02/16/04  Why Dallas Ranks #1 in Crime ---

 

By Robert Riggs
CBS-11

For the past six months, crime statistics marking Dallas as one of the nation's most violent big cities have politicians searching for explanations - and a new police chief who can fix the problem.

Now, a CBS-11 News investigation has uncovered some answers for why Dallas' homicide rate has remained so steadily high the past several years.
 
A bloody prison gang called the Texas Syndicate has been allowed to take root in Dallas and help spread a crime wave through the city's neighborhoods. This gang doesn't leave graffiti calling cards the way gangs do. They have left a trail of bodies, at least 14 of them in the last year alone in part because Dallas has neglected to join all other major Texas cities in forming a task force to go after prison gangs.

"They're involved in every aspect from murder, sexual assaults, strong armed robberies, thefts...They are just involved in everything," David Landin, an expert on the Texas Syndicate for the prison system's Office of Inspector General.

State investigators say they don't recall Dallas police attending any criminal intelligence briefings on prison gangs during the 1999-2003 administration of Police Chief Terrell Bolton. And, according to several Dallas police sources who requested anonymity, this failure to participate highlights an important crime area that the department has neglected to the detriment of public safety - and to the benefit of an unflinchingly violent Texas Syndicate gang.

From inside the walls of Texas maximum security prisons, this ruthless prison gang runs criminal networks in North Texas that are rapidly expanding, and the deadly arm of the gang has decided to flex its muscle in Dallas. The crime bosses of the gang have declared open season here because, CBS-11 has learned, there's no organized effort to counter them.

Asked what this means for Dallas, Landin said: "It means that your crime rate is going to go up. You find that although the number of them is small, as a group they are committing or involved in most of the crimes."

Landin says the Texas Syndicate moves narcotics and carries out contract murders for Mexican drug cartels, which use Dallas as an international transportation crossroads to distribute their illicit products. CBS-11 has learned that authorities suspect the prison gang is linked to far more than 14 of the city's 223 homicides last year.

Gang members have left behind ugly scenes of death and dismemberment that have largely gone ignored by the Dallas news media - and hence, the city's political and law enforcement establishment.

One such typically bloody slaughter attributed to the Texas Syndicate left three men fatally riddled with bullets - in broad daylight March 27, 2003. Homicide detectives believe the unsolved triple murder was carried out during a robbery of a drug house, possibly orchestrated from inside prison walls somewhere in Texas.

When it comes to killing, the gang does not discriminate in protecting its turf and income. The gang has not hesitated to kill its own when necessary.

Mitchell Lozano, 35, was an ex-con convicted twice for murder and robbery. While doing his time, he became a member of the Texas Syndicate, an enforcer whom authorities believed was involved in multiple killings in Dallas on behalf of the under bosses. On Jan. 21 of this year, his bullet-riddled body was discovered dumped on the side of a farm road near Grand Prairie.

Authorities say he had been executed, shot through the head and neck, to keep him from becoming a potential witness in Syndicate murders. The slaying remains unsolved and went unreported by the local news media.

Since the city's murder rate peaked out at more than 500 during the crack cocaine epidemic in 1992, the rate fell precipitously in the following years due to aggressive law enforcement tactics before slowly climbing again.

Since 1996, the murder rate has averaged more than 200 a year, one of the highest per-capita figures in America. Not until last year, did the crime rate register as a political issue. Dallas Mayor Laura Miller has become personally involved in the police department's handling of the crime problem, attending weekly meetings with police officials.

The overall violent crime rate in Dallas was one factor leading to last summer's dismissal of Chief Terrell Bolton and the launch of an aggressive national search for a replacement. City council members have said they want a replacement who knows how to effectively reduce the crime rate.

Whoever gets the job as Dallas police chief will have a formidable challenge in cracking the growing local hold of the Texas Syndicate.

Inmates say the Texas Syndicate uses sophisticated methods including coded messages to run the gang's drug network out on the streets. Ex-gang members live in protective custody at the Ramsey One Prison south of Houston. A program called "Gang Renunciation" helps them leave their violent organizations.

Ruben Palacios, a former gang member in the program, said the organization exercises a powerful life-or-death hold on individuals.

"To enter, you give them your life," he said. "To get out you owe them your life. So it's blood in, blood out."

These days, most of the Texas Syndicate's 1,300 known members in prison try to hide their signature tattoos, the block T&S, from police. To informed police officers in cities other than Dallas, the tattoo of the Texas Syndicate is a red flag signaling trouble.

Texas Syndicate bosses believe they are untouchable, according to one undercover investigator with the Texas Prison Inspector General's office. And at least in Dallas, they currently are.

Asked if the gang recognizes that nobody in Dallas is watching for them, the undercover officer answered: "Yes. We've had several discussions with members who said, 'hey were were planning to move out in that area."

Ex-gang members like Palacios say the Texas Syndicate does not fear cops on patrol and will not hesitate to kill them.

"It's kind of hard just for a regular police officer to try to go down there and try to take care of business. It wouldn't work," he said.

What has proven to work in other Texas cities is a task force that specifically targets prison gangs.

But Dallas police sources say officers don't know enough here to even draw an organization chart of the Texas Syndicate's most dangerous members.

"I think every officer out on the street needs to know who they are up against when they make that stop," Landin said. "They need to be able to identify these people."