The Gangstas in My Neighborhood

The peaceful suburbs of Washington, D.C., are beginning to look and feel like East Los Angeles. The violent illegal alien gang Mara Salvatrucha (or MS-13) has thoroughly penetrated the region—and its murderous members continue to be aided and abetted by reckless government officials at every level who refuse to enforce our immigration laws.

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Last year, area law enforcement officials issued a warning that MS-13 was planning to ambush Montgomery County, Md., cops during service calls. In June, I obtained leaked unclassified intelligence from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Norfolk, Va., division reporting on a similar gang order issued in the Tidewater, Va., area:

Reporting by a reliable Norfolk source indicates MS-13 members are planning to randomly attack local law enforcement officers in the Tidewater area. Threats of this nature have been termed by gang members as “green light” notices. Green light notices have continued to increase, prompting the Virginia Gang Association to issue warnings to law enforcement in Virginia and the surrounding states . . . Additional source information indicates local MS-13 members are equipped with weapons and ballistic vests.

The gang is also infamous for “green lighting” potential prosecution witnesses, including Brenda Paz—an MS-13 member stabbed to death and dumped in the Shenandoah River in 2003 by gangsters while under federal protection as she prepared to testify against them.

Federal prosecutors earned praise last week for dramatic raids and grand jury indictments against 19 alleged, suburban Washington-area MS-13 members accused of participating in the beating death of a man at a cemetery; a drive-by shooting that killed a boy; the kidnapping of two girls—one of whom was murdered; a daytime shooting at a high school; and stabbings and fatal shootings of rival gang members, according to the Washington Post. The feds are using racketeering laws to target the criminals.