All About Gangs

In the early 1980s a civil war erupted in El Salvador killing as estimated 100,000 people. In addition, it is estimated between one and two million people have immigrated to the United States as a result of the unstable environment in El Salvador. The first large population of El Salvadorian refuges settled in the Rampart area of Los Angeles. This influx of immigrants looking for low cost housing and employment was not readily welcomed by the Mexican-American population who were already residing in that area. The area was already plagued with gangs and crime. These immigrant Salvadorian youth and young adults were soon were victimized by local gangs. A group of Salvadorian immigrants created a new gang calling themselves Mara Salvatrucha also known as MS-13. It is believed they got their name from combining the name of “La Mara”, a violent street gang in El Salvador with Salvatruchas, a term used to denote members of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front...

by Shelly Feuer Domash Spreading from El Salvador to L.A. and across the United States, Mara Salvatrucha 13 is increasingly well organized and deadly. Within one hour, two people were found murdered miles apart in suburban Nassau County, N.Y. After an intensive investigation, police officials learned the murders were the work of the violent street gang Mara Salvatrucha 13. It also soon became apparent the gang was sending a bold message to its members and associates. That message: “If you are not loyal, you are dead.” But there was another message in the brutal slayings for the people of Long Island. And that message was that gang violence had moved into the upper middle class enclaves of the Island, into the kinds of communities where the locals assume that crime is somebody else’s problem. Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS-13) is unfortunately becoming everybody’s problem. This plague that came to Long Island from El Salvador by way of the streets of Los Angeles follows the s...