which side fired during the clash. Since December, the Ione Police Department and the Jackson Police Department have both arrested alleged members the Nortenos for various felonies - all individuals who live in Amador County. The two victims in today shooting were medi-flighted to trauma centers in the Central Valley. They are reportedly in stable condition. The alleged shooter is being held at Amador County Jail for attempted murder without bail.
Having worked all day at the crime scene, Wegner told the Ledger Dispatch that he appreciated assistance on the perimeter from the CHP, Jackson PD and Sutter Creek PD. He also praised the Rancheria's security officers for their efforts. "Their security did a really good job of helping us," the undersheriff said late Sunday afternoon. "They got surveillance images to us right away and provided important information to help our detectives make this arrest."