Detroit One: taking back the streets


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Detroit One is sending a long overdue message to the gangs: the party's over.

Sounds like another TV cop show eh?

This is the multi-jurisdictional task force that has been working in parallel with DPD Chief Craig's flood-the-zone raids. These take crime hotspots and flood them with hundreds of cops; serving search warrants, arresting warrant evaders, probation violators, drug and illegal firearms dealers. You name it.

Not very subtle, and by all accounts the Latin Counts are just the first chapter.

http://m.detnews.com/updates/article?a=2014307250089&f=1208

Detroit -- More than 30 alleged members of the Southwest Detroit street gang known as the Latin Counts have been indicted on federal drug and firearm charges, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said Friday.

She also said five of the 33 suspects were indicted on racketeering charges as well.

[NOTE: racketeering charges under the RICO Act, used to fight organized crime like the Mafia]

"We're hopeful this sends a powerful message that we won't tolerate crime," she said.

McQuade made the remarks at a media conference Friday.

She said the suspects were indicted on charges including distribution of cocaine, heroin and firearm possession. She declined to say if drugs were seized during their arrests or how much revenue their alleged drug operation generated.

Agencies that are part of Detroit One, a coalition created a year ago to reduce violence in Detroit, arrested the suspects, McQuade said.

Detroit One is made up of the FBI, the Detroit Police, Homeland Security, Lincoln Park Police, Michigan State Police and the state Department of Corrections.

Since its inception, the coalition's efforts have resulted in more than 100 arrests and charges against more than 140 people, she said.

Representatives from several of its agencies, including FBI Special Agent in Charge Paul Abbate, Detroit Police Chief James Craig and Marlon Miller, Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge, joined McQuade.

"This is an exciting day," said Craig. "And the message today is we're not done."

The five suspects indicted on racketeering charges are Victor Vasquez, 23, of Detroit; Avery Denardis, 20, of Dearborn; Jeffrey Lunsford, 34, of Ecorse; Kyle Voltz, 24, of Lincoln Park and Jacob Hixson, 20, of Detroit, McQuade said.

Vasquez also is accused of being involved in the fatal April shooting of Mustafa Al-Yarsiry. Several Latin Count members allegedly assaulted Al-Yarsiry at the Big Apple Market in Detroit and one gunned him down, officials said.

In a separate case, Tim Galvan, 32, and Luke Reardon, 23, both of Detroit, were indicted for felony firearm possession, McQuade said.

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Easy solution, legalize drugs and take away the illicit money fueling these criminal enterprises. They do more than drugs usually (prostitution, illegal gambling, etc.), but the huge money pull is drugs. It is a lot easier to deal with small scale gang problems than the enormous scale you have now fueled by illegal drug profiteering.

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Spoken by the clueless. Drugs is a small part of the organized gang crime problem here and many other cities.

Make them legal, which involves taxing them at some level, and the gangs still sell them by undercutting the legal price. This is the same thing they do with smuggled cigarettes - also a part of the gangs product mix.

Ever see the first 15 minutes of Beverly Hills Cop? Still happens. Big business for the gangs.

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Spoken by the clueless. Drugs is a small part of the organized gang crime problem here and many other cities.

Make them legal, which involves taxing them at some level, and the gangs still sell them by undercutting the legal price. This is the same thing they do with smuggled cigarettes - also a part of the gangs product mix.

Ever see the first 15 minutes of Beverly Hills Cop? Still happens. Big business for the gangs.

 

Don't tax them, allow sale only through the state and at cost price - undercutting the drug gangs and putting them out of business. Problem solved.

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The gangs overhead is lower than any govt program, which are riddled with $$ civil servants and bureaucrats.

Also, have you ever seen the film Equilibrium? Do you really want to start a govt agency that dispenses drugs to calm sheeple, and which has ANY chance to evolve into a real life Tetragrammaton Council?

Bear in mind that drugs similar to the fictional "Prozium" are already in the labs.

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Easy solution, legalize drugs and take away the illicit money fueling these criminal enterprises. They do more than drugs usually (prostitution, illegal gambling, etc.), but the huge money pull is drugs. It is a lot easier to deal with small scale gang problems than the enormous scale you have now fueled by illegal drug profiteering.

The amount of money made on prostitution is mind boggling.  I read somewhere before that the only thing that Americans spend more money on in this country than sex (porn, videos, prostitution, all of it) is Defense.  Legalizing drugs will not stop it.

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Crime is usually a byproduct of other issues, like poor education, high unemployment, addiction, poverty, etc. Unless this is part of a larger strategy it will only suppress the issue or force it elsewhere.

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The gangs overhead is lower than any govt program, which are riddled with $$ civil servants and bureaucrats.

Also, have you ever seen the film Equilibrium? Do you really want to start a govt agency that dispenses drugs to calm sheeple, and which has ANY chance to evolve into a real life Tetragrammaton Council?

Bear in mind that drugs similar to the fictional "Prozium" are already in the labs.

 

I wouldn't really classify drug addicts as calm personally, but yes - I don't see the issue with having some sort of government run dispensary for cost-price narcotics.

 

We're not talking a state-run beer shop here, but rather a place for drug addicts to get their drugs legally and safely while they get help to try and beat their addiction.

 

The illegality of drugs is what gives them their value, you match the demand with an equivalent supply and the value is gone along with any criminal interest.

 

The alternative is to waste even more money on pointless "wars on drugs" which just serve to make the market more lucrative for criminals in the first place. So given the option, why not redirect that money into stomping out the business of drugs and helping rehabilitate addicts into valuable members of society?

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The amount of money made on prostitution is mind boggling.  I read somewhere before that the only thing that Americans spend more money on in this country than sex (porn, videos, prostitution, all of it) is Defense.  Legalizing drugs will not stop it.

I'm all for legalizing prostitution too. There isn't a win in barring people from committing moral crimes against themselves.

 

Making these sort of things illegal when they pose no threat to others is only a recipe for disaster. There is a dark and ugly side the prostitution that is capable of flourishing largely for the same reason the illegal drug trade enables certain actors to persist.

 

We really need to take a far more scientific approach to our usage of laws...

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To this day addicts sell the free drugs they are given in govt programs.

They either sell their filled prescriptions or do what's called "spit mething," spit out liquid or pill doses given in a clinic. Sometimes the sell the retrieved drugs to buy stronger druhs on the street.

Ask them (I have) and they'll tell you that they only use legal program drugs when their dealers are short of the preferred stronger street drugs.

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To this day addicts sell the free drugs they are given in govt programs.

They either sell their filled prescriptions or do what's called "spit mething," spit out liquid or pill doses given in a clinic. Sometimes the sell the retrieved drugs to buy stronger druhs on the street.

Ask them (I have) and they'll tell you that they only use legal program drugs when their dealers are short of the preferred stronger street drugs.

 

Because drugs are still illegal and still valuable. No real significant action has been taken to turn the issue on it's head.

 

It's not so much about legalisation as it is completely upturning the business of drugs so criminals aren't interested. And that has not happened because of pre-conceived notions of "morality" surrounding the issue.

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