Expert says many members of highly dangerous gang in Hazleton are illegal immigrants (Wilkes-Barre Times Leader)

STEVE MOCARSKY
Staff writer

SCRANTON – A nationally recognized gang expert testified Wednesday that MS-13 – a gang Hazleton police say has a presence in the city – is one of the most dangerous gangs in the world, and that many of its members are illegal immigrants.

The defense called Jared Lewis, director of Know Gangs – an organization he founded to teach law enforcement officials how to identify and deal with gang problems -- as an expert witness in the Illegal Immigration Relief Act trial.

Mayor Lou Barletta and Police Chief Robert Ferdinand testified previously that many illegal immigrants arrested in the city have gang associations.

Barletta has said violent crime allegedly committed by illegal immigrants in the city is one of the major things that prompted him to propose the Relief Act ordinance and a related landlord/tenant registration ordinance last June.

The ordinances would fine landlords who rent to illegal immigrants, suspend licenses of businesses that hire them and require all city tenants to show proof of citizenship or immigration status.

Several Latino organizations and residents sued the city in August, claiming that the ordinances are unconstitutional and discriminatory toward Latinos.

Preceding Lewis on the stand were Hazleton police Detective Christopher Orozco, a bilingual officer who helped Ferdinand organize a gang investigation unit in February, and Detective Cpl. Jason Zola, who heads the police department’s Narcotics Unit.

Orozco testified that five of the 15 people with gang affiliations he arrested since May 2006 were illegal immigrants.

In fact, Pedro Cabrera – the main suspect arrested in the homicide of Derek Kichline – was found to be an illegal immigrant and a member of the Latin Kings gang, Orozco said. Barletta has called the May 10, 2006, fatal shooting “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Orozco said each of the five illegal immigrants he arrested were members of different gangs, including MS-13, The Latin Kings, DDP (Dominicans Don’t Play), Trinitarios and the East Side Gang. He said he observed signs of Crips and Bloods gangs in the city as well.

Zola testified that 10 of the 30 people arrested by the narcotics division on drug charges in 2006 were illegal immigrants.

He said drug sale investigations can take months, and costs to the city for overtime and car rentals are considerable. Car rentals are necessary, he said, because drug dealers routinely use counter-surveillance measures on police, and narcotics officers need to change vehicles constantly to avoid detection in their surveillance measures.

Zola also said it takes six to 10 officers to conduct controlled drug buys in which an informant buys drugs from dealers or undercover buys in which an undercover officer makes the buy to ensure the safety of the informant or undercover officer.

The topic returned to gang activity when Lewis took the stand. He provided a history of Mara Salvatrucha – more commonly known as MS-13.

Lewis said the gang was formed in California by refugees from El Salvador, and members are known for their use of machetes to kill people even when automatic weapons are available. Lewis said city police told him that they found a bloody machete when responding to a reported gang party last weekend.

Lewis said he based his belief that gangs are operating in Hazleton on information Orozco provided him in phone conversations and e-mails. He said seeing gang-related graffiti in several areas in Hazleton on a quick tour Tuesday was the “icing on the cake” that solidified his opinion.

He said the graffiti he saw in Hazleton “was not indicative of a small town.” He said most graffiti he sees is indicative of taggers or graffiti artists rather than gang members marking their territory.

“The graffiti here in Hazleton was 100 percent gang-related,” Lewis said.

On cross-examinations, plaintiff attorney Tom Fiddler got the officers to agree that an increase in population, such as the one Hazleton has seen since 2001, would lead them to expect an increase in crime and many gang members are not illegal immigrants.

Fiddler said gang activity and narcotic trafficking are national and international problems that are “independent of immigration issues. … You’re talking about a very small number (of crimes) that were allegedly committed by illegal aliens, whether you’re talking about drug arrests or gang membership.”

Fiddler noted that crime statistics provided by the city show that the crime rate in Hazleton has actually decreased since Hazleton saw its population increase from 23,000 in 2000 to 30,000 to 33,000 in 2006.

“The question is whether the problems the city has been faced with are a result of the number of undocumented persons coming into the city. If you look at the hard evidence, no relationship exists between the two,” Fiddler said.

The defense wrapped up its case with the testimony of Mike Cutler, a retired agent from the former U.S. Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services.

Cutler, whose job it once was to confirm the immigration status of immigrants using federal databases, testified that Hazleton could use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, also known as SAVE, electronic verification program to check the immigration status of tenants and employees in the city.

He said federal immigration officials would manually check the status of any tenant whose residency status was shown to be in question by the Internet-based system.

Plaintiff attorney Vic Walczak questioned Cutler’s qualifications and pointed out some discrepancies between his expert report and government-prepared reports on the database verification system Hazleton would use to confirm identity status of tenants and employees.

Attorneys on both sides agreed that Temple University law professor Jan Ting would not be called as an expert witness for the defense. They also agreed to stipulations of facts that would have been presented by two other defense witnesses – Hazleton Area School Board member Sean Shamany and Greater Hazleton Health Alliance president Jim Edwards, eliminating a need for those officials to testify as well.

Barletta has said illegal immigrants have caused extended waits in Hazleton General Hospital’s emergency room and overcrowded classrooms and failing schools in the city.

Closing arguments are scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. today.