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JP gang members swept up by feds, police in raids that also targeted MS-13 rivals in East Boston, Chelsea

Jassel Castillo

Jassel Castillo, suspect in Roslindale gunfire.

Around 3:40 a.m. on March 26, their windows closed on a chilly night, residents of Kittredge Street in Roslindale were jolted awake by the sound of gunfire. It was, a federal indictment charges today, an attempt by a member of a Jamaica Plain gang to murder an associate of a rival Jamaica Plain gang who was living near the intersection with Cliftondale.

Federal, state and local authorities today announced the indictments of 66 Boston-area gang members, including members of the 18th Street Gang - whose feud with MS-13 left four teenagers dead - and the Boylston Street gang of Jamaica Plain, which has been violently feuding with the Mozart Street gang for years.

Officials say the people named in the indictment are responsible for drug dealing and violence from Rhode Island to New Hampshire.. In addition to arrests, officials said 70 firearms had been seized.

In wiretaps, described by an ATF agent involved in the investigation, the feds listened in as alleged Boylston member Jassel "Shells" Castillo discussed how he emptied his gun trying - without success - to shoot a member of the Mozart gang outside 44 Kittredge St. early on March 26:

That hit, I just missed, bro. But, bro, the first shot I aimed it at his head, n****. Yo, I swear to God that when that n**** seen me he seen death …. He – bro- he act- he played it off like I hit him bro. So you know? That’s some s***, bro. But, yo, the first bro, as soon as he noticed me I put the gun to his head n**** I just rosed it up. Bam n****! I even close, I never forgot, I even closed one eye and everything, n****. Aiming down the sight at his head. That s*** just said boom n***, almost smack me in the face n****. I had to bring that s*** down to keep shooting at this n****.

I, I let those six go in like twice, in like in two seconds. He started like ducking and tryna, tryna dip off, n****. I just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. … He … and then I’m hot, bro. You know you’re supposed to count your shots my n****. I clicked it again and it just said “click” and then oh s*** n****. N****, if he wouldn’t have been runnin’, he’d heard me clicking like that ...

The US Attorney's office in Boston says the various gangs had taken to teaming up to traffic drugs and weapons.

In a little over one year investigators, made controlled purchases of 37 firearms from 18th Street Gang leader, members, and associates, including 3 assault rifles, 29 handguns, and 5 shotguns, including a sawed-off shotgun.

Also named: Members of the East Side Money Gang of Chelsea, which made YouTube rap videos about itself when not fending off attacks from the Chelsea-based Outlaws and the East Boston-based Maverick Street Gang:

There is an ongoing conflict between the East Side Money Gang and the Outlaws in Chelsea which has resulted in multiple violent crimes, including three attempted murders by the ESMG.

And members thought nothing of threatening police, the affidavit says:

On or about January 1, 2016, [member Jerry] LEIVA was approached by Chelsea Police officers after reports that LEIVA had been involved in domestic abuse in public. LEIVA threatened officers by identifying the locations where officers parked their vehicles (including a specific personal vehicle used by an officer who lives in Chelsea) and stating that he would have someone take care of them. LEIVA stated that he was in the “East Side Money Gang” and that they were prepared to go to war with the police.

Complete affidavit (1.7M PDF).

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

How's that "We don't need no Stinkin' ICE" thing working out?

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You're complaining about a lack of arrests on a story about dozens of arrests?

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I believe the original comment, was alluding to the lack of common sense in Marty Walsh's recent statements regarding detaining people (in the country illegally) who have already been apprehended and placed in custody at the request of ICE for an additional 48 hours. Many reasonable people find it ridiculous to release such criminals, in some cases very violent and dangerous criminals, back on to city streets where they may disappear again free to commit additional crimes. Did you not read the recent Boston Globe article on this subject Adam?
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/06/04/criminal-immigrants-reoffen...

It was truly appalling and frightening that it took 5 years of persistence by Globe reporters and freedom of information requests before this information came to light. Many people were much too happy to keep this information covered up and to repeatedly lie to the public about the severity of our current broken system. The people of Boston are less as because of terrible policies like these and because a portion of citizens would rather not crack down on actual criminals for fear or being labeled xenophobic/racist. Getting rid of dangerous criminals should be the priority. I applaud the great work of Boston police in this recent sweep, we should certainly not be making the job of apprehending and detaining violent criminals any more difficult by removing useful tools from law enforcement.

An additional 48 hour hold request by ICE is rarely issued for someone with minor criminal history. Like any tool it can be abused, but stricter oversight should be the answer to those valid concerns.

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The point of the article was that criminals which have been convicted of crimes are being allowed to stay in the US after being released from jail even though they were marked as to be deported. That a obvious failure of government.

However, Walsh was referring to the having the police act as ICE agents and checking the immigration status of anyone they detain and pre-trial which is an entirely separate issue. Walsh isn't opposed to deportation, he's opposed to having the police focus on someone's immigration status before they've even been convicted.

Once they've gone to court it's no longer a matter of discretion for the city and I'd agree that if someone is booked for violent crime the ICE should have the opportunity to put a hold on their release on bail.

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so the math thing is difficult...

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" I even closed one eye and everything"

Look out, we got a bad a** over here.

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I know right, pretty arrogant for a guy who is apparently a horrible shot....

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We need more of this.

Destroying the gangs would bring peace to so many neighborhoods. So few people cause so much damage. They need to be kept locked up.

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So this knucklehead Jassel Castillo is on a wiretap from 3/31 (per the timestamp on the photo) admitting to a shooting on 3/26 and he just got picked up yesterday?? over two months later?
He clearly has no problem trying to murder rivals on residential streets in Roslindale - but hey lets just keep an eye on him. I know it was part of a larger operation but come on - the guy is a shooter. get him off the streets as soon as you can - illegal firearms and attempted murder isn't enough?

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If you want to get as many of these guys as possible, with as much ironclad evidence as possible, making an arrest at a time every couple of weeks isn't going to pay off. A coordinated, strategic effort ensures that they take them down in the double digits. You arrest one rat, the rest run off the sinking ship.

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Because he was part of a federal investigation, clearly ?

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Is the gang a criminal organization, and mere membership puts you on the hook for actions of the gang?

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But lets start with Goldman Sachs on that account.

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...when kids used "like" as a lazy filler in their speech.

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High five, bro.

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.

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As in alleged gang members. In America we have that nuisance called presumption of innocence.

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But you know that the area around Kittredge and Cliftondale was having problems for a long time, probably due to the intended victim and his crew.

Not that the area as a whole is troubled, but the good residents of the area did have concerns about activities and the police were aware of trouble.

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You're right, there are a few trouble houses in Roslindale, and yes, there were some issues on that stretch of Kittredge (when I saw the street and date, I knew just which house it was). So "sleepy" might not be the right word when compared to the rest of Roslindale, although maybe when compared to some other parts of Boston.

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Adam, I hope I'm overreacting here, but I'd like to try and separate the location where this incident happened from the house and the folks who live there.

As someone who has lived on lower Kittredge for over 16 years and is both a neighbor of the aforementioned house and one of the people awoken that morning, I can say that the occupants of that house were not involved in this incident. The last time this topic was discussed either here or on FB, there was a lot of discussion about the house. The only way these folks were involved were by living near the intersection of Kittredge and Cliftondale. I don't want to see them be implicated in this either directly or indirectly.

If I took your comment about knowing exactly which house was involved too personally, I apologize.

This is a quiet street, or as quiet as I would reasonably expect living in a city. Various things have happened on Kittredge over the years, but it's still a good street in a great neighborhood.

Thanks - I rely on UHub daily and just needed to say my peace.

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What kind of problems have been occurring in this area? Besides this shooting. I sometimes walk down this part of Kittredge Street on my way to the commuter rail.

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In the past few years I've read stuff in the local papers. As Adam says, were the problems in a lot of other places, it wouldn't have been worth mentioning, but there was a bad element hanging out in the Cliftonvale/Kittredge area, but by and large it's a safe place full of mostly good folk. I used to walk around there with infant Waquiot Jr. even knowing the issues. To be fair, even then (2013) it was getting to be old news.

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I'm thankful to the federal, state, and local guys that stayed on the case and made the arrests. It seems like grueling work having to listen to these shitheads and see the horrors they commit but it makes the world a safer place for everyone else.

I wish more "anti-terrorism" money went towards anti-gangs instead. For all the fear mongering about ISIS and religion linked terrorism, THESE are the guys that are a real threat to our way of life.

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Immigration officials have identified at least a dozen Middle Eastern men smuggled into the Western Hemisphere by a Brazilian-based network that connected them with Mexicans who guided them to the U.S. border, according to internal government documents reviewed by The Washington Times.

Those smuggled included Palestinians, Pakistanis and the Afghan man who Homeland Security officials said had family ties to the Taliban and was “involved in a plot to conduct an attack in the U.S. and/or Canada.” He is in custody, but The Times is withholding his name at the request of law enforcement to protect investigations.

Some of the men handled by the smuggling network were nabbed before they reached the U.S., but others made it into the country. The Afghan man was part of a group of six from “special-interest countries.”

The group, guided by two Mexicans employed by the smuggling network, crawled under the border fence in Arizona late last year and made it about 15 miles north before being detected by border surveillance, according to the documents, which were obtained by Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican.

DHS has no interest in "figuring out the problem." They know what the problem is and know how to solve it. The real problem is that there is a lack of will and commitment to doing what's necessary to protect us.

They would never say it out loud, but the prospect of a couple of terror attacks on U.S. soil killing a few dozen Americans doesn't faze them. It's no reason to stop the flow of illegal aliens into the U.S., because that would upset Hispanic activists and open borders supporters. After all, there is very little chance that it will be they or their family members who die in a terrorist attack, so what's the big deal?

The last few months of the Obama administration have seen an almost total lack of enforcement of immigration law. And with the number of illegals spiking once again, the flood of aliens entering the country and released threatens to overwhelm more communities, who are forced to pay for them.

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How many people (particularly kids & bystanders) have shot in Boston by these illegal aliens?

How many shot by american citizens who joined gangs?

I'd rather the authorities spend more time on actual murders and thugs instead of theoretical ones.

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right wing disinformation site. The picked the name so that people who don't read the news will think it is a legitimate news source like the Washington Post They don't report anything but release conspiracy theories designed to stir up the bottom end of the Republican Party. Along with one called Money Morning they also try to sell snake oils and stock tips to their older, confused readership. Some people are fooled by it while others knowingly quote it hoping to deceive.

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Obama has deported WAY more people than Bush did. And the Washington Times is your source? LOL. Americans are more likely to be killed by lightning than by a terrorist, but continue to believe the fear mongering from right wing sources.

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I believe that is false. I have read that this administration counts deportations differently than past administrations.

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Obama has deported more undocumented immigrants than Bush. In particular, deportations went up a lot from 2009-12, and deportations of criminal aliens (as opposed to those with civil immigration violations) increased significantly under Obama as well. In recent years, they have begun to return to levels similar to the early Bush years, which is due to the overall decrease in illegal immigration to this country.

Where I have seen discrepancies between different "counts" have been when Republican leaders (Ted Cruz springs to mind) gave Bush credit for gov't deportations + self-deportations, and compare that number to the Obama administration's government deportations. A total apples and oranges comparison.

Some graphs to illustrate the numbers:

http://americasvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/deportations-by-year...
https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/images/fy2015removalStatsFig1a.png

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Nah, that is an example of the White House fudging the numbers. The administration is counting turn aways as deportations.

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Do you have a source other than the Washington Times for this?

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lol washington times

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Anti-immigrant crowd.

First, the Washington Times is a right-wing rag repeatedly discredited.

Secondly, who exactly are you referring to when you say there is a "a lack of will or commitment."

You speak of doing "what's necessary to protect us." What is it you believe is necessary: build a wall - deport millions of people?

Who is the "they" you speak of (be specific) that would tolerate the killing of Americans? Talking point and fear-mongering - the kid that shot up the Church in Charleston was American. The kid who killed the children in Connecticut was American. The lunatic that shot a Congresswoman in Az was American. The problem lies not in immigration but is much more complex - it speaks of our evolving national character.

No responsible or informed person is advocating open borders - that just right wing crap talking points.

Finally you reveal yourself and your real agenda when you throw Obama's name into the mix accompanied by absolutely false statements about immigration enforcement level.

You sir, are a fraud.

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All violent street gangs need to be designated as terrorist organizations and dealt with accordingly. Their annual death toll is four or five 9/11s at the very least.

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Just drop drones on their heads?

Sorry, but you'd need to change the Constitution and eliminate that pesky due-process stuff and that presumption of innocence thing and maybe cross out the First Amendment as well, as long as you're at it.

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Are enemy combatants and don't have that pesky constitution thing on their side.

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Ask Tsarnaev how easy it was to evade the rule of law in the US.

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Pretty sure the (rough) definition of terrorism is trying to influence politics by terrorizing an entire population.

While these gangs might surely be terrible, and might terrorize the neigh orhoods they operate in, that's not their goal. Their goal is making money, or repping their hood, or some such bs.

Agree they are awful criminals, but we have definitions and words for a reason.

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didn't wait for the legalization of marijuana before partaking.

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Speaking of Outlaws, time to crack down on the Outlaws biker gang that have a house in East Boston! White people can be awful criminals, too.

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I hope some of them (terrorist gang members) start singing, and name the suppliers of the guns and dope.

Hope more busts happen more frequently in other cities too.

If they start running scared, or are locked up, their power is diminished.

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I get bit discouraged when police or LE 'saturate' an area in a reactionary way for a few days after a crime.

I'm much more impressed when they take care of business as needed and seemingly randomly, like in these crackdowns. Nice work, officers.

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It is a well established record that has exposed Duncan Hunter as not a creditable source of information, as ethically challenged, and pretty a garden variety nut job.

CONSIDER THIS:

In October of 2014 - Hunter announced that the US Border Service caught 10 ISIS fighters crossing the border - never happened.

This is the same guy who publicly stated "the homosexual" lobby was trying to take over the nation's military.

He publicly championed the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive strike against Iran.

Don't forget when he went on Fox News and announced the Ebola Virus was being smuggled across the Mexican border.

Of course don't forget about his spending of campaign funds on things like video games. Not to mention the various ways he embellished and falsified his experience and resume. At one time he even claimed to have run a technology company which he later had to retract.

The list goes on and on…good choice of source of information - made it easy to expose you.

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