Gang activity was blamed for a riot that broke out last week at the jail in Placerville, police said.El Dorado County sheriff's Sgt. Bryan Golmitz said about 10 inmates began fighting among themselves at 2 p.m. Oct. 8. Some inmates suffered minor injuries.Golmitz said the prisoners ignored orders from jail staff to stop fighting.A staff member used a Taser on one prisoner who continued to brawl with another inmate, Golmitz added.Guards eventually regained control and injured inmates received medical care.No jail staff members were hurt.

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Police are investigating what was believed to be the gang-related shooting of a man near Wooroloo yesterday as fears grow that a bikie war is about to break out across Perth. About 3pm yesterday a motorcyclist was shot in the shoulder while he was riding on Great Eastern Highway near The Lakes roadhouse. He was flown to Royal Perth Hospital and was last night in a serious condition. It is believed members of the Finks bikie gang, which is trying to establish a presence in WA, were involved. A witness said he had driven past the scene not long after the shooting and saw three bikies on the side of the road. One of the men was lying down. He said the scene looked like a car accident. Roads surrounding the scene are expected to remain closed until noon today.Police Assistant Commissioner Wayne Gregson said it was early in the investigation but police were watching the situation carefully.
Members of the police bikie gang response unit were called to the scene and were put on alert late yesterday. Officers were monitoring activity at Perth airports and there was a heavy police presence, including detectives, at RPH late into the night. Officers were stationed on every floor and the Tactical Response Group was also in attendance. It is understood that last week police received intelligence that the Finks were making a move into WA. Tensions were raised between WA bikie gangs after a member of an existing club was believed to have joined the Finks. With chapters established in NSW, Queensland and South Australia, the Finks are believed to have attempted to forge ties with the two WA clubs involved in a murderous bikie war of the late 1990s. It is believed the Hells Angels, who have been in a long-running feud with the Finks in the Eastern States, had also reached out to one of the clubs in a move to expand their power base. The Club Deroes and the Coffin Cheaters are regarded as bitter WA enemies after the bloody 1990s turf war that involved fire bombings, drive-by shootings and vicious bashings. The Finks and the Hells Angels have clashed in the Eastern States, including shootings and stabbings. In the past year the Hells Angels have gained a foothold in north-western suburbs, including Scarborough.

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Bronx gang member already serving prison time for drug dealing now faces life in prison for hiring two teenagers to kill another dealer.Thirty-year-old Chaz Glynn was convicted in the 2000 murder of Frederick Fowler, who police say drove from Virginia to pay a dealer $20,000 for cocaine.Glynn, a member of the the Gangster Killer Bloods "set" of the United Blood Nation gang, is already serving eight years in prison after being convicted of selling crack cocaine to an undercover police officer in 1999.He now faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia announced the jury's verdict on Wednesday.The two teenagers, ages 16 and 18, pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.According to trial testimony, the two were given guns and promised a share of the $20,000.

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Police are searching for a dark-colored car that may have been involved in the shooting death of a motorcyclist on the Glendale (2) Freeway.
An autopsy was performed on the victim Thursday, but the results were not available, authorities said.
Manuel Vincent Martin, 30, suffered a bullet wound in the chest but had no other major visible injuries, according to Los Angeles County Department of Coroner spokesman Craig Harvey.
Police confirmed Thursday that another motorcyclist riding with Martin was wearing a Mongols Motorcycle Club T-shirt. The Mongols, a biker gang that originated in Montebello in the 1970s, has been warring with the Hell's Angels.
Gang involvement is being investigated as a possible motive in the slaying, according to Glendale Police Department Sgt. Tom Lorenz.
Several people showed up to the crime scene following the shooting, Lorenz said.
"The apparel that they were wearing indicated an association with the Mongols," he said. "There was one individual with a Mongol tatoo."
"The Police Department has not ruled out any outlaw biker activity that may have caused this event," he added.

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Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says the kielbasa was really cocaine - not the Polish sausage sold in a popular meat market. Brooklyn butcher called his specialty "hot kielbasa" - for snorting, not eating.According to a criminal complaint, the "hot kielbasa" was kept in the basement.Twenty-six suspects are under arrest, including the butcher, after an informant visited the shop in response to the message: "Come to the store, I have hot kielbasa for you."Law enforcement officials say the ring includes John Guarnieri, a nephew of Louis Eppolito, the former NYPD detective convicted of murdering eight people on the orders of a Mafia boss.Guarnieri is a Department of Sanitation police lieutenant. Defense attorney Ken Montgomery says he doesn't think the suspect is "a major player." .

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Hooded gunmen believed engaged in a drugs feud burst into a bar in northern Mexico and shot dead 11 people in the third drugs-related massacre in the state since July, officials said.The black-clad gunmen opened fire with assault rifles at the Rio Rosas bar in Chihuahua city near Texas on Thursday night after pushing their way in and identifying themselves as federal police, the Chihuahua attorney general's office said.The killings were believed related to a feud between gangs jockeying over drug smuggling routes into the United States.Customers stampeded out of the bar as the gunmen fled the usually quiet city neighbourhood. One of the victims was a columnist for the city's main daily newspaper.A few hours later, federal police fought a group of suspected hitmen in a gun battle on the highway south from Ciudad Juarez, which is on the U.S. border, to Chihuahua.Police declined to say if the battle, in which two policemen and two gunmen died, involved the men who attacked the bar.More than 3,000 people have died this year as Mexico's drug gangs fight for control of smuggling routes into California, Arizona and Texas, despite deployment of thousands of troops and federal police across Mexico by President Felipe Calderon.

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Mandeep Kumar Ranga thought he was being kidnapped when plainclothes RCMP officers arrived at his parents' Vancouver house Thursday.He began screaming that it was an abduction attempt and his panicked folks called Vancouver Police's emergency line.In fact, Ranga, 26, was being arrested on a U.S. extradition warrant after being charged in the U.S. with Conspiracy to Import a Controlled Substance, Importation of a Controlled Substance and Conspiracy to Possess the Proceeds of Crime.The RCMP officers wore clothing with the force's initials clearly identified, media relations officer Cons. Annie Linteau said in a release."During the arrest, Ranga became confrontational with arresting officers and began screaming for help and yelling that he was being kidnapped," she said. "A physical confrontation ensued requiring several officers to subdue Ranga."The RCMP had already informed the city force about their impending arrest, but the VPD still responded to the 911 call."The family members present were not involved in the physical aspects of the arrest, but remained uncooperative with the police," RCMP said.Neighbours and Ranga's friends soon arrived and began shouting, inflaming the situation more.The colourful young gangster already has a long history with police for his activities on this side of the border.While still a teen, Ranga was charged along with Peter Adiwal, one of the founders of the Independent Soldiers, with kidnapping a former high school friend Steven Sadurah "to extort from him information about his parents' jewelry store," a provincial judge recounted at the time."After being grabbed, bound and struck, the Crown alleges that Sadurah was taken away in the Adiwal family van and confined in several locations, ending up at the unoccupied basement suite at the Adiwal family home, from which Sadurah escaped."Ranga was convicted, but the judge said the Crown's case against Adiwal fell "just short" and he was acquitted.Ranga's name surfaced again in connection with Adiwal when the latter pleaded guilty to another brutal drug kidnapping in the fall of 2005. The sentencing hearing heard how Adiwal sent his cousin to talk to Ranga to pressure the kidnap victim to recant his story in court. And Ranga also got a call from Adiwal's mom telling him to get the victim to change his evidence, the court heard.Ranga was charged with extortion in Vancouver in 2004, along with two associates, but a few months later, the charges were stayed. He was charged last April with possession of a controlled substance and flight from a peace officer, but those charges were also stayed a month later.

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Members of a violent Jersey City street gang called the "52 Hoover Street Gangsta Crips" were arrested as part of a statewide anti-gang initiative throughout last week, according to the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office - several in connection with four murders of young men in Jersey City between April, 2007 and September, 2008.At a Thursday press conference in the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office, state and local law enforcement officials announced that 14 adults and six juveniles were arrested between Oct. 1 and Oct. 8, although not all of those were arrested in connection with the gang.A dozen of the 20 people arrested are alleged members of the gang, which police said operates primarily out of the Booker T. Washington Apartments on Fremont Street in Jersey City. They are suspected of committing crimes over the years not only in that housing complex, but also in the neighboring Montgomery Gardens on Montgomery Street and in other parts of the city.
There is no street in Jersey City called "Hoover Street," so it is suspected that the address comes from another area. The "52 Hoover Street Gangsta Crips" are listed on a website as a known branch of the L.A.-based Crips gang.The suspects were arrested between Oct. 1 and Oct. 8 as part of a six-month investigation led by the Prosecutor's Office and the Jersey City Police Department into gang-related activity.
A local daily newspaper quoted residents of the housing projects as being thrilled after the alleged criminals were removed.

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Gangs involved in a bitter feud on the streets of Edinburgh have armed themselves with machine guns, it was claimed today.Criminals from the north of Edinburgh have allegedly got their hands on a machine gun, believed to date from the Second World War, as well as ammunition. In turn, the gang – who are involved in the heroin and cocaine trade – are said to be fearful of reports that their rivals in the Inch area have acquired a Mac 10, an automatic weapon.Police today would not comment on the allegations. The Metropolitan Police has been searching for 40 missing Mac 10s used in a string of killings across Britain in the wake of last month's jailing of a gunsmith who sold converted models. The guns are notoriously difficult to acquire in gangland circles and are rarely seen in Scotland.The two gangs in the Capital have been locked in battle for around a year. Both sides are already believed to have pistols and shotguns in their arsenal, but reports of heavier weaponry being available have sparked fears of escalating violence.The north Edinburgh gang are also being linked to Afro-Caribbean "Yardies" from the Wolverhampton area. Sources say weapons were brought north to the city recently as the gang sought to prepare itself for further conflict.The young criminals, most in their late teens or early 20s, have been feuding with a drug kingpin and his cohorts based in The Inch. Worried gang members are believed to have held a "crisis meeting" recently and have moved to recruit other young dealers from surrounding areas, such as Lochend and Leith, to their ranks.The Inch gang boss is thought to control much of the city's supply of cocaine, with ambitions to become a figure like the former Glasgow gangster Paul Ferris. Sources say he uses gunmen on motorbikes to settle scores and further cement his dominance of the drug trade. He is said to be considering buying into a private hire cab company in Edinburgh, to help launder drug cash.Sources say the north Edinburgh gang are "loose cannons" but they are "afraid" of what their rivals are capable of. One source said: "They have heard that this gang has a Mac 10. It's frightening if that's the case."It is not known how the criminals managed to acquire the machine gun, which is believed to more than 60 years old. "I know folk are getting worried about getting in the crossfire because these weapons wouldn't be very accurate," added the source.Gunsmith Grant Wilkinson, converted 90 replica Mac 10s machine guns into weapons that have been linked to at least eight murders in the UK. Police have recovered 50 but have failed to locate the rest despite offering a reward of £400,000 – £10,000 per gun. The Mac 10 fires 33 rounds in less than two seconds and at less than a foot long, is easily concealed.

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New evidence shows that Gang members shoot their victims at close range – an often deadlier method than drive-by shootings.San Diego police gang Lt. Jorge Duran said the fatal gang attacks last year – up 55 percent from 2006 – prompted an aggressive police response. It included adding officers to the gang unit and working closely with other agencies on large operations.The surge has helped keep gang homicides in the city down so far this year.“We've been successful at targeting the more violent gang members and locking them up,” Duran said.The SANDAG study also shows that homicide victims tended to be older last year. The number of victims ages 25 to 39 spiked to 42 percent, an 18 percent increase. Researchers say there are no other data to explain the reason behind the increase.Other trends worth noting:
More than 25 percent of female rape victims were younger than 18.
Children and young teens were suspects in one-third of robberies.
83 percent of homicide victims were men.Young black and Latino males are at greatest risk of becoming victims of homicide, robbery and assault.
Sandy Keaton, senior criminal justice research analyst for SANDAG, said it's important to know which groups are being victimized and by whom.“For law enforcement, it's important in forming their tactics,” Keaton said. “And for the community at large, it's examining who's at risk, why they are at risk, and how can we take some steps to prevent this for our youth?”

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Second division club Mapaches de Nueva Italia, based in the western state of Michoacan, could be financed by the ruthless Gulf cartel from the Gulf of Mexico or by an emerging gang called The Family, possibly for money laundering purposes.
"We have made seven arrests of club directors and players, all Mapaches," said a federal official who declined to be named. The arrests followed a police raid on the team after a game in Mexico City.
The official declined to give more details about the investigation but Michoacan state has been at the center of Mexico's gruesome drug war as rival cartels fight over smuggling routes for cocaine and marijuana and the army tries to stop spiraling violence.In September, drug gangs threw grenades into the central square of Michoacan's capital Morelia as revelers celebrated Independence Day, the first major strike by drug cartels on the public.

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Muslim prison gangs are trying to force other inmates to sign up to Islamic radicalism, prison officers said.Extremists at high security HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire were pushing a "strict and extreme" interpretation of Islamic practice, inspectors were told.Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers said: "There was a perception among officers that some Muslim prisoners operated as a gang and put pressures on non-Muslim prisoners to convert, and on other Muslim prisoners to conform to a strict and extreme interpretation of Islamic practice."She found staff were reluctant to tackle "inappropriate behaviour" and was told Muslim prisoners were able to "police themselves".She was told: "The new gang are the Muslims. The Muslim group is a big group and others are looking for protection. Those who are isolated are looking for protection and so are the ones converting as they won't get help from screws."Earlier this week an EU-commissioned report warned urgent action was required to stop brainwashing by jailed extremists.Dr Peter Neumann from King's College London said governments across Europe should observe prisons more closely in the future as they were likely to become "major hubs" for terrorist recruitment. He suggested creating "jihadist prisons" in which to isolate Islamist militants.Phil Wheatley, Director General of the National Offender Management Service, said: "The Chief Inspector is right to highlight the challenges and risks Whitemoor is facing. It is also important to recognise the action being taken to manage challenging prisoner profiles."A more sophisticated approach to addressing bullying and the management of bullies and their victims is now in place and is bringing improvements."Work to improve the relationships between staff and prisoners is a priority and measures have been implemented to tackle this, including training to develop staff understanding of the growing Muslim population."

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Sydney member of the Bandidos bikie gang was killed when he was thrown from his motorcycle in Melbourne.The 47-year-old man was exiting the Hume Highway on to the Western Ring Rd in Melbourne's outer north about 2.40pm when he lost control of his machine, police said. He hit the curb and struck a guard rail, the impact throwing him from the bike, which continued on about 400m down the road, police said.
The man died at the scene. Police spoke to other members of the bikie gang who arrived at the scene shortly after the collision. The death takes Victoria's road toll to 245, two more than at the same time last year.

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More than 200 members of the Bandidos bikie gang will descend on Melbourne this afternoon.Police have been told to "facilitate" the bikies as they ride in convoy from Geelong to the CBD.
The Bandidos will be given a police escort and traffic will be stopped so they can enjoy an uninterrupted run. Once in town, they are expected to hit pubs and strip clubs during their annual national run. "It really is a party," said one Bandidos member. Bikies from interstate and overseas are expected to join the run up the Princes Highway. The order from police command has outraged police already livid over what they say is a soft approach to bikie gangs. Officers will be drawn from regions already struggling to contain crime to monitor the gang from tonight until Monday. Police will devote 395 individual shifts to the operation, including traffic management units, general duties officers and brawler vans. "This operation will be sucking up a lot of manpower at peak trouble times," one officer said.
Senior Sergeant Greg Davies of the Police Association said city police were already struggling to cope with drunken violence. "Clearly, we do not have the current frontline capacity to prevent Melburnians being injured on an average weekend in the CBD," Sen-Sgt Davies said. "We just hope our members will be deployed in sufficient numbers to protect themselves and the community at large. "We've got to be confident the force has used all of its intelligence gathering and has planned for this. If there have been any slip-ups along the way then this has the potential to make Attila the Hun's foray into Europe look like an end-of-season footy trip." A spokeswoman for Victoria Police said force command had contingencies in place for the run. "Victoria Police has a number of strategies in place to minimise traffic disruption and will continue to seek to provide a safe and orderly environment for the Victorian community," she said

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Police arrested 14 people in various parts of the country yesterday in connection with the ongoing battle between bikers and immigrant gangs.
The trouble started in Odense where a member of the Hells Angels AK81 support group was beaten with a baseball bat. Two members of an immigrant gang were later detained. Shortly afterwards a police patrol stopped and searched a car in which five biker-related men were travelling. Ammunition was found in the vehicle, but no guns. That discovery caused police to search the Hells Angels clubhouse in the area where more ammunition was found, but no weapons. A member of the Hells Angels was arrested. At one point, police were tipped off that the Hells Angels had called in reinforcements. Patrols stopped a vehicle containing four members of the AK81 group on their way from Randers, but the four were released as nothing illegal was found in the car. Two others were arrested in Odense, one of whom was carrying a knife.

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Members of the Fruit Town Brims and Milltown Mafia were arrested in a months-long operation conducted jointly by law enforcement agencies at the city, county and state level.Salem County Prosecutor John Lenahan said 49 people were arrested in the city of Salem and adjacent Quinton Township on Tuesday alone. During those raids, he added, police seized five cars, almost $9,000 in cash, more than $1,500 in cocaine and marijuana and two weapons.According to a news release issued by Lenahan’s office, Tuesday’s arrests and seizures capped a 4-month investigation that yielded almost 200 arrests of gang members or their associates.

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Dissident republican group, the Real IRA, have warned what they describe as a Derry based 'drug gang' that they have seven days to 'forward themselves to the republican movement or face execution on sight.' The chilling warning came in a claim of responsibility for last week’s shooting of a Derry man, Declan Gallagher, in Donegal.
Stating that Mr. Gallagher has ‘24 hours to leave the country’ the dissident group stated: “If he refuses volunteers will be instructed to execute this man on sight.”
The dissident group made serious allegations against Mr. Gallagher stating that he was the leader of ‘an organised gang importing hard drugs into Derry City on behalf of loyalist drug lords.”The statement added: “Oglaigh Na hEireann has smashed this gang and sends a clear and decisive warning to others who operate in the knowledge that they could be next. They added ‘we reiterate the seriousness of this threat.’
The statement concluded: “Oglaigh Na hEireann has shown that it is committed to eradicating drug gangs in this city, we are now armed and well organised.”
Declan Gallagher was wounded last week in a shooting near St. Johnston. A female passenger in the car with him at the time was briefly abducted and released a short time later. The Gardai said after the shooting that they were still investigating a motive for the attack.This is the latest claim from the Real IRA accusing a shooting victim of being involved in drugs. Earlier this year they claimed responsibility for the shooting of a man in Creggan and he too was warned to leave the city.

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Jimmy (Grover) Lee was gunned down in his north Surrey home about 6:15 p.m. Tuesday and two gangsters in Prince George were found dead in a suspected double homicide there.Insp. Brian Cantera said the targeted hits in both places appear to be the usual disputes among those in the criminal underworld.These are gang and drug related homicides," Cantera said in an interview. "They are specific to those individuals involved in the criminal element who are jockeying for positions in the mid-level illicit drug trade for the most part."Solicitor-General John van Dongen said stemming the gang violence is his number-one priority."We recognize that organized crime and gun violence is spreading from the Lower Mainland to places like Kelowna and Prince George," van Dongen said. "That's why we do try to have these integrated police teams working cooperatively to pursue these investigations."
Lee's dumpy rented residence at 10928 Timberland Road in Surrey was a crack shack from which he sold crystal meth and other drugs, as well as used tires and wheels, several friends told The Vancouver Sun.Lee had connections to the Red Scorpions gang that controls the meth and crack trade in that part of Surrey, the friends said.
Surrey RCMP Sgt. Roger Morrow said the 33-year-old victim and the residence were well-known to police. Lee was involved in a dispute with another crack shack operator who was shot and wounded Aug. 26 at 108 Ave. and King George in Surrey. And he had regular run-ins with nearby businesses upset that he was selling auto parts without a licence, including some that were stolen.Prince George RCMP Const. Gary Godwin said investigators there are still working to confirm the identity of the two murder victims found in a house in the 2300-block of Webber Crescent.
But he confirmed the house was raided by police Sept. 12 and that three illegal guns - including two semi-automatic weapons - were seized. Five people were arrested.
The northern hub city has struggled with an increase in gang activity over the last few years with Hells Angel puppet clubs - like the Renegades and the Crew - challenged for turf by the Independent Soldiers, a gang that originated in south Vancouver."All of our recent murders, shootings, beatings and tortures have been gang-related," Godwin said.The three murders come just five days after a brazen gangland slaying in the parking lot of Vancouver's busy Oakridge Mall. The victim, Rakesh Ratnam Naidu, had a long history in the criminal underworld and was associated with two other recently killed gangsters - James Edward O'Toole and Tommy Ho Sing Chan. Another gangster linked to the Independent Soldiers, Jody Archie York, had his million-dollar house in Langley shot up Monday night.Van Dongen said the gangs appear to be getting more cocky with their very public shootings. "This kind of gun violence and this kind of attitude did not exist 10 to 20 years ago," van Dongen said. "They are becoming more brazen."Cantera said some gangsters think they are immune from prosecution in B.C.

"I have had some of those comments made to me in the past by some in the criminal world," he said.

Cantera said police resources are often tied up preparing for the court process, which is much more complicated and labour-intensive than it once was because of the prosecution's obligation to disclose everything to the defence.

"It is complicated law. It is extensive disclosure. Those are creating situations that are really allowing the criminal element to flourish here," Cantera said.

And while the shootings and slayings continue, Cantera said the public has to remember that the attacks are targeted.

"The majority of what we are seeing are not random acts of violence. These are targeted squabbles that these individuals are trying to sort out, trying to vie for a position in the drug underworld," he said.

kbolan@vancouversun.com

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A man riding alongside Manuel Martin 30, of Venice was wearing a T-shirt bearing the insignia of the Mongols motorcycle gang, Glendale police Sgt. Tom Lorenz said. Police did not know if Martin belonged to the Mongols, Lorenz said. The Montebello-based gang has several chapters in California and has recently been feuding with the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, authorities said. "We won't be able to make any determination as to whether he was a member of an outlaw motorcycle gang," he said. "We don't know if he was targeted. We don't know if this was a road-rage incident." The freeway was shut down from about 4 a.m. to 1 p.m. and traffic was jammed on side streets as homicide and coroner's investigators searched the scene. The traffic jam reached as far east as Arcadia and west through Glendale.
Martin was found in an embankment off the freeway near his motorcycle after a report of multiple shots being fired about 2 a.m., according to Glendale Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz. Coroners have not determined if he died from the bullet wound to his chest or from injuries sustained after falling from his motorcycle. Lorenz noted that the incident happened after most establishments close, and he said detectives are trying to determine where the two bikers were before getting on the freeway.
"This obviously started somewhere else and it culminated on the freeway while they were riding," he said. The feud between the Mongols and the Hells Angels, recently has erupted in violence. A series of pipe bombs exploded outside of the home of a leader of the San Jose chapter of the Mongols last month. Police suspect the attack, in which no one was injured, was the work of the Hells Angels. Also last month, the president of the San Francisco Hells Angels chapter, Mark "Papa" Guardado, 46, was shot and killed outside a San Francisco bar by a Mongol from Modesto.
Tim McKinley, an expert in biker gangs who retired from the FBI in 2002, said the feud has raged for over a decade.
"Its just game-on between the two groups and it has been for quite a while now," he said. "They're in a gang war." The war has continued over territorial issues and reached its most violent point in 2002 when a fight broke out in a casino that ended with the deaths of two Hells Angels and one Mongol.

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Jason Turner, 27, of Asbury Avenue and Tyreek Simmons, 22, of Prospect Avenue with one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine in Asbury Park on March 6.The alleged conspiracy carries a maximum prison term of 10 years, upon conviction.In addition, the indictment charges Turner with 60 additional drug offenses related to a series of 15 alleged cocaine sales to an undercover officer between July 5, 2007, and March 6.Each of the alleged sales occurred within 1,000 feet of Mount Carmel School in Asbury Park, the indictment said.For each of the 15 alleged sales, Turner is charged with cocaine possession, possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute it, distribution of cocaine and distribution of cocaine within 1,000 feet of the school.
Of the 60 alleged drug offenses, 58 of them carry maximum prison terms of five years upon convictions. Two of the counts allege that Turner possessed and distributed an aggregate amount of cocaine in excess of a half-ounce between July 5, 2007, and March 6. Because of the amount of cocaine involved, those offenses each carry maximum prison terms of 10 years, upon conviction.Turner and Simmons were among 40 people arrested in early March following what Prosecutor Luis A. Valentin said was "a lengthy investigation by the county's gang task force into drug distribution activities by members and associates of the Bloods street gang."

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