We need more prisons...

...not just for the tens of thousands of gangbangers that cause mayhem in the streets of Los Angeles, but also for the corrupt City Council that pours millions of our tax dollars into "gang prevention" programs that enrich the criminals themselves.

A very disturbing story recently appeared in an "alternate" newspaper, the LA Weekly. It shows the depth of fraud and racially motivated hypocrisy within "anti-gang" efforts. It's a long article, but well worth reading.

Centerpiece of this story is one Hector Marroquin, a "former" gamgbanger who ran a program laughingly called "No Guns." Taxpayer funds went to an umbrella program called "LA Bridges," which then funneled the loot straight to the gangsters themselves.

Marroquin is currently in hospital, recovering from a gang-related shooting last year. But if he is a crook, no less crooked are the forces in City Hall that enabled him. Here's an excerpt from the story:

...the belief inside City Hall that the virtually unmonitored use of former gang members like Marroquin and his deeply troubled family is a legitimate way to reach out to kids. No Guns stands out because city officials had ample notice that Marroquin ultimately couldn’t escape gang culture himself, police sources say. Several anti-gang programs are financed by taxpayers, at a cost of $26 million per year, including L.A. Bridges, yet City Hall bureaucrats cannot provide any concrete figures proving they have reduced gang activity. A 2003 city-funded audit found that it’s “impossible to count, document and verify” whether children have been drawn away from gangs.

While documenting Marroquin's crimes, the story puts some perspective on how he managed to get to a point where he owned a bar, several properties, a nice home and -- of course -- a black Lincoln Navigator while "working for the city." After recounting some of his criminal exploits (and noting that Marroquin employed family members in "No Guns," for a total of some $200,000 per year), the story says: This dark, alternate view of Marroquin is in stark contrast to the protective embrace of Marroquin by City Hall. In fact, L.A. Bridges officials kept money flowing to No Guns even after Marroquin was arrested in March — for gun possession — and long after his children, Charleeda and Hector Jr., employed in key positions at No Guns, became mired in violent and bizarre incidents....

...Marroquin faces trial in January on a felony gun-possession charge, while [his son] Hector Jr. — an admitted 18th Street gang member who worked as a youth counselor at No Guns — now sits in jail, facing trial in January on a home-invasion robbery charge involving a mother and her baby the day after Christmas in 2005. Police investigating the home invasion confiscated from Hector Jr.’s home a small arsenal: a Czech Luger, a Glock, a Beretta Tomcat and a Smith & Wesson automatic pistol.

When confronted with Marroquin's current illegal activities (which includes alleged connection to one or more recent murders), L.A. Bridges director John Chavez went limp. Chavez actually extended No Guns’ contract an additional month, while he obsessed over whether the No Guns debacle would hurt the image of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Now we get to the root of the problem. The City council and Villaraigosa won't act, even though gang crime has increased 14% in the city in the last year (far more in the areas with heavy illegal-alien populations) because they are committed to making Los Angeles a safe haven for all illegals from south of the border.

There is a rule called "Special Order 40" that prohibits the police from checking the immigration status of suspects. Only after charges are officially filed (and then, the crime must either be a felony or "multiple misdemeanors") can they look into the status of the perp. Villaraigosa will not cancel it. Illegals have a free pass here.

Of course Marroquin is not alone, as the story points out: With almost half of the 49 recipients of L.A. Bridges money now employing former gangsters, the inability of the Community Development Department to keep watch over the City Council’s dream project, launched in 1996, strongly suggests that taxpayers have underwritten a boondoggle that operates with few safeguards.

Historically, Los Angeles has always had a substantial Mexican population. It has always had gangs, too. But, until the political whores in City Hall decided to sell out to the same pro-illegal forces that have taken George Bush under their wing, until they changed L.A. from an American city to a sanctuary for criminals, the Mexican population was, like other ethnic groups, part of what made this a wonderful, vibrant place to live.

Villaraigosa and the City council are succeeding in doing what George Bush dreams of doing: they are transforming America into a crime-ridden third-world nation.

And they are using the tax dollars of legal, hard-working citizens, many of them the same ones who are in danger of losing their jobs to the flood of cheap illegal labor, to fund this madness.

They, like the gangbangers, should rot in jail for their criminal activities.

"No Guns?" How about "no illegals," "no tolerance for violent crime," and "no City Council?"