There is a subtle trend developing around the state of Arizona prisons
that hasn’t caught the eye of the media nor the attention of the prison
director Charles L. Ryan unless he is being ignorant about the red flags and
warning signs that are waving on every yard in his prison system. In Arizona, Mexican
Americans that were once thought to be autonomous in their activities are now
emulating the gang styles and rules of the Mexican EME California and their
brotherhood relatives the Sureños and are under current proposals to join them
into a new alliance and brotherhood.
As usual, this information is not being shared and handled as a “need
to know” basis that has suffocated any and all information related to the
recent racial warfare situation in Winslow prison unit Kaibab as well as an
sweeping infection in the Lewis, Florence and Eyman complexes ending up in the
maximum custody clusters of the Security Threat Group leaders housed in the
Browning Unit in Florence, Arizona. Strangely, in their ill-advised attempt to
curb the violence against the Blacks, the agency transferred many Black inmates
throughout the state spreading the hate and violence with it and putting all
public prisons at risk of a race war especially those that have open yards.
On the outside, the Arizona New Mexico Mafia resemble a very violent
group involved in murders and
assassinations, drug deals and other money laundering activities on the street
for those working the game inside prisons. They are a mixture of street gangs,
released prison gang members and other criminals that are heavy into the drug
dealing scene and often doing business with cartel related customers that fund
there violence and subversive trend to control and take the power away from
other gangs.
It is not unusual for street cops to see the Mexican Mafia tattoo or
ink on these street gangs as they are wearing them proudly and not being shy
about how their homies roll with the prison gangs. Yes
the EME has had ties with MDTOs (Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations) and
this is what makes Arizona so volatile and vulnerable as there are sufficient
avenues of access to infiltrate the prisons with staff or contract employees to
facilitate their goals and mission to dominate the prisons.
On the inside, there are gang leaders locked up in the Browning STG
housing units that have daily access to cell phones and communicate their
business activities with much regularity without the fear of being caught or
disciplined as they have developed a network that is coded and hard to break
unless you spend a sufficient amount of time and effort to decode and
understand what they are doing. Such communications are related to drug deals,
gang revenues and taxes, green light on hits on the street and inside,
alliances with other gangs and approval of memberships.
The most disturbing concern is the unification and association of
Mexican Mafia members in Arizona with members of the California Emme and Sureños.
When you look at history and the rules involved, the Mafia stressed three
things in their lifestyles; in for life, no disrespect to each other and live
with violence to rule with power.
It’s their mantra to exercise extreme violence on their victims and
sparing them nothing so that their role as intimidators remains intact and
feared on the prison yards without any question how far their will go since
they have engaged in recent homicides without holding back any kicks or punches
as they are usually delivered on a four to one or even six to one odds during
these attacks.
The Mexican Mafia physical force type of strong-arm executions is
backed up by the intellect of the Sureños who control the brains of the gangs.
In addition, this alliance has worked itself into the Bureau of Prisons gang
territory that makes them more brutal and dangerous to all the other gangs that
compete for the control, drugs and power on these yards.
As of late, the rules have been changing and they have been changing
for the worst as prisons become battlefield between rival gangs struggling to
survive or dominating for control and power of all they can get. It is
suspected that within the next year or so, there will be a four state gang
infestation that will influence the prisons located in Texas, Colorado, Arizona
and California as one network. In
conjunction with this growth there will be a massive increase in strength and
ferociousness against other prisoners and prison employees.
It also revives the long standing feud between the Blacks and the
Mexicans that originated in California prisons long time ago and puts a green
light on any Black group that opposes their will to control the yards. The war
against the Blacks will be escalated and more homicides will occur at the hands
of these brutal gangsters that will show no remorse and do what their code
allows them to do. It has been no secret that the Black, as do others, join up
by race and requires that this gives them a significant level of protection
while incarcerated and out in the general population.
The strength and influence of the EME is increasingly
intimidating. Their obsession is to control everything. Their application of
force is anything but aesthetic but rather brutal in nature. They oppose
numbers with ferocious abilities to commit violent strikes and hesitate none to
take a life to show which of the groups is the most powerful as it has become
the way to handle the business. Hence numbers mean nothing to them while their
ferocious and brutal combat style of engaging the others is their key to
dominance.
Such outright vitriol
is becoming more and more frequent inside our prisons. The mindset has been
changed and no paper truce can survive their voracious appetite to control and
to wield power over others. Their goal is to be the one gang in control and
become the dominant culture to deal with as they spread out their plans for the
future for this gang is all about planning for the future.
One has to ask a specific question and ask it quickly.
What is Charles Ryan doing about this gang problem? It is obvious he has no
means to control their willed violent and predatory behaviors as they are
running rampant on the yards and even attacking staff members that find their
cell phones and drug paraphernalia or weapons.
It is also obvious that he has rendered his gang units
powerless to manage these predators as their violence has not diminished one
bit in the last four to six months and in fact are increasing in incidents and
the type of brutality involved.
It is true that in cooperation with the Phoenix street
gang task force, they have busted a few gangsters in the last few years but
those were a slight tip of the iceberg compared to the daily profit sharing
business that is going on the yards today. These task forces act on
confidential information and informants that have been disowned or dissed by
the gang members and are organized on plea bargains of other criminals
testifying and then sent out of stat to the federal system for protective
custody.
The point being that rarely do these task force members
attain any evidence strong enough to convict these gangs on RICO charges or
other significant criminal acts as most are already serving time for murder or
murder for hire and long drug related sentences. The DOC rarely finds someone
in their own custody that is committing crimes on the street and inside without
the cooperation of these drug agents that are investigating cases of their own
with common links to prison gang activities.
This method of gathering intelligence has been severed by
the lack of informants willing to give up information for the threat of death
has become more of a reality than ever before. It has also been severely
impaired because the DOC have no individuals that carry any credibility with
them as a reliable and dependable source to deal with this life and death
situation.
It is no secret that the intelligence gathering
capabilities of the DOC have been severely severed. They are out of touch with
gang warfare and activities and refuse to allow any outside agency to assist
them to clean it up. Their attitude is “it’s our problem and we will fix it”
but that is certainly not enough to quell the violence or body count that is
piling up each day somewhere in our prisons. Denial and ignorance are two
dangerous elements of this gang management approach.
Whatever they are doing is alienating correctional
officers working the line as they have been omitted from gang intelligence
gathering and are oblivious to what is going on around them and which prisoner
is a gang member and which one isn’t. the odds are that out of a yard
population of one thousand inmates, at least a third are gang members incognito
or associates eager and willing to become a gangster by performing one of the
required acts to join the gangs.
Mr. Ryan, It is these gang initiations and serious
assaults on other prisoners and including staff that has to be prevented and
intervened so that the power of these gangs can be reduced and the fear of
intimidation subsides to the point where communication is restored between
officer and prisoner to keep things safe and orderly.
Secondly you can re-organize your gang units with
individuals that are skilled at gang intelligence and gathering information
rather than just filling the role because the belong to the “elites” at that
complex denying the DOC the ability to gather sound and practical intelligence
of what is really going on inside our prisons. Just lately, when your STG
officers intercepted a “declaration of war” letter your staff didn’t know what
to do with it and in the end resulted in a closed door negotiation with
“influential yard leaders or shot-callers” that has provided you a temporary
truce that is as fragile as the next fight.
Last and certainly not the least, you must open your
doors to the FBI gang task force that is working on these issues diligently and
can, if you want them to help, provide you with the latest intelligence
gathered with the most modern technology or drug interdiction methods available
to gang technology today and provide you specific assistance in identifying the
surreptitious elements that are lurking in your backyard today. Your refusal to
disallow them to assist you is costing lives and jeopardizing the state’s
public safety.
