Police launch effort to fight Hispanic gangs

Jose L. Espinoza, 18, stood his ground -- and died from a 12-gauge shotgun blast to his head.

The weekend shooting of the 18th Street gang member by a rival Sur-13 member underscores the violence that Hispanic gangs -- copied and imported from gangs in Los Angeles and other cities -- are beginning to wreak in Indianapolis, police say.

To combat such violence and other crime affecting the Hispanic community, the Indianapolis Police Department and the Mayor's Commission on Latino Affairs will announce today an outreach program to encourage Hispanic residents to report crime or concerns about crime in their community.

The program includes a telephone hotline and the appointment of a Hispanic detective and outreach coordinator to work with the city's Hispanic community.

Police say gangs not only are terrorizing some Latino families and creating problems for public schools; the violence is spilling into the general community, as well.

Saturday's shooting brought that home.

Detective Todd Lappin said Espinoza and two fellow members of the "Primeras," an 18th Street gang, were apparently on their way to a monthly Latin dance at the Madame Walker Theater when they bumped into a group of about 15 members of the Surenos, or "Sur-13," gang in the parking lot just north of the building.

Espinoza's two friends took off running, with some Sur-13s on their heels.

Espinoza yelled at them not to run, Lappin said, and stayed to confront Surenos members who remained behind.

Several people told police they observed what appeared to be two groups arguing and a man being beaten.

However, when police arrived, they found Espinoza lying dead on the concrete divider of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street at St. Clair Street.

Officers arrested Carlos Ramirez, 17, Indianapolis, on a preliminary charge of murder, according to police records.

Lappin said these gangs are different from some that police confronted in the past. According to gang detectives, recruiting often starts in middle school.

"They're younger," Lappin said. "They're more dangerous. They come here pretty well street-wise."

Anti-gang detectives said Hispanic gangs in the Indianapolis area have been mostly home-grown, "wannabe" imitations of brethren in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and the suburbs of Washington.

"It's like this big circle coming unto us," said Sgt. Phil Smiley of the Safe Streets Task Force, an anti-gang unit organized by federal, county and Indianapolis area city police agencies.

While Hispanic street gangs have many names, most in Indianapolis identify themselves as Surenos or Mara Salvatrucha (which also goes by MS or MS-13).

The Mara Salvatrucha developed in Los Angeles among Salvadoran refugees. In the Boston-area community of Somerville, police believe Mara Salvatrucha members gang-raped two deaf girls, including one in a wheelchair, in 2002, according to news reports.

And the Washington Post has reported that suburban Virginia police believe machete-wielding MS members are responsible for robberies, assaults and at least two slayings in which the victims' heads were nearly hacked off.

Safe Streets Detective Steven Schafer said he's worried that the arrival of just a few hard-core gang members could be the catalyst no one wants.

"It wouldn't take but one or two of these guys to bring a little bit of knowledge," he said. "Our gangs are still evolving right now."

Smiley said he and other Safe Streets detectives are willing to meet local gang leaders.

"I would meet anybody anywhere who claimed they were the leader," he said. "I really don't want to give them any recognition. But just so we could understand where they come from. Maybe there's things about it we don't know."