Word: gangs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...gang hit was ordered in Los Angeles, but the blood was spilled thousands of miles away in Honduras. On October 7, in the Central Penitentiary of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, the prison homeboys of the "MS" gang cranked up the volume of their dormitory's TV set. It was the day of the big Honduras-Jamaica soccer game, and the blasting soccer commentary covered the screams of ex-gang leader Geofredo Cortes Ortiz as two ornately tattooed MS members - both Hispanics from the U.S. - dragged him into the bathroom and hacked him to death with machetes. Their homeboys then joined...
...Revenge motivated the leaders of the U.S.-based MS, whose initials stand for "Salvatrucha Gang," to order Cortes killed. They blamed him for his failure, while leading the gang inside the penitentiary, to defend his members against an attack by rivals from the 18th Street gang. It had been the worst prison massacre in Honduran history: While the MS slept on the floor of their cramped dormitory, members of the "18" had sneaked in with homemade knives and steel pipes and killed 11 of Cortes's homeboys. The attackers then gutted their victims and triumphantly strung their intestines along...
...Cortes had been transferred out of the Central Penitentiary soon after the killings, but after he turned to religion, prison authorities sent him back, hoping he could tame his own gang. And that cost him his life...
...murder illustrates how Hispanic gangs in U.S. cities are spreading their terror all over Central America. Deported to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, these delinquents not only imported the mystique of U.S. gang culture - its neo-Nazi tattoos, rap music, baggy trousers and "homey" slang - but they also brought crack cocaine, semi-automatic weapons, home-made bombs and a level of calculated aggression not seen in the region since the insurgencies and counterinsurgencies...
...Coming from the U.S. gives a deportee the edge over the local gang-bangers. "These kids might have been low-level gang members back in the States, but when they come here, they're like the Nike of the gang world," says Magdalena Rose Avila, founder of Homeys Unidos, which helps deported gang members settle into Salvadoran society. "One guy I know recruited 60 or 70 soldiers to his gang in six months...