MS-13 In Your Backyard
It is this reporter's opinion that while the nation focuses on terrorism, we have all but overlooked the issue of gang violence. Over the past fifty years in Los Angeles we have covered many of the homegrown gangs: the White Fence gang, Boyle Heights gang, the Bloods and the Crips, and others.

These were child's play compared with America's most dangerous gang: the Mara Salvatrucha 13 street gang (MS-13).

The gang was organized in Los Angeles in the late '80s and was named for La Mara, a street in San Salvador. Its primary purpose was to defend Salvadoran immigrants from being preyed upon by other L.A. street gangs. Gang members sometimes wear blue and white – colors taken from the flag of El Salvador. They also sport numerous body and facial tattoos.

MS-13 has expanded from California to Alaska, Oregon, Utah, Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma ... from New York to Los Angeles and Alaska to Florida. MS-13 has also been exported back to Central America. It is estimated there are 36,000 MS-13 members in Honduras alone.

They are vicious, they are violent, they murder, rob, rape and behead their victims.

MS-13 appears to be in control of much of the Mexican border. To sustain themselves financially, they smuggle people, drugs and guns across borders. They collect money from illegals. Where MS-13 goes, violence goes. They stop at nothing.

MS-13 is becoming everyone's problem. It is a plague that has come to Long Island from El Salvador by way of the streets of Los Angeles.

One of their main targets is the police officer. Recently, they offered $50,000 bounty for the assassination of a U.S. law enforcement officer.

MS-13 has frequently resorted to leaving a dismembered corpse, complete with a decapitated head, as a calling card. They send a blood message to members and associates: "If you are not loyal, you are dead."

While other street gangs confine themselves to peddling drugs or robberies, MS-13 offers to do "any crime at any time." None of us should feel we are excluded. They operate just below the surface in so-called "peaceful" communities.

As example: In Charlotte, N.C., fifty-three gang members were arrested as part of "Operation Fed Up." In this medium-sized southern city, MS-13 has been involved in at least eleven murders since 2000.

Once MS-13 takes hold in a community, it grows rapidly. The gang reportedly has 300 members in suburban Long Island. A few years back, it didn't have any. In Nassau County the FBI has arrested sixteen leaders of MS-13.

MS-13 has a zero tolerance policy toward anyone who informs. This gang has become such a widespread problem; the plague that came to Long Island from El Salvador by way of the streets of Los Angeles follows the same patterns as the Salvadoran immigrant community that it preys upon, fanning out across the U.S. from ethnic enclaves in California.

When individual groups of MS-13 unite, the results can be devastating. Robert Hart, senior agent in charge with the FBI, says: "MS-13 is becoming a much tighter organization with much stronger structures instead of various cliques doing whatever they want, wherever they want. There is one individual who is the czar in charge."

Now you've heard about America's most dangerous gang, the Mara Salvatrucha 13 street gang (MS-13). Remember the name. They are organized. They are deadly. And they're in your backyard!