Federal prosecutors have charged an LA-based Latino street gang with a conspiracy to drive African-Americans from the town of Azusa. Among other things, the gang targeted blacks (who were about 4% of the town's population) for robberies, beatings, and property crimes. Things were so bad that Azusas was known as the "hate capital of the valley." How long did this conspiracy last? 20 years! I've heard justice moves slowly, but come on!
Members of a Latino gang affiliated with the Mexican Mafia conspired for nearly 20 years to drive African-Americans out of the Southern California city of Azusa through violence and intimidation, federal authorities alleged Tuesday.
Fifty-one alleged members of the Azusa 13 gang were indicted on racketeering and conspiracy charges; six were accused of conspiring to violate the civil rights of African-Americans. The case marks the second time federal civil-rights laws have been used against a gang, authorities said.
"The Azusa 13 gang waged a campaign of hate during a two-decade crime spree in which African-Americans were harassed and attacked," U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr. said in a written statement Tuesday. "We hope that this federal case will signal the end of this racist behavior and will help vindicate all of the victims who have suffered over the years."
Thirty-nine of the defendants were in custody Tuesday. Authorities were still searching for 12 other suspects. Lawyers for some of the defendants couldn't immediately be reached.
While racial tensions among gangs have long been a part of turf wars in Southern California, none of the victims of the Azusa gang's alleged racial harassment were part of any rival gangs or criminal enterprise, authorities said. They were targeted simply because they were black, authorities said.
Unbelievable stuff. What were bedwetting liberals saying about white Tea Partiers? That we were one-sheet removed from a Klan rally? Meanwhile, African-Americans are actually targets of violence by one racial group because they are black, and it takes 20 years (!) to do anything about it? Do I have that straight?
It's a cruel world, but I honestly believe that America has made great strides in racial matters since the 1960's. But just as we are emerging from one font of injustice, we seem to have imported a new group of racist a**holes who are even worse. (can we all assume that a bunch of gang members with ties to the Mexican mafia may not be native-born Americans?) But, even though the victims were American citizens targeted over a period of decades, no one seems to have been spurred to quick action, no doubt because the perpetrators were another minority, rather than part of the supposed "oppressor" class of whites.
Conservatives are at least in favor of enforcing the law and treating everybody equally under the law. It's liberals who are soft on crime, and reluctant to acknowledge the racist behaviors of "oppressed" minorities, not to mention the criminal element among the immigrant community. Yet we are the ones who are labeled as racist. If black Americans ever realize how much they have been abused by their liberal protectors, they will be on the path to true freedom.
