In 2007, a gang of MS-13-tied illegal aliens ambushed a group of young college students in Newark and murdered them execution-style in a schoolyard. A refresher course before we get to the jury decision that came down this morning:

I covered the story — and the open-borders failures that paved the way for the murderers — extensively (see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. A reminder of the brutal crime:

The four students were hanging out behind Mount Vernon School on Aug. 4, 2007, when they were confronted by their attackers with a handgun and a machete. Three of the victims — Terrance Aeriel, 18, Dashon Harvey, 20, and Iofemi Hightower, 20 — were killed when they were lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head. Terrance’s sister, Natasha Aeriel, survived after being shot in the face and left for dead.

All of the victims were robbed, and Aeriel and the group’s other female, Iofemi Hightower, were sexually molested and cut with machetes and knives, according to a lawsuit recently filed against the city school system and the alleged killers.

And another graphic reminder:

The thugs who shot four college students in Newark reportedly preceded their sick attack by trying to sexually assault their two female victims.

The group of six assailants – who shot two men and a woman dead and wounded another woman – failed in their attempt at a sexual attack, and then decided to kill their victims, according to 1010 WINS radio.

Six suspects have now been charged in the Aug. 4 atrocity, in which the victims were blasted execution-style.

Yesterday, a family member of one of the slain victims, Iofemi Hightower, described the level of savagery of the attack. He said the thugs used a machete to hack their victims.

“They cut my niece’s face off,” said John McClain, who is Hightower’s great-uncle, and the chaplain of the Newark Police Department. “They cut her from cheek to cheek. They left her head hanging.”

McClain said the mortician told him he had to work for three days to put his grand-niece’s face back together.

“Most people couldn’t tell, when he was done, but the family could tell,” he said.

The busted deportation system aided several of the murderous thugs, as I reported in 2007, including Rodolfo Godinez, who was convicted today.

Reminder:

Rodolfo Antonio Godinez Gomez entered the U.S. from Nicaragua on Oct. 24, 1992. He was ordered deported on May 5, 1993, but it isn’t clear if he ever left the country, according to Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontura. “It seems to me that he was illegal,” he said.

The Star-Ledger also reported:

He arrived in the country in 1992 and obtained permanent legal residency in 2001.

He had eluded cops for four years after becoming a fugitive on July 7, 2003, when he ditched a Superior Court hearing on charges that he robbed and attacked three people in Irvington a year earlier.

It took the savage deaths of three promising college students for the law to finally catch up to Godinez today. Notice how this New York Times story is completely silent on the role that lax immigration enforcement played in enabling the barbaric killers:

In the first trial stemming from the shootings of four college-age friends in a Newark schoolyard, a jury on Monday returned guilty verdicts for three murders and one attempted murder, after less than a day of deliberations.

The jury in state Superior Court here convicted Rodolfo Godinez, a 26-year-old native of Nicaragua, of all the charges facing him, including multiple counts each of robbery and weapons and conspiracy. He could face consecutive life sentences on the murder charges…

…Even in a hardened by violence, the killings came as a shock. Three of the victims had been students at Delaware State University, and Ms. Hightower planned to enroll there. The shootings occurred in the Ivy Hill section at the western edge of Newark, not one of the rougher areas in the city’s center and south.

The crimes spurred changes in city policing strategies, including greater use of video cameras and devices to detect the sound of gunshots.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil…enable more evil.

***

Web tribute to Dashon Harvey.

Web tribute to Iofemi Hightower.

Web tribute to Terrance Aeriel.

Police say the man responsible for killing a Montgomery Blair High School honors student in an unprovoked shooting on a crowded bus is not only a member of a notorious street gang, but an illegal alien as well.

On Monday, Montgomery County police said they arrested a 20-year-old man and obtained warrants for two other suspects in connection with the murder of 14-year-old Tai Lam on Nov. 1.

Police arrested Hector Mauricio Hernandez, of Takoma Park, on Friday, Nov. 7 and charged him with first-degree murder, after he allegedly shot a handgun into a crowded bus after exiting, striking and killing Lam, 14, and injuring two other teenagers.

Hernandez, along with three to four other individuals, reportedly got into a verbal altercation with a large group of teenagers, before leaving the bus, according to police.

Cao Lam, Tai’s 16-year-old brother, was on the bus at the time of the shooting and says there was no dispute and that the gunman was unprovoked. “It was like he was ready to shoot anybody,” Cao said.

The three teens were transported to area hospitals where Lam eventually died from his injuries. The other two victims have been released and are expected to fully recover, police said.

Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger said Hernandez is an illegal immigrant and a member of Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, an international gang from Central America that has a very strong presence in the D.C. region.

“As far as the activities and membership of MS-13, it is one of the most prolific gangs in the area,” said Captain Don Johnson, commander of District 3, where the murder occurred.

Police, along with several county officials, including County Executive Isiah Leggett and Councilmember Valerie Ervin, held a community meeting Monday, and discussed how to prevent these crimes from happening.

How about enforcing immigration laws?

The man charged with killing a father and two sons on a San Francisco street last month was one of the youths who benefited from the city’s long-standing practice of shielding illegal immigrant juveniles who committed felonies from possible deportation, The Chronicle has learned.

Edwin Ramos, now 21, is being held on three counts of murder in the June 22 deaths of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16. They were shot near their home in the Excelsior district when Tony Bologna, driving home from a family picnic, briefly blocked the gunman’s car from completing a left turn down a narrow street, police say.

Ramos, a native of El Salvador whom prosecutors say is a member of a violent street gang, was found guilty of two felonies as a juvenile – a gang-related assault on a Muni passenger and the attempted robbery of a pregnant woman – according to authorities familiar with his background.

This is what the feel-good Sanctimony City policies bring upon their law-abiding citizens–and on the rest of the country. San Francisco had two opportunities to deport a violent felon with (if you’ll read a little further in the article) ties to the MS-13 gang, and they didn’t do it. They can’t even plead incompetence–the sanctuary policy worked exactly as it was intended.

The City of San Francisco wanted to keep criminal illegal alien juveniles like Edwin Ramos in San Francisco–or, at least, somewhere inside the United States. They were willing to frustrate a federal law to do so. And a devastating, preventable triple murder occurred because of their policy.

I hope that warm, fuzzy, liberal feeling of sanctuary sanctimony was worth it to them.

P.S. Looks like ICE screwed this one up as well: when they finally did get the suspect’s name in March, after a query from the SF’s sheriff’s department on a traffic stop and a gun charge, ICE didn’t report back that he was “deportable”.

P.P.S. I am so glad I left California–although I seem to be in a sanctuary area nonetheless. Hey Gerry Connolly, is this the policy you want to run on for Congress?

____________

UPDATE AND BUMP, 7/22: Here’s a heart-rending video interview with Danielle Bologna, who lost her husband and two sons because of San Francisco’s policy in contravention of Federal law. At one point, choking back tears, Mrs. Bologna says:

If my family wasn’t safe, what makes you think yours will be?

There is nothing I can add to that.

(Thanks to Allah.)

__________

{Post by See-Dubya}

An alleged gang member accused of killing a 17-year-old high school student just one day after being released from jail has been living in the country illegally, possibly for more than a decade, federal immigration authorities said Saturday.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has filed paperwork naming 19-year-old Pedro Espinoza, the suspect in the March 2 killing of Los Angeles High School football star Jamiel Shaw Jr., as a potential candidate for deportation.

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the immigration agency, said an immigration hold was issued for Espinoza on March 13, nearly a week after he was arrested in connection with Shaw’s death.

No such hold was placed on Espinoza on March 1, the day he was released from a Los Angeles County jail after serving roughly four months for exhibiting a firearm and resisting arrest, said Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore.

“We are going to follow up to determine whether or not we have had prior interactions with this individual,” Kice said.

The federal immigration agency confirmed the deportation filing on the same day that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa participated in a ceremony dedicating a memorial in Arlington Heights where Shaw was killed.

A highly regarded running back for his school’s football team, Shaw was named the Southern League’s most valuable player in 2007. He had drawn the interest of recruiters from Stanford and Rutgers universities, his family said.

The killing outraged civic leaders and reignited a citywide debate over the role that race has played in a recent spate of homicides.

Both the immigration agency and the Sheriff’s Department have employees who interview jail inmates about their immigration status. Those interviews can be undermined when inmates give aliases or inaccurate places of birth, authorities said.

After his most recent arrest, Espinoza was “uncooperative,” telling immigration investigators he did not know where he was born or the whereabouts of his family, Kice said.

The next day, investigators found a relative of the suspect who said Espinoza had been smuggled into the United States from Mexico when he was 4, Kice said.

Understatement of the day, via FNC:

Immigration officials told the TV station that Espinoza is an illegal immigrant, but no red flags were raised when he was released from jail March 1. “The system is not 100 percent,” Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told the station.

LAPD is still looking for another suspect in the case.

At the risk of, you know, being spat upon, let me link back to these past posts on the targeting of innocent black Americans by illegal alien Hispanic gangs in Los Angeles.

These are the racial crimes the Left doesn’t want to talk about.

Let’s have a conversation about that.

Barack? Hillary? McCain? Anyone?

***

To help the family of Jamiel Shaw:

Donations to help the family of Jamiel Shaw can be sent to:

The Foundation for Jamiel Shaw II
USC Federal Credit Union
1025 W. 34th Street
King Hall, 2nd Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90089

All they have to do is bide their time–and shamnesty will be theirs!

Why isn’t it on the front page of every national newspaper? Why isn’t CNN doing special documentaries? Why aren’t Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton up in arms?

Because the perpetrators are illegal alien Latino gangs. Doesn’t fit the old white vs. black narrative.

Via the Los Angeles Times:

Federal prosecutors today charged members of the Latino Florencia 13 street gang with racially motivated crimes against African Americans, including several attempted homicides.

Authorities said the gang specifically tried to eliminate rival African American gangs in South L.A. and the Florence-Firestone area in an effort to “cleanse” the neighborhood. In doing so, they mistakenly harassed and attacked innocent African American residents, according to the indictment.

More than 60 members and associates of the Florencia 13 street gang were charged with federal racketeering and drug charges.

“In their attempt to intimidate African Americans in the community, they targeted innocent citizens,” U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien said.

O’Brien said the arrests were the result of a nearly three-year investigation into the gang that culminated in federal indictments at the end of the summer.

The arrests come as both local and federal officials have launched a crackdown on race-motivated gang crime across L.A. Authorities have already filed charges against a different Latino gang in the Harbor Gateway area accused of crimes against African Americans, including the slaying of a teenage girl last year.

***

Flashback: La Shawn Barber, “Black and Hispanic ‘Hate’ in LA County

***
Local NY/NJ media outlets reported chilling new details about the attack by criminal aliens on young Newark students Iofemi Hightower, Doshen Harvey, Terrance Aeriel, and Natasha Aeriel. From today’s NYPost:

The thugs who shot four college students in Newark reportedly preceded their sick attack by trying to sexually assault their two female victims.

The group of six assailants – who shot two men and a woman dead and wounded another woman – failed in their attempt at a sexual attack, and then decided to kill their victims, according to 1010 WINS radio.

Six suspects have now been charged in the Aug. 4 atrocity, in which the victims were blasted execution-style.

Yesterday, a family member of one of the slain victims, Iofemi Hightower, described the level of savagery of the attack. He said the thugs used a machete to hack their victims.

“They cut my niece’s face off,” said John McClain, who is Hightower’s great-uncle, and the chaplain of the Newark Police Department. “They cut her from cheek to cheek. They left her head hanging.”

McClain said the mortician told him he had to work for three days to put his grand-niece’s face back together.

“Most people couldn’t tell, when he was done, but the family could tell,” he said.

If this monstrous evil doesn’t motivate you to get off your duff and do something to stop the criminal alien revolving door in your neighborhood, I don’t know what will.

Here’s a transcript I typed up of a radio report aired yesterday on 1010WINS by Steve Sandberg (hat tip – James):

Sources tell 1010WINS three of the college kids were being held at gunpoint as their attackers went after the fourth. With every breath, the young woman bravely fought off a sexual assault, so much so the assailant gave up and shot her [survivor Natasha Ariel] in the head.

Sources say they moved in on the other woman, pulling a machete, slashing and marking up her face and forehead, sexually assaulting her [Iofemi Hightower].

Defensive wounds on her arms and hands show how valiantly she resisted. In the end, she and her two friends were forced to kneel before a wall, face first, all three executed with bullets to the back of their heads.

Law enforcement sources familiar with gangs say this vicious attack has MS-13 written all over it, similar in its brutality to massacres they’ve committed throughout Latin America. Once convinced this was a robbery gone bad, officials have since conceded several of the suspects have MS-13 affiliations and are now, say sources, giving gang motivations strong consideration.

Other local media have also heard more from sources about the MS-13 angle and the sexual assaults and knife attacks on both female victims. WABC-7:

Even while Rodolfo Godinez waits in protective custody for an extradition hearing, a source tells Eyewitness News that the evidence appears to be growing that he is an MS-13 gang leader who ordered the murderers of the three college students.

Some who knew the suspects say they were destined for trouble. “They’d just mess with anybody,” an acquaintance of the suspects said. “They don’t care if they’re Spanish, black, white, they’d mess with anybody. They don’t care who it is.”

In addition, a source tells Eyewitness News that there are more troublesome details about the murders of Iofemi Hightower, Doshen Harvey and Terrance Aeriel, and the attempted murder of Natasha Aeriel. It appears that the women were also the victims of sexual attacks.

Authorities believe at least one was groped, which apparently escalated the tension and led to a knife attack and, finally, the executions.

There have been references over the last week to possible machete use in previous stories about this case, but it is worth underscoring what Sandberg’s sources told him given the stubborn denial by some officials to acknowledge the criminal alien gang imprint head on:

“…this vicious attack has MS-13 written all over it.”

Over the past several years, I’ve written before about MS-13 machete attacks in northern Virginia (more here and here and here and here. Last month, a convicted MS-13 gang member in the DC area who had served 18 months for gang stabbings was convicted again after being stopped with machetes on the way to another gang battle. In December 2004, I blogged:

“I think this El Salvador-based gang’s ascendance was one of the underreported stories of the year. I predict you’ll be seeing and hearing a lot more of this savage criminal enterprise in the year to come–and not just because of its suspected ties to al Qaeda. The gang has spread across the country–not just in major metropolitan areas, but in suburbs like my own backyard. Machete-wielding members have also settled in North Carolina, Nassau County, NY, and Boston. And if you think MS-13 members are only a threat to each other, think again.”

To rid our cities of this evil scourge, mayors and governors and law enforcers must acknowledge their role in allowing it to fester.The NJ state attorney general took a step in the right direction in ordering all NJ law enforcers to notify federal immigration officials whenever someone arrested for an indictable offense or drunken driving is found to be an illegal immigrant. The toll of sanctuary cities has been too high, but belated action to stop the bloody madness is better than no action at all.

Now, it is time for every state attorney general across the country to do as NJ State Attorney General Anne Milgram has done. Contact yours now and let me know the responses you get. We’ll be keeping track at DeportThemNow.com:

Alabama: Troy King (R) (334) 242-7300
State House, 11 S. Union St. Montgomery, AL 36130
http://www.ago.state.al.us

Alaska: Talis J. Colberg (R) (907) 465-3600
P.O. Box 110300, Diamond Courthouse, Juneau, AK 99811-0300
http://www.law.state.ak.us/

Arizona: Terry Goddard (D) (602) 542-4266
1275 W. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ 85007
http://www.azag.gov/

Arkansas: Dustin McDaniel (D) (800) 482-8982
200 Tower Bldg., 323 Center St., Little Rock, AR 72201-2610
http://www.ag.arkansas.gov/

California: Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr. (D) (916) 445-9555
1300 I St., Ste. 1740, Sacramento, CA 95814
http://ag.ca.gov

Colorado: John Suthers (R) (303) 866-4500
1525 Sherman Street, Denver, CO 80203
http://www.ago.state.co.us/index.cfm

Connecticut: Richard Blumenthal (D) (860) 808-5318
55 Elm St., Hartford, CT 06141-0120
http://www.ct.gov/ag/

Delaware: Joseph R. “Beau” Biden III (D) (302) 577-8338
Carvel State Office Bldg., 820 N. French St., Wilmington, DE 19801
http://attorneygeneral.delaware.gov/

District of Columbia: Linda Singer (D) (202) 724-1305
John A. Wilson Building, 1350 PA Ave, NW Suite 409, Washington, DC 20009
http://occ.dc.gov

Florida: Bill McCollum (R) (850) 414-3300
The Capitol, PL 01, Tallahassee, FL 32399-1050
http://myfloridalegal.com/

Georgia: Thurbert E. Baker (D) (404) 656-3300
40 Capitol Square, SW, Atlanta, GA 30334-1300
http://ganet.org/ago/

Hawaii: Mark J. Bennett (R) (808) 586-1500
425 Queen St., Honolulu, HI 96813
http://www.state.hi.us/ag/index.html

Idaho: Lawrence Wasden (R) (208) 334-2400
Statehouse, Boise, ID 83720-1000
http://www2.state.id.us/ag/

Illinois: Lisa Madigan (D) (312) 814-3000
James R. Thompson Ctr., 100 W. Randolph St., Chicago, IL 60601
http://illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/

Indiana: Steve Carter (R) (317) 232-6201
Indiana Government Center South – 5th Floor, 402 West Washington Street, Indianapolis, IN 46204
http://www.in.gov/attorneygeneral/

Iowa: Tom Miller (D) (515) 281-5164
Hoover State Office Bldg., 1305 E. Walnut, Des Moines, IA 50319
http://www.IowaAttorneyGeneral.org

Kansas: Paul Morrison (D) (785) 296-2215
120 S.W. 10th Ave., 2nd Fl., Topeka, KS 66612-1597
http://www.ksag.org/home/

Kentucky: Greg Stumbo (D) (502) 696-5300
State Capitol, Rm. 116, Frankfort, KY 40601
http://ag.ky.gov

Louisiana: Charles Foti (D) 225-326-6000
P.O. Box 94095, Baton Rouge, LA 70804-4095
http://www.ag.state.la.us/

Maine: G. Steven Rowe (D) (207) 626-8800
State House Station 6, Augusta, ME 04333
http://www.state.me.us/ag

Maryland: Douglas F. Gansler (D) (410) 576-6300
200 St. Paul Place, Baltimore, MD 21202-2202
http://www.oag.state.md.us

Massachusetts: Martha Coakley (D) (617) 727-2200
1 Ashburton Place, Boston, MA 02108-1698
http://www.ago.state.ma.us

Michigan: Mike Cox (R) (517) 373-1110
P.O.Box 30212, 525 W. Ottawa St., Lansing, MI 48909-0212
http://www.michigan.gov/ag

Minnesota: Lori Swanson (D) (651) 296-3353
State Capitol, Ste. 102, St. Paul, MN 55155
http://www.ag.state.mn.us

Mississippi: Jim Hood (D) (601) 359-3680
Department of Justice, P.O. Box 220, Jackson, MS 37205-0220
http://www.ago.state.ms.us/

Missouri: Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon (D) (573) 751-3321
Supreme Ct. Bldg., 207 W. High St., Jefferson City, MO 65101
http://www.ago.mo.gov/

Montana: Mike McGrath (D) (406) 444-2026
Justice Bldg., 215 N. Sanders, Helena, MT 59620-1401
http://www.doj.mt.gov

Nebraska: Jon Bruning (R) (402) 471-2682
State Capitol, P.O.Box 98920, Lincoln, NE 68509-8920
http://www.ago.state.ne.us/

Nevada: Catherine Cortez Masto (D) (775) 684-1100
Old Supreme Ct. Bldg., 100 N. Carson St., Carson City, NV 89701
http://ag.state.nv.us/

New Hampshire: Kelly Ayotte (R) (603) 271-3658
State House Annex, 33 Capitol St., Concord, NH 03301-6397
http://www.state.nh.us/nhdoj/

New Mexico: Gary King (D) (505) 827-6000
P.O. Drawer 1508, Sante Fe, NM 87504-1508
http://www.ago.state.nm.us

New York: Andrew Cuomo (D) (518) 474-7330
Dept. of Law – The Capitol, 2nd fl., Albany, NY 12224
http://www.oag.state.ny.us

North Carolina: Roy Cooper (D) (919) 716-6400
Dept. of Justice, P.O.Box 629, Raleigh, NC 27602-0629
http://www.ncdoj.com/default.jsp

North Dakota: Wayne Stenehjem (R) (701) 328-2210
State Capitol, 600 E. Boulevard Ave., Bismarck, ND 58505-0040
http://www.ag.state.nd.us

Ohio: Marc Dann (D) (614) 466-4320
State Office Tower, 30 E. Broad St., Columbus, OH 43266-0410
http://www.ag.state.oh.us

Oklahoma: W. A. Drew Edmondson (D) (405) 521-3921
State Capitol, Rm. 112, 2300 N. Lincoln Blvd., Oklahoma City, OK 73105
http://www.oag.state.ok.us

Oregon: Hardy Myers (D) (503) 378-4732
Justice Bldg., 1162 Court St., NE, Salem, OR 97301
http://www.doj.state.or.us

Pennsylvania: Tom Corbett (R) (717) 787-3391
1600 Strawberry Square, Harrisburg, PA 17120
http://www.attorneygeneral.gov

Rhode Island: Patrick Lynch (D) (401) 274-4400
150 S. Main St., Providence, RI 02903
http://www.riag.state.ri.us

South Carolina: Henry McMaster (R) (803) 734-3970
Rembert C. Dennis Office Bldg., P.O.Box 11549, Columbia, SC 29211-1549
http://www.scattorneygeneral.org

South Dakota: Larry Long (R) (605) 773-3215
1302 East Highway 14, Suite 1, Pierre, SD 57501-8501
http://www.state.sd.us/attorney/

Tennessee: Robert E. Cooper, Jr. (D) (615) 741-5860
500 Charlotte Ave., Nashville, TN 37243
http://www.attorneygeneral.state.tn.us

Texas: Greg Abbott (R) (512) 463-2100
Capitol Station, P.O.Box 12548, Austin, TX 78711-2548
http://www.oag.state.tx.us

Utah: Mark Shurtleff (R) (801) 538-9600
State Capitol, Rm. 236, Salt Lake City, UT 84114-0810
http://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/

Vermont: William H. Sorrell (D) (802) 828-3173
109 State St., Montpelier, VT 05609-1001
http://www.state.vt.us/atg

Virginia: Bob McDonnell (R) (804) 786-2071
900 E. Main St., Richmond, VA 23219
http://www.oag.state.va.us

Washington: Rob McKenna (R) (360) 753-6200
1125 Washington St. SE, PO Box 40100, Olympia, WA 98504-0100
http://www.atg.wa.gov/

West Virginia: Darrell V. McGraw Jr. (D) (304) 558-2021
State Capitol, 1900 Kanawha Blvd. , E., Charleston, WV 25305
http://www.wvago.us/

Wisconsin: J.B. Van Hollen (R) (608) 266-1221
State Capitol, Ste. 114 E., P.O.Box 7857, Madison, WI 53707-7857
http://www.doj.state.wi.us

Wyoming: Pat Crank (D) (307) 777-7841
State Capitol Bldg., Cheyenne, WY 82002
http://attorneygeneral.state.wy.us

The last suspect to be arrested in connection to the execution-style killings of three college students pleaded not guilty on Tuesday during his first court appearance.

Standing with his hands shackled in front of him in a white collared shirt and light colored pants, Melvin Jovel spoke softly and answered several questions from the judge, including whether he has a green card, to which he answered no.

Jovel said he had no other charges pending, was not on probation and had been living with his family in Elizabeth for the past five months. He confirmed that he had lived in an apartment complex in Newark’s Ivy Hill section across the street from the scene of the murders. At least two of the other suspects lived in the same complex…Assistant Essex County Prosecutor Thomas A. McTigue said Jovel’s immigration status is “unclear.” Though Jovel, who authorities have said is from Honduras, told the judge on Tuesday that he does not have a Social Security number, McTigue said a passport was seized from Jovel when he was arrested.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has placed a detainer on Jovel, ICE spokesman Michael Gilhooly said Tuesday. A detainer means that if Jovel made bail, he would be turned over to federal authorities.

Meanwhile, fellow suspect Rodolfo Godinez is fighting extradition. His hearing in Maryland, where he was apprehended, is scheduled for Sept. 20. And clueless Newark mayor Cory Booker acknowledged gang “overtones” in the killings. Via tipster William A., here’s video of Newark victims’ family members at a suspect’s arraignment today.

GOP presidential candidates are talking tough about sanctuary and immigration enforcement. Tom Tancredo urged victims’ families to consider suing Newark for negligence. Mitt Romney’s out with a new radio ad slamming sanctuary policies:

Authorities arrested two more suspects Saturday in the slayings of three college students who were shot execution-style in a schoolyard, bringing the total number of arrests in the case to five.

The two additional suspects were found in suburban Washington, authorities said.

Rodolfo Godinez, a 24-year-old Nicaraguan immigrant, was arrested in an Oxon Hill, Md., rooming house just north of the I-495 Beltway at about 1 a.m., said John Cuff, an investigator with the U.S. Marshals Service.

An unidentified 16-year-old, believed to be Godinez’s half brother, was arrested in Woodbridge, Va., about 45 minutes later. Both were awaiting extradition to New Jersey, Deputy U.S. Marshal Bill Sorukas said.

Authorities were still searching for an additional suspect.

Re. Godinez’s immigration history:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement records indicated Godinez may also be in the country illegally. Rodolfo Antonio Godinez Gomez entered the U.S. from Nicaragua on Oct. 24, 1992. He was ordered deported on May 5, 1993, but it isn’t clear if he ever left the country, according to Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontura.

“It seems to me that he was illegal,” he said.

More individuals of “irrelevant” citizenship status were taken in:

The search team, which included the FBI’s Fugitive Task Force, staked out the address in Maryland where Godinez was staying after receiving a tip that he was planning to flee to Texas and then to Mexico, according to James Plousis, a U.S. marshal who is responsible for New Jersey.

The tip came from a confidential informant working with federal law enforcement, Cuff said.

Nearly 10 other people, Sorukas said, were arrested for immigration violations in the operation.

In Virginia, Prince William County Police said three others were arrested at the Woodbridge address where the 16-year-old was found. They were arrested on charges of immigration violations and obstruction of justice.

Oh, and by the way, the D.C. suburbs in Maryland and Virginia where these suspects were apprehended are infested with MS-13, the illegal alien crime syndicate to which several of the accused murderers have been tied.

Lawhawk has more. The Star Ledger details the escape plans of Godinez and his brother:

Rodolfo Godinez, 24, was arrested at a squalid apartment house in Oxon Hill, Md., at 1 a.m. His 16-year-old brother was taken into custody 45 minutes later in Woodbridge, Va.,about 20 miles away, authorities said. Godinez and his half brother, whose name was not released because he is a juvenile, were planning to travel from Virginia to Texas to Mexico to El Salvador to escape arrest, authorities believe.

“This was just a heinous manifestation of evil by these individuals,” Booker said at the press conference.

Godinez, who has been described as a “principal player” in the schoolyard murders, was found in a squalid home with eight other people, U.S. Marshal James Plousis said.

Godinez, a Nicaraguan who has permanent resident status in the U.S., is being held at a jail in Prince Georges County, Md. A New Jersey Superior Court judge set his bail at $1 million, Essex County First Assistant Prosecutor Carolyn A. Murray said during the Newark press conference.

It was information police received at the building where Godinez was collared that finally led them to his half-brother, Plousis said. Agents had been closing in on the 16 year old late Friday night. A tip had led them to the block in Woodbridge where he was reportedly staying but they didn’t know what apartment he was in before his half-brother was taken into custody.

The 16 year old is now being held in a juvenile facility in Prince William County, Md., authorities said.

Perhaps it’s time to stop pussyfooting around the criminal alien gang angle. Flashback:

Newark officials have bristled at the suggestion of a gang angle to the shootings.

“At this point there is nothing in this case that indicates that this has to do with a gang angle, gang initiation, or gang violence,” Garry F. McCarthy, Newark’s police director, told the New York Times. “The motivation seems to be a robbery. Whether or not a 15-year old kid claims he is an MS-13 member, there’s a difference between a gang member and a wannabe.”

There is also renewed outrage over the multiple times illegal alien Carranza was released on bail for multiple heinous crimes, including an alleged four years of sexual abuse of a girl beginning at age 5.

Hey, if you’ve been reading my reporting, you know this is standard operating procedure.

In the latest developments, the NYPost reports on the suspects’ illegal alien gang ties:

As Newark cops yesterday continued hunting for three people suspected in a grisly schoolyard massacre there, residents said several of the men were part of a notorious street gang.

It also emerged that one of the fugitives, Rodolfo Godinez, obtained a green card in 2001 and was allowed to stay in the United States despite later robbery and assault arrests, immigration authorities said yesterday.

Godinez pleaded guilty to lesser charges.

His fellow fugitives include his 16-year-old brother and another youth, both of whom attended Mount Vernon School, the scene of the Aug. 4 triple slaying.
Recently, Godinez’s brother and another youth already nabbed in the murders “started bragging on how they were part of this gang, MS-13,” said a classmate of the duo.
Also known as Mara Salvatrucha, the ruthless MS-13 gang operates in the United States and Central America.

As I’ve reported over the last several years, MS-13 has thoroughly penetrated every major metropolitan area of the country. Just doing the gang-banging no one else will do. The Newark Star-Ledger has more on the MS-13 penetration of Newark’s Ivy Hill neighborhood. And in the latest issue of City Journal, John Robb writes on urban terrorism waged by foreign criminal enterprises.

Dan Riehl has more. Lawhawk has a good round-up.

This case also reminded me of my reporting during the D.C. Beltway-area sniper murders. We still haven’t learned the lessons of Lee Malvo’s fingerpint. Read it and weep.

Update II: Listen to some of the LAPD police radio intercepts for yourselves.

Update III: LA media get ready to sue, sue, sue.

Masked provocateur at MacArthur Park

Fire on Wilshire Blvd.

The open-borders radicals want their own Don Imus moment.

Their own Rodney King redux.

And it looks like the LAPD leadership is ready to sell out its own officers and cave into the professional grievance mob.

Shameful, but no surprise.

You must remember that this is a city with a longstanding sanctuary policy for illegal aliens. A city where police officers are hamstrung in the fight against illegal alien crime. A city where the political leadership plays the militant ethnic card and the establishment has a long, shameless history of pandering to outlaws.

You must bear in mind that MacArthur Park is no ordinary park. It is the birthplace of the violent MS-13 illegal alien gang enterprise. It is infested with drug dealers controlled by Colombian gangsters and the Mexican Mafia.

You must also recall that MS-13 has targeted police officers for assassination. Orders to ambush police officers, called “green light” notices, have been issued across the country.

Keep all of this history, context, and current reality in mind as the heat turns on the rank-and-file LAPD officers who were defending themselves from masked rock-throwers and bottle-throwers and hubcap-throwers and club-wielders like the one pictured above. Keep all of this in mind as police-bashers gin up misleading portraits of officers exercising force unjustifiably. Keep in mind that many reporters in Los Angeles are naked mouthpieces for the open-borders lobby–local reporters like reconquista propagandist Tony Valdez.

Miraculously, one surprisingly balanced account of what happened was posted at the Los Angeles Times by reporter and eyewitness Jill Leovy. Key points:

At 6:13 p.m. the officers in riot gear were lined up in the southbound lanes of Alvarado Street between Wilshire and 7th Street with helmets and face covers, batons at the ready. There were 40 or 50 of them and they were in a line extending north to south, facing west into the park.

As they lined up, Chief Lee Carter told a reporter that numerous bottles had been thrown at officers by people in the crowd and he didn’t have time to talk. The Times did not directly observe the bottle throwing, but Carter’s account was corroborated by protesters.

Prior to this, a small group of young protesters, including several wearing bandanas over their faces, had been hovering near the police on this side of the park. Unlike the rest of the protesters, who mostly ignored officers, this group had appeared quite focused on the police throughout the march — watching them, filming them at close range, hollering at them, etc.

UPI notes that one officer was reportedly knocked off his motorcycle by a protester. As the officers tried to control the crowd and push them back, protesters lobbed at least one plastic bottle at them. Then:

Inside the park, a small last holdout group of protesters briefly tried to set up barricades of red fences inside the park near the pavilion. Fellow protesters persuaded them to give up this plan. “You can’t do this!” a protester yelled at the advancing police line as she abandoned the makeshift barricade…

…A block west of the park on 6th, a couple dozen young men and middle-aged men threw plastic garbage cans into the street. They formed a barricade of garbage cans blocking traffic and also threw material at passing cars. A large metal truck hubcap was sent spinning into the street toward people. An older man began hitting a Metro bus pulled up to the curb with a large piece of wood. A dozen men stood in the middle of the street taunting the advancing police line.

At least two of these taunters had bandanas over their faces. But most of them seemed a different crowd than those who had confronted police at the east side of the park. They were in jeans and T-shirts and had no protest regalia. When a patrol car pulled up just east of Lafayette Park, it was bombarded with bottles and debris thrown by this group.

Ethnic groups and police-bashers in L.A. are now working overtime to exploit the MacArthur Park riots and bring the LAPD to its knees. And they aren’t hiding their real agenda:

We are calling community members, civil leaders to Immediately call LAPD chief William Bratton, and LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa office, to demand the following:

1) An immediate independent police investigation of the May Day incident at McArthur Park, and demand officers who violated the police guidelines be punished.

2) The immediate and full disclosure from LAPD of any people arrested and detained, we further demand that the LAPD not act as immigrant agents to enforce Federal immigrant law…

As this conflagration spreads, you can be certain that:

1) Democratic presidential candidates will exploit the moment; ignore the history, context, and current reality in gang-infested MacArthur Park; and ingratiate themselves with the open-borders demagogues;

2) GOP presidential candidates will join the pandering or cower in a corner; and

3) Mainstream media sensationalists will produce anti-police pabulum like this in a bid to relive the glory days of the Rodney King riots:

Don’t believe the hype.

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More:

Chris Kelly has a round-up of MacArthur Park riot coverage.

Reader Steve J. e-mails: “I’m glad the LA School District is so pro-First Amendment. Will the District also be supporting the First Amendment by providing bus transportation so students can go to their house of worship of choice for the National Day of Prayer?”

Update: The downside you won’t see today…MS-13 convictions…U.S. charges 22 in alleged fraudulent identification ring based in Chicago; Cell leader allegedly ordered murders of competitors in Mexico…Border: The Movie…

Update: Check out “You Don’t Speak for Me” for a diverse perspective on illegal immigration.

Update: Have you read about Hillary’s radical La Raza adviser?

Update: Here come the reconquista shirts!

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Let’s start off today’s May Day illegal alien rally day with some misleading immigration numbers:

The Drudge Report trumpeted the NYTimes spin by headlining this stat:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, facing intense political pressure to toughen enforcement, removed 221,664 illegal immigrants from the country over the last year, an increase of more than 37,000 — about 20 percent — over the year before, according to the agency’s tally.

221,664.

It sounds like we’re getting serious about immigration enforcement–until I remind you of this inconvenient truth that will get glossed over in all the MSM sob stories today:

U.S. Can’t Account for 600,000 Fugitives
March 26, 2007

Teams assigned to make sure foreigners ordered out of the United States actually leave have a backlog of more than 600,000 cases and can’t accurately account for the fugitives’ whereabouts, the government reported Monday.

The report by the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general found that the effectiveness of teams assigned to find the fugitives was hampered by “insufficient detention capacity, limitations of an immigration database and inadequate working space.”

Even though more than $204 million was allocated for 52 fugitive operations teams since 2003, a backlog of 623,292 cases existed as of August of 2006, the report said.

The number of illegal immigrants in the United States has been estimated at between 11.5 million and 12 million. About 5.4 percent of them are believed to be “fugitive aliens,” those who have failed to leave the country after being ordered out.

The inspector general found there is not enough bed space available to detain such fugitives and that agents are hampered by an inaccurate database. Other factors that limit the teams’ effectiveness are insufficient staffing, the report said.

Until the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, attempts to catch such fugitives were mostly carried out by teams not exclusively devoted to the task. After the attacks, an Absconder Apprehension Initiative was created within the Justice Department to find, apprehend and deport such immigrants. When the Homeland Security Department was created in March 2003, it assumed responsibility.

Plans for the new office stated that it aimed to eliminate the case backlog by the end of 2012, although a field manual put the timetable at 2009, the report said.

Yet “despite the efforts of the teams, the backlog of fugitive alien cases has increased each fiscal year since the program was established in February 2002,” the inspector general said.

221,664 “removed” illegal aliens vs 623,292 released illegal alien fugitives.

That’s right, people.

There are nearly three times as many officially designated illegal alien fugitives freed by the feds as there are illegal aliens who have been removed over the last year.

Just doing the context-setting and number-crunching the rest of the MSM won’t do…

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Guess what else? More and more of the illegal aliens caught by immigration authorities and ordered to appear for deportation hearings are skipping out. From the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General:

As the IG explains:

Each year, thousands of illegal aliens fail to respond to orders to appear at their scheduled immigration hearing. In most of these cases, the Immigration Judge (IJ) will conduct an in absentia (in the absence of) hearing and order the alien removed from the U.S. However, a failure to appear does not always result in an in absentia order. In 4 percent of the cases the IJ may also administratively close a failure to appear case without ordering the alien removed. Of the 461,556-immigration judge decisions and administrative closures issued by the Executive Office of Immigration and Review (EOIR) between FY 2001 and FY 2004, 39 percent (181,807) were issued to illegal aliens who had been released but later failed to appear at their respective immigration hearings.

Although the percentage of released aliens who failed to appear at their respective hearings has declined in recent years, the total number of aliens failing to appear is increasing.

During FY 2001, 42,030 aliens failed to appear compared to 52,890 who failed to appear during FY 2004, a 26 percent increase.

In fact, according to DHS’s Detention and Removal Office, 85 percent of the illegal aliens released that have been issued final orders of removal, will abscond. That goes not just for illegal aliens from Mexico, but for illegal aliens from terror-friendly and terror-sponsoring nations:

Illegal Aliens from Special Interest Countries (SIC) and State Sponsors of Terrorism (SST) Countries. A significant number of OTMs that are apprehended and released each year originate from SIC and SST. From FY 2001 through the first half of FY 2005, 91,516 SIC and SST aliens were apprehended of which 45,000 (49%) were later released. It is not known exactly how many of these SIC and SST aliens were ultimately issued final orders of removal and were actually removed since such data is not tracked by DRO. However, assuming SIC and SST aliens are being removed at the same rate as other apprehended and released aliens, 85 percent of the SIC and SST aliens released who eventually receive final orders of removal will abscond.

One more updated graph for you from the immigration court bureaucracy shows that failure to appear rates rose again in 2005 and held steady through 2006:

And there’s this truly frightening reality:

[The Detention and Removal Office] estimates that in FY 2007 there will be 605,000 foreign-born individuals admitted to state correctional facilities and local jails during the year for committing crimes in the U.S. Of this number, DRO estimates half (302,500) will be removable aliens.

Currently, most of these incarcerated aliens are being released into the U.S. at the conclusion of their respective sentences due to the lack of DRO resources.

Homeland security? What homeland security?

Hard for me to decide which takes the cake–the reporter’s failure to corroborate the criminal deportees’ anecdotes, the downplaying of the violent nature of the crimes committed by nearly half of those on the plane, the alarmism over mass deportations that will never happen under the Bush administration, or the foolish belief that the criminal deportees are on a journey of “no return.”

Open-borders journalism at its worst. All that’s missing is a hyperbolic slavery analogy.

Well, there’s always a next time.

Meanwhile, there’s no need to overreach to find underreported stories of criminal gang activity spilling across the border. Check out MS-13 wreaking havoc in the Virginia suburbs, North Carolina, Frederick County, MD and PGC, MD.

Mexican alien smugglers plan to pay violent gang members and smuggle them into the United States to murder Border Patrol agents, according to a confidential Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by the Daily Bulletin.

The Officer Safety Alert, dated Dec. 21, warns agents that the smugglers intend to bring members of the international Mara Salvatrucha street gang also known as MS-13 into the country for the deadly mission.

“Unidentified Mexican alien smugglers are angry about the increased security along the U.S./Mexico border and have agreed that the best way to deal with U.S. Border Patrol agents is to hire a group of contract killers,” the alert states.

MS-13, which has a strong base in El Salvador, is considered by the FBI to be one of the most dangerous gangs in the United States, with more than 20,000 members.

Gang members have been found in 33 states and connected to murder, racketeering, assault, rapes and extortion. Last January, Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided six cities and made more than 100 arrests of MS-13 gang members.

Intelligence officials last year reported that MS-13 gang members had been linked to terrorists seeking entry into the country.

Michael Friel, a representative with the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said he could not comment directly on the memo, but noted “this wouldn’t be the first time agents’ lives have been threatened.

USA Today has an overview of the MS-13 menace.

Just committing the crimes that Americans won’t commit, right?

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Heather Mac Donald and Juan Mann have new posts over at The Immigration Blog.

Lonewacko bring Mort Kondracke back to earth.

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Previous MS-13 coverage here.