Calif police department on alert for deadly traps, assassination attempts

Crom · Mar 19, 2010

HEMET, Calif. – Police in this picturesque city in rural Riverside County have been on edge in recent weeks. Someone is trying to kill them.
First, a natural gas pipe was shoved through a hole drilled into the roof of the gang enforcement unit's headquarters.

The building filled with flammable vapor but an officer smelled the danger before anyone was hurt. "It would have taken out half a city block," Capt. Tony Marghis said.

Then, a ballistic contraption was attached to a sliding security fence around the building. An officer opening the black steel gate triggered the mechanism, which sent a bullet within eight inches of his face.
In another attempted booby trap attack, some kind of explosive device was attached to a police officer's unmarked car while he went into a convenience store.

"There's a person or people out there, a bunch of idiots, trying to do damage to us," Hemet Police Chief Richard Dana said. "We can't expect our luck to hold up, we need help." Since New Year's Eve, there have been several other booby trap attempts to kill officers, Dana said.

"The only reason they haven't killed an officer yet is because we've been observant enough to see devices planted around the station and in cars and different places," he said.

Gang enforcement officers appear to be the target of the assassination attempts, though Dana noted the devices were indiscriminate by nature and could have killed any police or law enforcement officer.
The incidents have shaken a close-knit police department already demoralized by steep budget cuts that last year saw its officer numbers slashed by a quarter to 68. Officers are checking under cars for bombs and scouting for other potential hazards.

"I would call the mood tense," Capt. Marghis said. "Everyone is being very vigilant about their surroundings and the environment."
Dana said officers have seen gang members carrying out counter-surveillance, studying police behavior. He often looks in his rear view mirror when he drives home at night to make sure he is not being followed.
In the attack with a ballistic contraption, the officer only avoided being shot in the head because the wheels on the sliding gate were wonky so he had to angle his body to open it.

"He had to push it to the right, the bullet went by to the left," Dana said.
Hemet, surrounded by the snow-topped San Jacinto Mountains about 90 miles east of Los Angeles, was traditionally known as a quiet retirement community. The population has grown in recent years to about 75,000 but the once-booming housing market has been hit hard by the foreclosure crisis.

Investigators are still trying to determine why officers are being targeted. A prevalent theory is that members of an outlaw motorcycle gang — the Vagos — were angered when members of Hemet's anti-gang task force monitored them at a funeral in a church opposite the task force's former headquarters.

A memorial service was held Dec. 29 in the Hemet Christian Assembly church and upward of 100 members of the gang attended, said Riverside County sheriff's Capt. Walter Meyer, who oversees the regional gang task force.

Officers monitored the memorial but did not attend the service. Some of the Vagos members were questioned or followed as they left town.
Two days later, the gang enforcement unit's black shingle roof was drilled through and the single-level house, converted for police use, filled up with gas.
"Which would obviously leave a reasonable person to ask: Are they involved?" Meyer said.
One of the church's pastors, James McKiney, said a group of motorcycling friends mourning the death of a prominent Hemet man asked if he would conduct a memorial service.

"When a family is crying and asking for a service, you don't say no to them," McKiney said. "I said that's no problem, I'll do that."
McKiney declined to discuss the service or if he recalled any gang officers monitoring its attendants.

Authorities said about 30 members of the Vagos, California's largest motorcycle gang, were arrested in Riverside County on Wednesday, as part of a crackdown across the state and in Arizona, Nevada and Utah. Prosecutors don't have a total number of arrests yet.
Meyer said there are about 200 Vagos members in Riverside County. The gang specializes in methamphetamine sales, identity theft and violence, he said.

Law enforcement officials from around the state on Thursday appealed for the public's help in solving the case. Several state, local and national agencies have banded together to put forward a $200,000 reward.

"It is incredible and I think unprecedented that police officers in the line of duty could be subjected to these kind of terrorist attempts on their lives," Attorney General Jerry Brown said.
Click to expand...

http://www.cbs8.com/Global/story.asp?s=12170140&clienttype=printable

jdkeller · Mar 19, 2010

Crazy. That's close to me. About 30 minutes away.

Crom · Mar 19, 2010

There is something seriously wrong in the high deserts of Southern California. Who would risk open warfare on a police department?

Motorcycle gangs out for revenge? Mexican Drug Cartels?

dysfunctnlretard · Mar 19, 2010

I read that article this morning, it's nuts. Those gang members really got some brains to pull something off like that. Cops hav escaped the Attacks only because of luck

Jimmyjohn · Mar 19, 2010

It sounds like it's time for the Good People to step up and Help out. Maybe id a few gang members got roughed up badly they would get the message.
"WALK SOFTLY AND CARRY A BIG STICK"

BakoTruck · Mar 19, 2010

I hope they catch these f*cksticks, and send them to jail.

surfsupl · Mar 19, 2010

I don't know if gang members are behind all of this........I think it goes higher up like to the cartel .........these are pretty sophisticated ways of killing a person.........

Packman73 · Mar 19, 2010

I've been following this story; it's bizarre.

BakoTruck · Mar 19, 2010

PackerfanXD said: ↑

I've been following this story; it's bizarre.
Click to expand...

Yes, very bizarre. Maybe It's time to get some help from the FBI, if they haven't done so already and get some criminal profiling experts.

OH-MAN · Mar 19, 2010

These are Cartel tactics used to up the ante in the drug wars.
Notice it was in Mexico that the drug lords would take out police or "officials" to force them to ease off or look the other way when the pressure was on them.

Yes it is becoming a very large problem as they start to attack the LEO's directly.

Large amounts of money at stake for these folks to go this far.
Not getting better at all.

nd · Mar 22, 2010

thats insane

topgun155 · Mar 22, 2010

Thats crazy. Sounds like the cops need to start placing booby traps of their own.

nd · Mar 22, 2010

topgun155 said: ↑

Thats crazy. Sounds like the cops need to start placing booby traps of their own.
Click to expand...

stupid thing is, if they did that then they'd get sued... and prolly lose

07TacoRidah · Mar 22, 2010

Crom[OP] said: ↑

There is something seriously wrong in the high deserts of Southern California. Who would risk open warfare on a police department?

Motorcycle gangs out for revenge? Mexican Drug Cartels?
Click to expand...

tweekers? not being mean but there are a lot down there as well as in Moreno Valley and Lancaster.

brianr · Mar 22, 2010

Jimmyjohn said: ↑

It sounds like it's time for the Good People to step up and Help out. Maybe id a few gang members got roughed up badly they would get the message.
"WALK SOFTLY AND CARRY A BIG STICK"
Click to expand...

you mean...
walk soflty and carry many automatic weapons and lay down some steady suppressing fire and wipe out some scum sucking cocksucking motherfucking shit eating bastard ass shitty dicked gangbanging retards and drug cartel queers.

someone jsut needs to be killed. PERIOD.

why put them in jail...jsut to add to our already overwhelming taxpayer debt?

brianr · Mar 22, 2010

furthermore, I think anyone who (yes, I'm profiling. Do I care? FUCK NO!!!) looks like a "gangbanger" needs a serious reprimand.

Crom · Mar 22, 2010

HEMET — Law enforcement officers in Hemet and San Jacinto remain on high alert this weekend after receiving an anonymous tip that a police car would be blown up in retaliation for police raids aimed at an outlaw motorcycle gang, it was reported.

The bomb threat was reported at 5:45 p.m. Friday when an anonymous caller dialed 911 and told an operator a police car would be blown up within the next 48 hours in retaliation for the “Operation Everywhere” raids conducted Wednesday.

The raids were executed in Riverside County, as well as other California counties and throughout Arizona, Utah and Nevada and targeted members of the Vagos Motorcycle Club, Hemet Police Chief Richard Dana told reporters. About 30 Vagos gang members were arrested.
Most of those taken into custody were due to parole and weapons violations, Dana said.

“We're heightening the alert,” Dana said. “We're making sure everybody's aware there are credible threats out there.”
The Riverside County Sheriff's Department was not able to confirm the threat, Deputy Herlinda Valenzuela said.

Dana said there was a sense of urgency since three attempts were made in recent months on the lives of members of a local multi-agency gang task force which included a rigged gas line, a homemade zip gun hooked to a gate and a deadly device attached to a patrol car, it was reported.
At a news conference Thursday, a $200,000 reward was offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those behind officer booby traps around Hemet.
Click to expand...

http://www.mydesert.com/article/201...+in+Hemet++San+Jacinto+on+alert+after+threats

JimBeam · Mar 23, 2010

No link as I'm on my phone but it's reported that 30 or so members of the Vagos Motorcycle Club have been arrested in connection with this

derekabraham · Mar 23, 2010

Crazy stuff!

JimBeam · Mar 23, 2010

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ang--accused--of-booby-trap-plot-1924363.html

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nd Radical Town. It's a hell of a place!

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nd Radical Town. It's a hell of a place!

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07TacoRidah SHHHH, this is interesting

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brianr go shit in your hat

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