Three East Los Angeles gang members admitted to carrying out orders from the Mexican Mafia and fire-bombing apartments in the Ramona Gardens projects filled with sleeping women and children solely because they were black.
The members of the Big Hazard street gang agreed to plead guilty on charges for their role in firebombing the homes of African-Americans living in the Ramona Gardens housing development on the night of Mother's Day in 2014, federal attorneys announced last Thursday.
In their plea agreements, Jose “Lil' Moe” Saucedo, Edwin “Boogie” Felix, and Jonathan “Pelon” Portillo said their motivation behind the attacks was racial. The gang members targeted the apartments because they belonged to African-Americans and wanted to push them out of the housing complex, said a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Big Hazard, a Latino gang that formed in Boyle Heights, claims Ramona Gardens as their territory. The Los Angeles Times reports that the instructions for the attacks came from the Mexican Mafia, a large and secretive prison gang with deep ties and influence among smaller gangs across Southern California. Big Hazard had tried to keep African-Americans out of the complex for years.
The Big Hazard charges recall the hate-crimes prosecutions of Avenues gang members in Highland Park, who also targeted African American households with "racial animus," said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles, in an interview Tuesday.