On May 19, 2018, during his weekly radio address, President Trump doubled down on his “animals” comment, in reference to illegal alien gang members by saying, “MS-13 gang members are truly, and you’ve heard me say it, animals—and yet Nancy Pelosi and Washington Democrats continue to protect them and to push for open borders.”
Of course, Trump has been roundly criticized by the mainstream media (MSM) for referring to violent foreign criminals as “animals.” However, it appears that in this case, even the leftist Associated Press can confirm the integrity of Trumps comments.
On May 22, 2018, Joel “Animal” Martinez, an MS-13 gang member, in this country illegally from El Salvador, was sentenced to 40 years in a Boston courtroom for murder.
In December 2017, “Animal” pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge, which included the 2015 murder of a 15-year-old boy. The fatal stabbing was the illegal alien’s initiation into what has often been described as “the world’s most dangerous gang.”
The Associated Press reported:
Prosecutors say Martinez acknowledged being associated with MS-13 and bragged about the stabbing in a secretly recorded conversation, saying: “He stared at me and he asked me if I was going to, if I was going to stab him. I told him, ‘Yes, the Mara rules you.’”1
Of course, the aforementioned murder is only one in an ever-growing crime wave being brought upon this country by the Latin-American gang.
On May 30, 2018, a cadaver dog searching in a nature preserve on New York’s Long Island, discovered the body of missing 17-year-old Josue Amaya. The Roosevelt High School student disappeared in 2016.
Following the grisly discovery, a police spokesperson stated: “It is no doubt an MS-13 murder.”
The Daily Mail reported:
It comes after a suspected MS-13 member was arrested in the death of 15-year-old Angel Soler, who was found dead in a nature preserve in the town in October.
Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said the arrest of a suspected MS-13 member in relation to the death of 15-year-old Angel Soler, who was found dead in a nature preserve in the town last October, had led to the grave site in Roosevelt on Wednesday. The New York teenager had been hacked to death with a machete.2
As of June 1, 2018, the bodies of at least 25 murder victims attributed to MS-13 activity have been found on Long Island, over a two-year period, according to police.
In fact, MS-13’s presence on Long Island has become so strong, that, in April 2018, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) issued a statewide memo to law enforcement, warning them that MS-13 had issued a “kill order” against all police officers serving the “Empire State.”
The warning came from a “credible” informant, who told detectives: “The police have been making too many arrests and it’s time to take the streets back and take out a cop like we do in El Salvador,” according to the NYPD memo.
On May 22, 2018, police in Ladson, South Carolina, arrested 21-year-old illegal alien gang member, Franklin Platero-Rodriguez for the murder of a Houston man.
After shooting the man to death, Platero-Rodriguez set fire to the victim’s body, according to an arrest warrant.
Fox News reported:
The suspected gang member was found with a 9 mm pistol, which the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday could have been the weapon used in the Texas murder.…
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told Fox News that Platero-Rodriguez, through a loophole, was able to enter the country as an unaccompanied alien child (UAC) — an illegal immigrant under the age of 18 who’s entered the country.
Berkeley County Sheriff Duane Lewis said the 21-year-old had previously been deported but illegally entered the U.S. again. He said Platero-Rodriguez faces charges of unlawfully carrying a firearm, possessing a stolen pistol, and being a fugitive in possession of a gun.3
Between March 17 and 20, 2018, police arrested Manuel Enrique Robles Lopez, 21; Erick Alexander Contreras Navarro, 23; Denis Ludwin Espinal Alvares, 19; and an unidentified juvenile, for the murder of a man in Woodbridge, Virginia.
All of those charged are MS-13 members.
A few days earlier, the victim was abducted in front of his home, as he was leaving for work. The following day, he was reported missing by his family.
Prince William County Police discovered the man’s burned car in Veterans Park. He had been shot several times, his body was stuffed into the trunk and the car set on ablaze.
On November 11, 2017, police in Montgomery County, Maryland, arrested MS-13 gang member, Miguel Angel Lopez-Abrego, 19, for the incredibly brutal murder of an Annapolis man. The victim’s body was found in a shallow grave in Wheaton Regional Park.The man had been decapitated and stabbed more than 100 times. His heart was cut from his body, according to police.
On September 9, 2016, twice-deported MS-13 gang member, Oscar Delgado-Perez, 28, was arraigned in a Montgomery County courtroom for the grisly murder of 18-year-old Cristian Villagran-Morales.
The victim was stabbed more than 40 times, according to court documents.
In a further demonstration of this gang’s disregard for human life, upon his capture, Delgado-Perez told the arresting officers: “If I hadn’t been drunk this morning, you guys would never have caught me” The Washington Post reported.4
MS-13 (or Mara Salvatrucha) was formed by Salvadoran, mostly illegal aliens in the 1980s, during El Salvador’s civil war. While the gang was originally made up exclusively of Salvadorans, they now accept all Central Americans as well as Mexicans. MS stands for Mara (slang for mob), Salva (El Salvador), Trucha (slang for on-guard).
MS-13 actually began in Los Angeles, and as members moved deeper into the country, more loosely structured gangs or cliques were formed. However, these cliques continued to communicate with one another, and the network was formed.
Over the years, MS-13 has become more well structured; the FBI believes that the gang’s L.A. members have a higher status among the organization. The gang typically targets high school and even middle school students for recruitment.
On June 11, 2018, The Washington Post reported on MS-13 gang activity at William Wirt Middle School in Riverdale, Maryland.
Gang-related fights are now a near-daily occurrence at Wirt, where a small group of suspected MS-13 members at the overwhelmingly Hispanic school in Prince George’s County throw gang signs, sell drugs, draw gang graffiti, and aggressively recruit students recently arrived from Central America, according to more than two dozen teachers, parents, and students. Most of those interviewed asked not to be identified for fear of losing their jobs or being targeted by MS-13.
Although administrators deny Wirt has a gang problem, the situation inside the aging, overcrowded building has left some teachers so afraid that they refuse to be alone with their students. Many said they had repeatedly reported incidents involving suspected gang members to administrators, only to be ignored — claims supported by documents obtained by The Washington Post.
As of May 1, police had been called to the school 74 times this school year, according to a police tally requested by The Post.
“The jumping, the recruitment, they are trying to do it here,” said Maureen Williams, an eighth-grade science instructor. She said she was familiar with MS-13 from years of teaching in Los Angeles, where the gang was founded in the 1980s. But at Wirt, she said that administrators and police didn’t seem to be taking the issue seriously.
“They are not doing enough,” Williams said.5
Initiation into the gang usually consists of the recruit committing a brutal
attack on either a rival gang member, or even upon an unsuspecting civilian. In
2007, MS-13 gang member Everec Alvarez Chacon pleaded guilty to beating a man to
death in a Suitland, Maryland, cemetery as part of a gang initiation.
MS-13 gang members have aligned themselves with the Mexican Mafia, which is
widely viewed as the nation’s most powerful prison gang. The smaller MS-13 pays
the Mexican Mafia for protection, while their members are incarcerated. According to the FBI, there are at least 70,000
MS-13 gang members operating between Central America and the United States. As
far back as 2008, the FBI also reported that the gang was currently operating
in 42 states as well as the District of Columbia, with the highest
concentrations being found in California, the District of Columbia, New York,
and Virginia.6
Just as a cancerous tumor must be removed from its
host, MS-13 must be eradicated from this nation. However, as long as our border
remains largely undefended and cities such as San Francisco continue their
‘sanctuary policies’ toward criminal illegal aliens, this cancer will continue
to grow.
Whether a civilian or even a police officer, no one is safe as long as this
gang exists. ■
Endnotes
1. http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/05/ms-13_members_gets_40_years_in.html
2. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5790945/It-no-doubt-MS-13-murder-Cops-dig-body-Long-Island.html
3. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/05/24/ms-13-suspect-who-allegedly-killed-man-burned-body-entered-us-as-unaccompanied-alien-child.html
4. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/immigration-officials-suspect-in-maryland-gang-murder-had-been-deported-twice/2016/09/09/cdf0b2f2-7610-11e6-b786-19d0cb1ed06c_story.html?postshare=4181473448103281&tid=ss_tw-bottom
5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-ticking-time-bomb-ms-13-threatens-a-middle-school-warn-teachers-parents-students/2018/06/11/7cfc7036-5a00-11e8-858f-12becb4d6067_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.60590ff04558
6. https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2008/january/ms13_011408