California Gangs Take Incentive!

[Lloyd Danforth]

Dale!   Quick!  We need a drawing of a Giant Mouse Trap armed with a Giant Donut and some cops mulling around it.


Mar 19, 7:19 AM EDT

Calif police department on alert for deadly traps

By THOMAS WATKINS
Associated Press Writer


HEMET, Calif. (AP) -- Police in this picturesque city in rural Riverside County have been on edge in recent weeks. Someone is trying to kill them.

First, a natural gas pipe was shoved through a hole drilled into the roof of the gang enforcement unit's headquarters. The building filled with flammable vapor but an officer smelled the danger before anyone was hurt.

"It would have taken out half a city block," Capt. Tony Marghis said.

Then, a ballistic contraption was attached to a sliding security fence around the building. An officer opening the black steel gate triggered the mechanism, which sent a bullet within eight inches of his face.

In another attempted booby trap attack, some kind of explosive device was attached to a police officer's unmarked car while he went into a convenience store.

"There's a person or people out there, a bunch of idiots, trying to do damage to us," Hemet Police Chief Richard Dana said. "We can't expect our luck to hold up, we need help."

Since New Year's Eve, there have been several other booby trap attempts to kill officers, Dana said.

"The only reason they haven't killed an officer yet is because we've been observant enough to see devices planted around the station and in cars and different places," he said.

Gang enforcement officers appear to be the target of the assassination attempts, though Dana noted the devices were indiscriminate by nature and could have killed any police or law enforcement officer.

The incidents have shaken a close-knit police department already demoralized by steep budget cuts that last year saw its officer numbers slashed by a quarter to 68. Officers are checking under cars for bombs and scouting for other potential hazards.

"I would call the mood tense," Capt. Marghis said. "Everyone is being very vigilant about their surroundings and the environment."

Dana said officers have seen gang members carrying out counter-surveillance, studying police behavior. He often looks in his rear view mirror when he drives home at night to make sure he is not being followed.

In the attack with a ballistic contraption, the officer only avoided being shot in the head because the wheels on the sliding gate were wonky so he had to angle his body to open it.

"He had to push it to the right, the bullet went by to the left," Dana said.

Hemet, surrounded by the snow-topped San Jacinto Mountains about 90 miles east of Los Angeles, was traditionally known as a quiet retirement community. The population has grown in recent years to about 75,000 but the once-booming housing market has been hit hard by the foreclosure crisis.

Investigators are still trying to determine why officers are being targeted. A prevalent theory is that members of an outlaw motorcycle gang - the Vagos - were angered when members of Hemet's anti-gang task force monitored them at a funeral in a church opposite the task force's former headquarters.

A memorial service was held Dec. 29 in the Hemet Christian Assembly church and upward of 100 members of the gang attended, said Riverside County sheriff's Capt. Walter Meyer, who oversees the regional gang task force.

Officers monitored the memorial but did not attend the service. Some of the Vagos members were questioned or followed as they left town.

Two days later, the gang enforcement unit's black shingle roof was drilled through and the single-level house, converted for police use, filled up with gas.

"Which would obviously leave a reasonable person to ask: Are they involved?" Meyer said.

One of the church's pastors, James McKiney, said a group of motorcycling friends mourning the death of a prominent Hemet man asked if he would conduct a memorial service.

"When a family is crying and asking for a service, you don't say no to them," McKiney said. "I said that's no problem, I'll do that."

McKiney declined to discuss the service or if he recalled any gang officers monitoring its attendants.

Authorities said about 30 members of the Vagos, California's largest motorcycle gang, were arrested in Riverside County on Wednesday, as part of a crackdown across the state and in Arizona, Nevada and Utah. Prosecutors don't have a total number of arrests yet.

Meyer said there are about 200 Vagos members in Riverside County. The gang specializes in methamphetamine sales, identity theft and violence, he said.

Law enforcement officials from around the state on Thursday appealed for the public's help in solving the case. Several state, local and national agencies have banded together to put forward a $200,000 reward.

"It is incredible and I think unprecedented that police officers in the line of duty could be subjected to these kind of terrorist attempts on their lives," Attorney General Jerry Brown said.

[MaineShark]

Gang enforcement officers appear to be the target of the assassination attempts, though Dana noted the devices were indiscriminate by nature and could have killed any police or law enforcement officer.

Um, that's hardly "indiscriminate."

In the attack with a ballistic contraption, the officer only avoided being shot in the head because the wheels on the sliding gate were wonky so he had to angle his body to open it.

Is "wonky" a technical term?

Joe

[Pat McCotter]

Urban 'terrorists' threaten to blow up police car
911 caller says attack will be in retaliation for crackdown on biker gang

HEMET, Calif. - A Southern California police department plagued by booby trap attacks against its officers went on heightened alert Friday following yet another threat.

An unidentified person called a 911 operator at about 5:45 p.m. and said a police car would be blown up in the Hemet-San Jacinto area in the next 24 to 48 hours, Hemet Police Chief Richard Dana said.

The caller said the attack would be in retaliation for the law enforcement sweep against the Vagos Motorcycle Club earlier this week.

A Riverside County sheriff's spokeswoman said the department has not been able to confirm the threat.

About 30 members of the Vagos, California's largest motorcycle gang, were arrested in Riverside County on Wednesday, as part of a crackdown across the state and in Arizona, Nevada and Utah.

The gang specializes in methamphetamine sales, identity theft and violence, Riverside County sheriff's Capt. Walter Meyer said.

Dana told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that someone he believes may have been a gang member was unsuccessful in efforts to get into a news conference Thursday at the district attorney's office in Riverside.

Dana, along with District Attorney Rod Pacheco, state Attorney General Jerry Brown and others, urged the public at the news conference to help with identifying and capturing the person or persons responsible for the Hemet-area booby traps aimed at officers in recent weeks.

$200,000 reward
Several state, local and national agencies have banded together to put forward a $200,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.

First, a natural gas pipe was shoved through a hole drilled into the roof of the gang enforcement unit's headquarters. The building filled with flammable vapor but an officer smelled the danger before anyone was hurt.

[Pat K]

Anybody want to bet, that this turns out to be one of the
cops doing his.

[KBCraig]

Anybody want to bet, that this turns out to be one of the
cops doing his.

Cynical bastard.

[Russell Kanning]

the gang specializes in highway robbery and harassment of bikers

[MaineShark]

the gang specializes in highway robbery and harassment of bikers

But that gang has magical pieces of paper that make it all okay!

Joe

[Tom Sawyer]

Thug wars... outlaw gang vs inlaw gang.

[Russell Kanning]

I have some relatives in Hemet. It is good to know the cops don't have complete control of the city.

[CJS]

I have some relatives in Hemet. It is good to know the cops don't have complete control of the city.

Are they mechanically inclined ? 

[Lloyd Danforth]