Lawsuit against the Sureno 13 gang comes just before Cinco de Mayo, a popular Latino fiesta, which runs May 1-2. Police Chief John Harrington calls Sureno 13 the fastest growing gang in the Twin Cities. He says the level of violence it is able and willing to commit is escalating. City attorney John Choi says if approved by a judge, the measure would allow St. Paul Police officers to arrest any gang member found within a so-called safe zone near the festival. "If they want to come to the event they can certainly come with their mom or come by themself. But if they're engaging in gang behavior or basically hanging out with another known gang member -- ultimately that's what we want as a court order and then a violation of that court order is a misdemeanor crime. So that will help law enforcement in many ways," he said. Choi says during last year's Cinco de Mayo celebration, a Sureno gang member was involved in a drive-by shooting. But law enforcement officials say that doesn't mean the festival is unsafe. A judge will hear the city's arguments April 24.
''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...
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