Mexican gangs build war wagons

Mexican war wagons Powerful .50-caliber weapon bolted to the bed of a truck. Reports vary on what kind of weapon it was: Mexican Federal Police General Rodolfo Cruz said it was a .50 caliber Browning machine gun -- a Ma Deuce -- while the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said it was an unmodified semi-automatic weapon built by U.S. manufacturer TNW Firearms. But either way, it sounds like an effort to build a "technical" -- an improvised fighting vehicle of the kind favored by Somali warlords and developing-world armies. Coverage of Mexico's drug war has become mixed up with a debate in the United States over gun control. But as the Associated Press reported yesterday, traffickers are now tooling up with more military-grade weaponry. "Stockpiles captured by Mexican soldiers show that warring traffickers are now obtaining military-grade weaponry such as grenades, launchers, machine guns, mortars and anti-tank rockets," the report said. More worryingly, some gangs have obtained military-grade explosives -- the basic ingredients for building the kind of improvised explosive devices that have proven so lethal in Iraq and Afghanistan. The cartels, however, have not necessarily mastered bomb-making skills: As Stratfor noted last year, a roadside bomb that was supposedly meant for a Mexican police official detonated prematurely, killing the bombmaker and injuring an accomplice.

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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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