Keep Bailing

The scene was like something out of a Hollywood action movie.  Helicopters buzzed Riverside’s East neighborhood while officers in flak jackets and helmets served warrants.  This sweep has been dubbed Operation Promise, and it was the culmination of a sixteen month long investigation aimed at crippling gang hierarchy and cutting off its cash flow from drugs and weapons.

On the morning of January 27, 2010, six hundred and fifty officers from thirty-four local and federal agencies swarmed the Riva Gang’s territory and arrested fifty alleged gang members, including Riva leaders and members of their rival gang, the 1200 Blocc Crips.

For years, the East Side Riva gangs of Riverside have functioned as a powerful arm of the Mexican Mafia, trafficking in methamphetamine and fighting any African American gang members or bystanders unfortunate enough to cross their paths. Last week, however, all that changed.  Authorities, responding to a federal complaint, successfully ferreted offenders out of hiding on their own home turf and took them into custody.

“We hope we made an impact,” Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach said. “Gangs don’t own the parks and the streets. The citizens do.”

Investigators reportedly spent months grilling informants and wiretapping suspects’ phones to compile evidence.  Local district attorney’s investigators worked alongside Riverside Police gang detectives and FBI and DEA special agents during Operation Promise. They discovered that Riva leaders communicated with Mexican Mafia elders in coded language about large-scale meth trafficking and “tribute” payments for imprisoned gang members’ protection. A federal agent explained that these kinds of relationships have revealed that city gang investigations must be expanded beyond geographical and jurisdictional boundaries.

Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco spoke to the press about the Riva Gang, standing behind a table littered with seized weapons like assault rifles, shotguns, knives, armor-piercing bullets.  Most bizarre was the inclusion of two venomous rattlesnakes in his display. “They don’t have jobs … They’re living off the fruits of their drug sales.” He said of the suspects.

In a related sting, authorities also arrested Riva Gang’s rivals — members of the predominantly African-American gang called the 1200 Blocc Crips. These two gangs once worked together to target mutual enemies in the Casa Blanca region of central Riverside, officials said, until the Mexican Mafia ordered the Latino Rivas to attack blacks, launching a race war.

Over the last 20 years, Riva gang members have since been convicted and sentenced in several hate crimes against innocent bystanders, including the 2005 shooting of a Nigerian tourist on University Avenue and two separate murders of 13-year-old African-American boys in 2002.

Despite Wednesday’s arrests, officials say about three-quarters of the seven hundred Riva members are still active in this community.  They also believe that about two hundred active members of the 1200 Blocc Crips roam on the streets, as well.