Two rival gangs of street-level drug dealers - Fresh Off the Boat (FOB) and the FOB Killers

Two rival gangs of street-level drug dealers - Fresh Off the Boat (FOB) and the FOB Killers - have been fighting a pitched battle

Police say two rival gangs of street-level drug dealers - Fresh Off the Boat (FOB) and the FOB Killers - have been fighting a pitched battle for the past six years that has been driving the city's rising homicide numbers."I think what is relatively clear is the violence we saw in 2008 between these two factions is retaliatory. One incident has, within weeks or months, led to a second incident," Deputy Chief Murray Stooke said this week."We are concerned that this back-and-forth retaliatory conflict will continue in 2009."Just over 14 hours after police were called to an unrelated homicide Thursday - the city's first of 2009 - at least two gunmen walked into Bolsa, a Vietnamese restaurant in the city's southeast - and opened fire at a table in the middle of the room. Police found one man dead, face down, in the parking lot outside, and two more corpses inside the restaurant.One of the victims was identified as Sanjeev Mann, a member of the FOB Killers gang.In December 2008, a deportation hearing was held for Calgarian Jackie Tran, who police have identified as a member of FOB Killers. The hearing provided a rare public airing of the circumstances that led to the deadly gang rivalry.

The two gangs emerged from a group of high school friends who dealt drugs together, but later went their separate ways. Conflicts between the two groups escalated quickly from knife fights to gun battles, endangering bystanders and claiming at least 15 lives in the past six years.In one recent violent episode, a gun battle between city gangsters erupted Nov. 16, 2008 in Calgary's Chinatown. Police said the shooting started when the occupants of an SUV pulled up alongside a car and opened fire, wounding several people. Two of the victims are allegedly associated with the local Fresh Off the Boat gang.Just weeks later, a drive-by shooting on a crowded crosstown highway prompted Calgary police to take the rare step of warning friends, family members and associates of known gang members that they'd become targets of retaliatory attacks."These two groups have escalated to the point now that if you are a member of one of these two gangs, if you're an associate, if you're a girlfriend, if you happen to be in the same vehicle with members from these two groups, you are at risk of being a victim of a shooting or a homicide," said acting Staff Sgt. Gord Eiriksson.Calgary police have identified 400 known gang members and associates who operate within the city.

"What we require to effectively address the issue is police resources," Stooke said.The Alberta government has been paying attention. This past fall, it announced a crackdown on gangs, promising to create four new teams of police officers and crime analysts.
Premier Ed Stelmach said the province will use federal cash to create 83 positions by April to tackle gangs that deal in drugs. He said Alberta will also pay for 100 extra front-line officers - not expected to hit the streets until after next year's budget.But throwing dozens of new police officers at Calgary gangs to suppress the violence won't permanently address the city's growing gang problem, said Mount Royal College justice studies chair John Winterdyk.While gang activity might be displaced for a time by a police blitz, he said, it returns the moment the extra resources dry up. To make real inroads into stopping gangs, police and lawmakers have to better understand the non-Canadian cultures many new gangsters come from - cultures with a widespread contempt for law enforcement stemming from widespread police corruption in their homelands.Economic opportunities also have to be created for young people who often feel disconnected from society and think they have few alternatives but to join gangs, he said.

Timothy “Fuzzy” Timms, a 45-year-old member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle club, stood up Monday for his First Amendment right to freedom of expressi

Timothy “Fuzzy” Timms, a 45-year-old member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle club, stood up Monday for his First Amendment right to freedom of expression. Timms, a resident of the San Diego community of South Park, refused to take off a black leather vest with the motorcycle club's “death's head” insignia when he reported for jury duty. He's a big burly man, 5 feet 8 inches, 250 pounds, with a full beard and auburn-colored, shoulder-length hair. At 7:45 a.m., Timms' stance got him booted from the San Diego Superior Court's Hall of Justice by sheriff's deputies, along with another Hells Angel who also refused to remove his insignia vest. Nine hours later, representatives of both the Superior Court and the sheriff's department apologized to Timms and club member Mick Rush for “misunderstanding” an order issued April 24 by Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser. Rush also had been reporting for jury duty. “It all boils down to a misunderstanding of Judge Fraser'

Rashawn and Deon Beneby Someone mowed down the brothers, some 15 yards apart, on a grassy strip

''They may have been into drugs but they didn't do anything to harm anybody,'' said their aunt, Cheryl Watkins. ``It was cold-blooded murder to lay them out like that.''Miami-Dade County's 80th and 81st homicides of 2008: Rashawn and Deon Beneby, brothers and suspects in a string of violent robberies, shot dead Thursday afternoon next to the Liberty City middle school they once attended. ''It's cold-blooded, outright killing out there -- and we're not even in the summer yet,'' said the Rev. Richard Dunn, a community activist who lives three blocks away. Witnesses said a group of men were gathered outside an apartment at the Annie Coleman Gardens housing project when the shooting started.Someone mowed down the brothers, some 15 yards apart, on a grassy strip next to the chain-link fence that separates the community from the baseball field at Charles R. Drew Middle School, 1801 NW 60th St. Rashawn was executed -- shot in the head an

Jorge “Rivi” Ayala, Griselda Blanco, aka the Black Widow

Rivi was, for a time, the hit-man of choice for Griselda Blanco, aka the Black Widow. Griselda was the grande dame of the Miami cocaine business, a Colombian mother of three, of impoverished origins, who slaughtered and intimidated her way to the top of a billion-dollar industry. She is a central character in this movie, the most deadly figure in a story in which the bodies are stacked like dominos. Conspicuous by her absence as an interviewee, she is one of the few key survivors of the era whom the film-makers were unable to coax before the lens. “Her release was imminent at that point, as was her deportation. I think she has changed her mind since, because we have been reapproached,” Corben says. contract killer Jorge “Rivi” Ayala, the director of Cocaine Cowboys Billy Corben says: “He told me where there is a body buried in Miami, by the Florida turnpike. It’s all developed now, malls and condominiums. He knows where all the bodies are buried. We told the police. I think he told the

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