Graffiti tagger David Miera sentenced to life in prison for 2006 shooting death

WestWord.com
By Jared Jacang Maher in Follow That StoryFriday, Apr. 3 2009 @ 2:25PM

Battles between tagging crews can sometime get violent in West Denver.



A member of a West Denver tagging crew will have lots of time to work in his blackbook after being sentenced to life in prison yesterday.

A Jefferson County judge slapped twenty-year-old David Miera Jr. with a life sentence plus 32 years for being the triggerman in a 2006 shooting that killed one man and caused serious injury to another.

Miera belonged to EMS, a loose collection of as many as 200 taggers known for scrawling their insignia on property across Denver's west side. Such crews are known within the graffiti community and among law enforcement as "tagbangers" for their low spray can skills -- no "pieces," just ugly tags -- and propensity for gang-like violence. For the past several years, EMS has been in heavy competition with rival crew WKS for turf and respect. In 2006, this escalated from the walls (the traditional way crews do battle) into stabbings and shootings.

Westword chronicled some of the drama in the June 2007 story, "Tagging up Denver." Here's an excerpt from that article:

At last summer's Taste of Colorado festival, a rumble between more than two dozen WKS and EMS members resulted in one teen getting stabbed. And on December 17, Jonathan "Roman" MacLagan was shot to death at a Littleton house party after breaking up a fight between rival crews. The twenty-year-old Kennedy High School grad "was a peacemaker at heart," says one of MacLagan's friends. "He wasn't down for fighting. He was a good homie like that."

Miera, then nineteen, was arrested five days later by Jefferson County deputies for the shooting death of MacLagan. According to an arrest affidavit, he told police that he and other EMS members became angry after not being admitted to a party. As they left, Miera says he fired a shotgun from the back window of an SUV intending to hit Moke, a member of WKS. Instead, the blast hit MacLagan in the head, killing him. "It wasn't meant for Roman, it was meant for Moke," Miera told investigators. He is currently awaiting a plea hearing on charges of first-degree murder.

In February, a jury found Miera guilty on several charges, including the first-degree murder of MacLagan and the first-degree assault of Carlos Sanchez, who was also shot but survived. The judge's sentence makes certain that the only walls Miera will be tagging up anytime soon will be prison walls.

Meanwhile, the City of Denver is banking on public art as a way to cut down on graffiti and related violence. Will it work for crews like EMS? Weigh in on our blog "City announces program to fight graffiti by paying for murals."

Five arrested in robbery of pizza deliverer charged with violating street gang act

Published: March 31, 2009 07:40 pm
Rome News-Tribune (GA)

Five arrested in robbery of pizza deliverer charged with violating street gang act

Mark Millican

Four more people have been arrested in the March 26 armed robbery of a pizza delivery man at gunpoint near 306 N. Henderson St.

Dennis Shammad Love, 17, of 715 Trammel St., and three juveniles were arrested Tuesday by officers with the Dalton Police Department. Damarion Johnson, 17, was arrested on Friday. All are charged with armed robbery and violation of the Georgia Street Gang Act. Police spokesman Bruce Frazier said officers believe some of the youth are part of a gang but do not want to publicize a gang name over concerns that other gangs may commit crimes to gain publicity.

Investigating officers found a pellet gun in the area where the robbery occurred and believe it was used in the holdup, Frazier said.

Love and Johnson are students at Northwest Whitfield High School, according to a spokesman at the Whitfield County Jail. They remained in custody Tuesday afternoon. Frazier said the juveniles were taken to the Regional Youth Detention Center where a decision would be made about incarceration or releasing them to their parents.

Punishment by the school system could include suspension or expulsion under the school system’s code of conduct. Spokesman Eric Beavers said Northwest principal Carolyn Towns could take the students before a discipline tribunal hearing.

The delivery driver was robbed in the area of apartments at 306 N. Henderson St. after someone called in an order for an address where the resident was not home, police said. As the driver was about to leave, he was approached by a group of young males who claimed to have made the order. He went to his truck to retrieve a change bag when one of the males pulled out a gun and demanded money.

The driver left after giving up $25 and the pizza.

Mississauga (Canada) homes raided in street gang bust

Mississauga.com
April 2, 2009 09:48 AM -

A series of pre-dawn raids yesterday, including two in Mississauga, have resulted in more than 100 people being arrested in what police described as the biggest street gang takedown in Ontario's history.

About 1,000 police officers executed more than 100 search warrants during a bust of "unprecedented scale," Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair said this morning.

Police from across the province, including OPP officers, burst into apartment buildings and homes as early as 5 a.m. in an effort to dismantle both high and low-level operatives of various criminal organizations.

Two Mississauga homes were raided, with four people being arrested.

"We have achieved the purpose that we set out to do today," Blair said.

Police continued to make arrests and seize property throughout the day.

Project Fusion, as police are calling Wednesday's takedown, began last year and focused on crimes dating back to 2003, Chief Bill Blair told a news conference at police headquarters today.

The investigation focused on two street gangs: MNE (Markham Road/Eglinton Ave. E.) and the 400 Crew (400 McCowan Rd.) located in southeast Toronto, Blair said.

"But there is an overarching criminal enterprise that supplies weapons and drugs to the street gangs, " Blair said. They don't have a name but "they have been extremely well organized and sophisticated in their operation."

One hundred homes and 61 vehicles around the GTA were the targets of search warrants.

Police arrested 125 people. Some face weapons trafficking and criminal organization charges while some facing less serious offences already have been released from custody. Prosecutors will try to detain the accused who face the most serious charges. No names have been released.

"This is the culmination of a complex and obviously successful organized crime investigation," Blair said.

lrosella@mississauga.net

Injunction targets O.C. (CA) street gang

Lps Angeles times
6:19 PM | March 27, 2009

An Orange County judge issued a court order today that bars dozens of alleged members of a street gang from assembling with each other, authorities said.

Superior Court Judge Kazharu Makino signed the preliminary injunction against the Orange Varrio Cypress gang, which claims territory in the city of Orange, according to the district attorney’s office. The court order is the sixth signed in Orange County in the last 2½ years. The last injunction was issued against a rival gang, also in Orange, in July.

Law enforcement authorities served 108 alleged gang members with injunction notices starting last month, and 55 of them were named in Friday’s injunction.


The judge’s order demarcates a 3.8-square-mile area, mostly in downtown Orange west of the 55 Freeway, in which alleged gang members are not allowed to congregate together, drink or use drugs in public, or wear gang attire. They must also obey a curfew and other laws or face increased penalties.

“They’ve been committing violent crime and really been a nuisance to the community,” said Orange Police Sgt. Dan Adams, who added that the gang dates back to at least the 1970s.

More recently, police said, the gang's members have been involved in dozens of attempted homicides, weapons violations, assaults and drug crimes from 2005 to 2008.

As in Los Angeles and San Diego counties, gang injunctions have become more common in Orange County as a way to step up the fight against gangs in Anaheim, Orange, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente and Santa Ana.

Gang injunctions are somewhat controversial, with civil libertarians saying they cast too wide a net and can amount to racial profiling.

But law enforcement officials say that they pursue court orders in response to fears and concerns by law-abiding residents, and that they include only the most active and well-documented gang members, such as those who have admitted to gang membership, dress in gang colors, bear gang tattoos or have committed crimes on behalf of the gang.

--Tony Barboza

Alliance marshals for war on gangs

The Republican
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
By PETER GOONAN
pgoonan@repub.com

SPRINGFIELD - Law enforcement and youth service agencies - assisted by a $1.4 million state grant - have announced plans for a series of neighborhood deployments to combat gang and youth violence.

Representatives of the participating agencies gathered on Tuesday at City Hall, saying that the coordinated effort is aimed at stepping up gang prevention, intervention, and suppression efforts. The initial deployment will be in the Forest Park and lower Forest Park area, said officials.

The grant, announced last fall, was awarded under the state Sen. Charles E. Shannon Jr. Community Safety Initiative grant program.

Violence broke out as rival gangs fought for territory

Violence broke out as gangs fought for turf
By Mark Cowan

Mar 24 2009, Birmingham Mail

THE murders of teenage party-goers Letisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis six years ago brought into sharp focus the gang problem that had plagued the city for a decade.

The innocent girls were caught in the crossfire as members of notorious street gangs, Burger Bar Boys and the Johnson Crew, fought a deadly battle on the streets.

Investigators believe the gangs’ roots can be traced back to the 1980s when groups of young black men banded together to counter threats to their community from the Far Right. They soon evolved into criminal street gangs battling each other and Jamaican Yardies for control of the booming crack cocaine market.

The Johnson Crew’s territory was Aston and Nechells while the Burger Bar Boys claimed Handsworth, Lozells and Perry Barr.

By the late 90s, the gangs had become chaotic and the city saw a rise in gun crime and stabbings as they brazenly targeted each other in public, with shootings developing from organised hits in conflicts over the drug trade to tit-for-tat issues of “respect, revenge and revenue”.

Their street war came to a head in January 2003 when members of the Burger Bar Boys went hunting rival Johnson Crew members at a party at a hairdressers in Aston. Letisha, aged 17, and 18-year-old Charlene, were murdered in a drive-by shooting. Their murders galvanised the city into action.

Within three years the gangs were splintered as almost all of the 50 ‘Most Wanted’ members of the two gangs were behind bars with members of the Burgers jailed over the girls’ murders and members of the Johnson Crew imprisoned for the murder of doorman Ishfaq Ahmed, killed in 2004.

A raft of new measures were also introduced to mediate between the warring factions to stop the tensions from spilling over onto the streets and give gang members an option to escape their lifestyle.

While it is debatable whether the two street gangs exert the same control they once did, the influence on youngsters attracted to what they see as a glamorous lifestyle is undeniable.

Younger gangs, made up mostly of teenagers attracted by the lure of being part of a gang, emerged with names such as Slash For Money Crew and the Bang Bang Crew. A trivial row between members of those gangs led to the stabbing of Odwayne Barnes in Birmingham city centre in March 2007.

Despite a drop in shootings, the gang problem has not disappeared. Last summer police saw an increase in tensions on the streets that led to an increase in gun crime and two murders.

Police: Watsonville shootings may be linked to gang rivalry

Police: Watsonville shootings may be linked to gang rivalry

MercuryNews.com
By Jennifer Squires
Posted: 03/26/2009 01:30:02 AM PDT

WATSONVILLE -- Police are putting more officers on the street after a recent upsurge in gun violence that may be the result of Sureño gangs trying to target rival Norteño gang members.

Three gang-related shootings in less than a week have left a Hollister man dead and hospitalized two others.

Police said Wednesday they have no information indicating the shootings will continue, but they also have no reason to believe the violence will stop.

"The only commonality is that in all three occasions the suspects perceived the victims to be opposing gang members," said Lt. Darren Thompson, who added that the victims were not necessarily gang members. "We're bringing in people in uniforms to provide a little additional presence in the street."

The additional patrols started midday Wednesday and will continue through the end of the week. Also, detectives are being brought in on overtime to follow up on leads in the three shootings. No suspects have been identified in any of the shootings.

"Our best hope is going to be tracking down some of these leads that we started yesterday that we didn't have time to track down," Thompson said.

Detectives think the aggressors may be Sureños, who claim blue, because the victim in Tuesday's shooting was wearing red shoes, Thompson said. Norteños, the rival gang, claim red.

Watsonville has about 560 documented active gang members, about 70 percent of whom are Norteños, according to patrol supervisor Eric Taylor, who was the department's gang investigator until recently. There are seven or eight Norteño and two Sureño gangs that operate in the city, he said.

The most recent shooting happened in a residential neighborhood off Airport Boulevard on Tuesday afternoon. Two men in a sedan pulled alongside an 18-year-old Watsonville man walking down the street, one got out of the car and asked the teen what gang he claimed. Then the man fired four or five shots, hitting the teen several times in the torso, police reported.

Police said the teen suffered life-threatening injuries and underwent surgery at the out-of-county trauma center he was flown to Tuesday afternoon. By Wednesday, the young man's condition had improved.

"The victim's status is positive," Thompson said. "He's been listed as critical but stable, and we're hoping that he continues to recover."

The manner in which the gunmen approached the teen Tuesday was similar to the fatal shooting on a park basketball court occurred Saturday afternoon.

In that shooting, which killed Angel Gabriel Escobedo, 19 of Hollister, two men approached Escobedo and his friends at a hoops court on Green Meadow Drive and asked what gang they were in, police said. Escobedo's friends ran, but he was shot several times and died at the scene.

The third incident of gun violence happened around 2 a.m. Saturday when a 25-year-old Salinas man was shot in the leg in front of La Esperanza Market on Main Street. Neither the victim, who was caught leaving the scene, nor the apparent witnesses were cooperative with investigators, police reported.