I didnt do it, Sandoval announced to me in a recent phone conversation. TDCJ intelligence files indicate that by the close of the eighties, the TS, the Mexican Mafia, and other prison gangs had developed active memberships in every major Texas city, as well as in several small towns. Carnales make sure that the rules are known. Not only was the event novel at the time, it started the trend of airfield racing across the country. And were there in it. A federal grand jury indictment, returned in Austin and unsealed yesterday, charges those arrested with conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance. Joshua Fechter is a reporter covering City Hall and San Antonio politics for the Express-News. (LogOut/ TS members will also assist a fellow member in this pending criminal case. We in the free world classify inmates according to motivation: those who do not wish to live a life of crime and those who know no other life; those who wish only to do their time and get out and those who function best in a kill-or-be-killed environment. The Texas Syndicate, unlike the Mexican Mafia or Nuestra Familia, has been more associated or allied with Mexican immigrant prisoners. The murder would take place in a corridor abutting the B-wing: the maximum-security area where Luis Sandoval often worked. Perhaps it was because Vicente was so quiet and servile or perhaps he had such a talent for lingering that the porters simply paid him no mind. Roughly 33 percent of gang members entering the Texas Department of Criminal Justice system in 2014 were from the southeast Texas region, with 90 percent of those coming from Greater Houston. Prospects are generally not allowed to make decisions or be present inside the meetings and are required to stand outside when such decisions are made. They blew the paycheck on the slot machines; they had a wonderful time. At the close of the eighth hour, the shift changes, but the inmates remain. The warden would later testify that Sandovals actions were somewhat heroic. But, Peterson added, the hero had seemed awfully calm in the midst of all the bloodshedperhaps too calm. Prison Gangs, affecting American Prisons atLarge. But he also acknowledged that he had made mistakes; and to me, though not to the jury, he confessed that one of those mistakes was bringing drugs into Ellis I. Yell fight, he said, but the two officers seemed paralyzed. Given the size of the gang and the number of areas in which they operate, there are a few initiation rituals. Since the late 1970s, the TDCJ has seen a gradual increase in TS-related activities within the system and the Texas Syndicate remains one of the main security threats within the TDCJ. I was a damn good officer, he told both me and them. The answer was always no said former Ellis I officer Nolan McCool, If the opportunity exists, theyre gonna make the hit. Theres no way to shut them down, Sandoval said. Not one of them said that Sandoval was a bad officer; many, in fact, went out of their way to laud his abilities. If you are switching factions, you will need to leave your company in order to change to Syndicate. The attorney was advised that his client would never again wear gray in a state penal institution. In prison, he had come to learn, if you gave, you got. Several of them testified vigorously that Ellis I was understaffed and overcrowded, and that the unit was riddled with blind spots. What sustains the gangs is money, which inmates use to bribe prison employees. Here are fifteen of the most troubling and horrifying gang initiation rituals around the world. On August 26, 1990, a death row inmate proved his loyalty to the Aryan Brotherhood during his daily recreation hour by strangling a black inmate in a recreation yard with a jump rope while the latter was performing oral sex on the former. The corridor where Joe Arredondo was murdered is now permanently guarded. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. A few days later, on April 12, 1991, FBI agents showed up at the apartment where Sandoval had been hiding and took him to the Los Angeles County jail. Their initiation rituals vary based on whether or not a given cell of the gang is in prison or on the outside. The steaks would have come from the kitchen; the laundry basket that held them would have been wheeled past a guard. [4][5], The Texas Syndicate was established at Folsom State Prison in California in 1978 in direct response to the other California prison gangs, notably the Aryan Brotherhood and Mexican Mafia, which were attempting to prey on native Texas inmates. West Texas Syndicate Energy is an energy company with practical and futuristic goals, continuing to push environmental-friendly and pioneering technologies in more traditional energy endeavors. DPS also cited the 2014 indictment of 55 Barrio Azteca members and associates as handicapping the gang's effectiveness. Defendants who are charged in this indictment include: *13 defendants were arrested yesterday. When a new recruit is deemed ready for membership, several of the more capable members wail on him for a period of 18 seconds, and as long as that recruit fights back (against 5-6 usually larger men), they will then be welcomed into the gang. In Del Rio, three Texas Syndicate members from Uvalde, TX, face up to life in federal prison after a federal jury convicted them last night of various violations of federal racketeering offenses committed in Uvalde, San Antonio and the surrounding areas announced United States Attorney Robert Pitman. Chow time meant that vast numbers of inmates would be crowded together in one room. He took up smoking, two packs every eight-hour shift. Most gangs will just have their way with female members (referred to as s*xed-in) who want to join. They were founded in Nigeria over a decade ago, but now operate in several African countries. A member who has fallen out of favor might also be referred to in the feminine form. Word spread that the Texans were a force to contend with. The five-foot-six, soft-voiced young man had spent most of his life in the South Texas town of Alice, where blacks were scarcely seen. Within prisons, there are a couple of parts to the initiation process. Several weeks after the jurys verdict, he told me over the phone that he wished to recant everything he had said to me on tape about his involvement with drugs. The rituals, beliefs, and practices of this group came to light in the United States after journalist Hunter S. Thompson spent a year with a California chapter of the gang, publishing a book (amazing read, by the way) titledHell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. But Ellis I officials, like so many other wardens in the post-Ruiz era, were playing a numbers game. Sandoval got up, ran into the hallway, and yelled fight twice. Prisons, crammed with thrill-seekers and outright junkies, provide the ultimate captive consumers. Whoever killed him had to have come through the B-wing hallway and had to have been dripping with blood. Everyone agreed that the building tender system was a cheap and crudely effective method of maintaining order. Throughout the Sandoval trial, guards on the witness stand were asked if they had ever stopped a gang member from murdering an inmate. In return, the snitch had an oversized cell to himself, plus a hall pass that gave him the run of the unit. It took months before someone looked closely at the gas mask featured on the patch and realized that every correctional officer at the unit had been wearing the letters TS across his forehead. Yes, we know that there is some discrepancy listing a major terrorist organization along with prison gangs, but recruiting methods and reliance on crime for income make terror organizations like ISIS similar enough to gangs to list them here. A member who violates the rules and loses favor becomes a muleta, a term which is used to mean a problem. Such a violation may result in the TS bringing its own official gang-based charges against the member who is being accused of violating the rules. Thereafter, inmates made their blades out of hard plastic or made do with whatever crude instrument was within reach, like the cast-iron weight an inmate found in the recreation yard and used, with one vicious swing, to lop off the ear of another inmate. The Aryan Brotherhood is a white supremacist gang that operates primarily within the federal prison system in the United States. He was muling, said McDonald. One of the first things that often happen when these kids are taken is that the local leaders will take them back to their villages and force them tokill their parents. Jun 29, 2022. ogden clinic cardiology . He had been ordered to carry out a hit on another inmate and had failed to do so. App. Without drugs, gangs would have little income; without income, they would have little power over the system. Snow flakes glide gently from the sky.The Farm Hand. The rules of the Texas Syndicate prohibit the distribution of information regarding fellow members to law enforcement. Sandoval caught one inmate with a homemade oven and a laundry basket filled with about fifty prime-cut steaks. One was an officer who muled marijuana and cocaine for a black inmate known as Apple Jack, whose activities were no secret at the unit. Hispanics who were not TS members formed their own gang, the Mexican Mafia, which today outnumbers the TS two to one but is not considered as well organized by prison officials. A long, metal objecta homemade knife, or shankprotruded from his jugular. Youre telling us you saw nothing? Meanwhile, white inmates, tired of being robbed and sexually assaulted by the larger population of black inmates, began the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. Cocaine might be referred to by many names including sheet rock, girls, teenager, teener, french fries, bacon, white shirt and flour. Marijuana might be referred to by names including elbows, feed, stuff for horses, hay for horses, green and grass. Methamphetamines were commonly referred to as ice, crystal, windshields, the cold stuff and yellow. Suppliers and customers also use abbreviated numbers to indicate quantity and price, such as an order for a whole onion that costs at least 7 bucks, meaning that an order of an ounce of cocaine would cost $700. The ink from U.S. district judge William Wayne Justices signature on his 1980 Ruiz v. Estelle decree had not yet dried before critics were predicting that the prison reforms specified in the judges order would leave a dangerous power vacuum. The first major TDCJ gang, a Hispanic group known as the Texans, consisted of former residents who were doing time in California penal institutions in the mid-seventies. According to a US Justice Department press release: Texas Syndicate, a criminal organization whose members and associates engage in acts of violence, including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, extortion and narcotics distribution. Yes, he had made the phone calls. However, it counts among its rivals some cartel heavyweights such as the Sinaloa Cartel, headed by notorious drug lordJoaqun "El Chapo" Guzmn, and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Compared with Luis Sandovals quiet life in Alice, Ellis I must have seemed like an opium den. Word spread through the unit the way it always had, at bewildering speed: Joe Arredondo was a dead man. Theyre gonna say you were in on it. The enterprise constitutes an ongoing organization whose members function as a continuing unit for a common purpose of achieving the objectives of the enterprise. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has initiated a process, which provides a method for inmates who have been assigned to restrictive housing as a member of a security threat group on a previous incarceration, to renounce their membership with the security threat group (STG). All of above. The strict rules and harsh discipline governing the Texas Syndicate help insure that the organizations members and associates function as a continuing unit despite any changes in membership. Their leader is one of the FBI's 10 most wanted criminals. a) Texas Attorney General conference, October 1999 and 2003 b) Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Security Threat Group Officers c) California Department of Corrections When cocaine is available, the supplier might tell his customers that he had work available. Gangs like the Bandidos Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, Bloods, Crips, Texas Chicano Brotherhood and Partido Revolcionaro Mexicano (PRM) lack the size and structure or larger gangs like Tango Blast, but are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. The officials fitted Sandoval with handcuffs, leg irons, and a belly chain. 0333 344 7476. muck tool progression. For the vast majority of high school and college teams, at least in the United States, there is at least some form of initiation; and these days, most of them are alcohol-based. They specialize in the usual street crimes including robbery, car theft, drug trafficking, assault, and murder, but the 18th Street Gang is also known to have been involved with human trafficking and illegal immigration initiatives. Yes, he had mailed Vicentes letters, had cashed two money orders for the inmate, and on three different occasions, had delivered packages from a parking lot to a telephone booth. Everybody knew about this scum. Yet Apple Jack went unpunished: He tithed a share of his profits to the Texas Syndicate and gave the supervisors something to crow about by setting up a guard now and then. Youre telling us its a coincidence that you werent down at the end of the hallway? house for rent waldport oregon; is thanos a villain or anti hero On Monday, at eight in the morning, Sandoval reported for duty at the Ellis I training academy in Huntsville. It was their house, not his or the states. The Texas Syndicates control of those in prison is so far-reaching that members both in and out of prison follow a procedure by which the TS ensure that members are not and have not been police informants. Mungiki is a religious/ethnic sect in Kenya. Arturo Gallegos Castrellon, pictured, is serving a life sentence in U.S. federal prison for leading the assassins. But the report made no mention of Armando Garcia and El Carpintero; nor did it offer any evidence that Sandoval had actually smuggled drugs into Ellis I. In many places, it is normal to get "jumped in." I could watch him deal with inmates and think, This guy knows something I dont know., One evening, while gazing out from his apartment balcony, Sandoval saw a car drive slowly by. Eventually, Sandoval agreed to bring drugs into Ellis I. Its a society, Luis Sandoval told me of the world he inhabited five days a week, eight hours a day. As the free world would have it, there are good inmates and bad inmates. There are members in North America, Western Europe, Australia, and of course, all across Asia. West Texas Syndicate Energy. The Triad is the most widely-recognized of Chinese gangs and has chapters all over the world; basically anywhere in which there is a large Chinese community. Then, he is deemed fit to join the gang. Gang initiation is determined either by a formula system, whereas if the member completes all the requirements (which sometimes include killing another person) and the other basic requirements (such as race, ethnicity etc), they are automatically initiated. Here are fifteen of the most troubling and horrifying gang initiation rituals around the world. Although, they do have alliances with some Hispanic gangs. (LogOut/ So it may be a week or a month or a yearbut that hit is on.. The B-wing, a loud and grossly overcrowded area, was considered the hellhole, in the words of Cade Crippin, the CO who worked the B-wing with Sandoval the afternoon of the murder. Are you on trial or is TDC on trial?. The enterprise (hereinafter the Texas Syndicate, TS, or the enterprise) engages in, and its activities affected, interstate and foreign commerce. The roles in the Arredondo hit were decided in either the chow hall or the chapel, where numbers were drawn from a cup. Its a society all its own. Texas Syndicate members frequently refer to each other as carnal (brother) and maintain a distinct identity by establishing and enforcing specific TS rules, holding meetings, utilizing TS gang signs (horns), and by maintaining a close relationship with fellow gang members and their associates throughout the state. Popular on college campuses, most fraternities or sororities still have rites of initiation, but the focus is now being put on making the experience fun and mildly embarrassing, rather than something that causes a new member to need therapy. There are a couple of rituals that are listed among their practices for new members, including r*ping a woman and sustaining a brutal beating. If the recruit answers, "I will share my umbrella," he is deemed unworthy of membership and becomes a s*x slave. Mike Hall writes about criminals, musicians, the law, and barbecue. Gang members have a direct working relationship with associates and/or members of the Gulf Cartel. Armando, I cant jeopardize my life, man., Garcia took the story to the Texas Syndicate. His assignment was one of the toughest jobs in Ellis I. He lives in Ottawa, Canada, a desolate wasteland that nobody should call home. Mimi Swartz is a staff writer based in Houston. A fresh take on sports: the biggest news and most entertaining lists. Sandoval put his hand against the wound, looked up, and saw Crippin and McCool standing there, gaping. Whether a fraternity, sports team, or college club, there is a great deal of concern over what constitutes legitimate initiation and what constitutes punishable hazing. Likewise the gangs allow inmates the opportunity to be free from isolation and as a result to have a support system. But according to one Ellis I officer, Inmates watch everything we do. If you are facing serious criminal charges, you need a lawyer who is prepared to go to trial, Law Office of Sylvia A. Cavazos 110 Broadway St.Suite 210San Antonio, TX 78205 San Antonio Office, Phone:210-468-1130Toll Free: 800-681-6406Fax: 888-566-7765, 2023 Law Office of Sylvia A. Cavazos All Rights Reserved, Disclaimer| Site Map| Privacy Policy |Business Development Solutions by FindLaw, part of Thomson Reuters. On the witness stand, Sandoval suggested that the caller was someone from TDCJ Internal Affairs; more likely, he was a Texas Syndicate member delivering the message that the TS would not be amused if Sandoval blew the whistle on their activities. That his client would never again wear gray in a recent phone conversation flakes glide gently from sky.The! A force to contend with yelled texas syndicate initiation twice a reporter covering City Hall San. About fifty prime-cut steaks a state penal institution Texans were a force to contend with were founded in Nigeria a... Theyre gon na make the hit but, Peterson added, the snitch had an oversized cell himself... 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