Gangs

Judge Rules That Gang Members -- Including Piggy and Law Dog -- Barred From Public Space

It seems a simple solution. Gangs have turned certain swaths of Houston into no-man's lands, shuttering businesses, keeping otherwise law-abiding citizens cowed in their houses. These gangsters -- these Crips, these Bloods, these members of Most Wanted -- have turned otherwise placid neighborhoods i ... More >>

Trial Connected to June 2012 Trae Tha Truth Shooting Underway

A civil trial is underway in Harris County District Court, with county attorneys seeking an injuction that would forbid 16 alleged gang members --including a man who was later arrested and charged for the June 2012 shooting that killed three people and wounded popular Houston rapper Trae Tha Truth - ... More >>

Harris County Attorney Sues Sharpstown Hotel Over Drugs, Prostitution, Violence

Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan, in conjunction with the Sharpstown Management District, filed suit against the Plainfield Inn off Interstate 59 and Bissonnet on Wednesday. The hotel is known around the country -- it must be because they mentioned that TWICE in the press release -- for its prostit ... More >>

Nabbed By A Phone App: Two Guys Growung $2.5 Million Worth Of Weed. Nabbed By A Website: 35 Gang Members

The somewhat bold, almost new world of phone apps has now become a main player in fighting the sorta-scourge of weed. A tipster used the iWatchHarrisCounty to point officers to two houses that ended up housing more than $2.5 million worth of marijuana when they were raided this week. HCSO and Hous ... More >>

Vince Ryan Takes on the Crips and Bloods in Court Again, Including Trae The Truth's Alleged Shooter

Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan has established a new battleground in his fight against the Bloods and the Crips. The arena' s still the same -- a civil courtroom where his office seeks an injunction -- but the target is yet another apartment complex. Ryan has sued over complexes in various part ... More >>

Malice in Alice: Four Dead in Ongoing Gang War

Isaac Vela probably never knew what hit him. At 3 a.m. Sunday, the young Latin King was waiting for a ride on a barely paved street in front of a ramshackle house in the scraggly South Texas town. Suddenly a Ford Escape containing five armed men belonging to the rival Raza Unida gang came roaring do ... More >>

The Undocumented and Chivalry

The Artist’s Eye — Beth Secor on Danny Lyon

Ten Other Gum-Themed Gang Names to Rival the "Big Red Gangstas"

According to reports, there was a spate of vandalism over the weekend out in the Willowbrook area. Car windows were smashed, things were spray-painted and general breaking of things happened. And, apparently it was the work of the Big Red Gangstas. No one yet knows if this is an actual gang or just ... More >>

State of Texas Alleges That Gang-Ridden Southwest Houston Condo Complex Is a Public Nuisance

Claiming essentially that it is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, the State of Texas and Harris County are attempting to force a Southwest Houston condominium complex to clean up its act or shut down -- and each and every unit owner is listed as a defendant. According to the suit filed April 24 ... More >>

Seven MS-13 Gang Members Indicted Here

Three murders, the feds say.​The U.S. Attorney's Office announced the unsealing of indictments for racketeering and murder against seven members of the notorious MS-13 gang, who have been arrested. The USAO says MS-13 is: a criminal organization in Houston that functioned as a unit engaged i ... More >>

David Garcia, Corpus "Gangsta," Shows How Not to Fight a Gang Injunction

Don't start none, won't be none.​In response to a recent wave of street crime, Corpus Christi has become the latest city to experiment with gang injunctions, tools whereby law enforcement bars certain people they claim to be gang members from associating with each other, in person or over the ... More >>

Sheriff's Gang and DWI Crackdown Near Flea Market Yields 16 Arrests, 120 Tickets

Who doesn't love a flea market? People who are arrested there.​Deputies from the Harris County Sheriff's Office targeted an area near a popular northside flea market this weekend and made 16 arrests and gave out 120 tickets. It was a combined DWI and anti-gang initiative, a spokesperson said, ... More >>

Worthing High Shooting -- the HISD Reaction

HISD taking steps in wake of shooting​The Houston school district is not really commenting on last evening's gang-related fatal shooting at Worthing High School because "it is the focus of an HPD ongoing criminal investigation," spokesman Jason Spencer says. But it has issued a statement from ... More >>

Wilber Adalid Rodriguez: Homeless Man Murders Another Over National "Honor"

Some things are better left unargued​You'd hope that San Antonio residents Wilber Adalid Rodriguez and Jose Antonio Rodriguez would find a way to get along. As the old blues song goes, they were both poor boys a long ways from home: the 24-year-old Wilber hails from El Salvador, while Jose, 28 ... More >>

Bloods & Crips: Harris County Gets Its Permanent Injunction Against Them

PLUS they're hit with attorney's fees!!​A judge has made permanent the temporary injunction she earlier granted against the Bloods and Crips gang, a first in Harris County. The civil injunction bars 47 gang members from an area around the Haverstock Hills apartment complex in northeast Harris ... More >>

Crips & Bloods: DA Gets Her Civil Injunction Against Them

First injunction granted in gang fight​The Harris County District Attorney's office announced last month they would be seeking civil injunctions against gang members operating near a northeast side apartment complex, and late this afternoon a judge granted the first such one in Harris County. ... More >>

Crips and Bloods: The Details On Harris County's Plan To Get An Injunction

Where's your injunction?​It's time for the Bloods and Crips to lawyer up. Harris County is taking a bunch of gangsters to civil court. "This is a grand day in Harris County," DA Pat Lykos said this morning during a news conference. Lykos filed a public nuisance lawsuit today against 33 "known m ... More >>

Bloods And Crips: Harris County Is Coming After You (With A Civil Injunction)

Civil injunctions are coming​Lawyer up, all you Bloods and Crips on the northwest side. Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos will announce tomorrow the county's first civil injunction filed against a gang, targeting "members of the Blood and Crips gangs who have continually preyed upon t ... More >>

Tiffany Young-Hartley: Beheading Related To Case Or Not?

A tradition unlike any other​The Mexican military leader of the investigation into the disappearance of David Michael Hartley has been beheaded, according to Texas state representative Aaron Pena and Zapata County sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez.A spokesman in the Tamaulipas state prosecutor's office c ... More >>

HPD Takes To Cyberspace To Fight Gang Crime. Next Thing You Know, They'll Be On MySpace

Courtesy stophoustongangs.org"Kids" "throwing up" "gang" "signs"​A slew of top cop brass from the city, state and federal levels assembled today to announce the latest weapon in the fight against gangs in Houston. A Web site. In 2010. Late as it is, the site could be useful. As the press releas ... More >>

Jose "Smiley" Saenz: Representing The Worst Of The U.S. And Mexico

​Jose Saenz, known as Smiley, was an aimless dropout and tagger in Los Angeles when he went on a killing binge.He shot two rival gang members in an "honor killing," then viciously murdered the mother of his kid.He then went to Mexico. He came back a drug-cartel solider, on the FBI's Ten Most W ... More >>

Homeless High

On the Furr campus, kids are getting the chances they need.

Fred Stawitz: Homeboy's Soul: Pride, Terror and Street Justice in America

Understand gang life, from the inside out

The Warriors

Where else can you get this kind of carnage for less than ten bucks?

Long Way Down

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's Beat the Devil's Tattoo is the reverb-heavy rockers' most cohesive LP yet.

Akira

Katsuhiro Otomo's film turned anime on its poorly animated head

Crips and Bloods: Made in America

Web exclusive!

Gangsters in Bacliff

The unincorporated town is up to its elbows in youth gangs, poverty and crime

Chuck Rosenthal: So Tough on Crime That a Suspect Goes Free

The DA doesn't make deals. And that's why Jesus Salazar is living the free life in Venezuela while a teenage girl lies dead, stabbed 26 times.

Gang Lite?

A new kind of gang in Texas and Houston promises protection but no lifelong commitment

Buckle Up

Midnight Thugs