This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Rene Enriquez | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | American |
Other names | Boxer, Rain Man |
Known for | Author of The Black Hand |
Rene "Boxer" Enriquez (born July 7, 1962 in Artesia, California) is a former Mexican-American prison gang member and major organized crime figure. His criminal history also includes jailhouse stabbing attacks on other inmates, drug trafficking, extortion, and a sexual assault. [1] [2] He was a high ranking made man in the Mexican Mafia before defecting and becoming a federal witness in 2003. His life is chronicled by journalist Chris Blatchford in the true crime book The Black Hand: The Story of Rene "Boxer" Enriquez, and his life in the Mexican Mafia.
Enriquez was born to recent immigrants from Mexico and grew up in a middle-class home in Cerritos, California but hung out in Artesia, California. He showed early promise in school, but dropped out of Cerritos High School in the 9th grade. His father tried to teach him how to run the family business, but Enriquez preferred stealing with his friend Johnny Mancillas, who channeled his ambitions into the local street gang Artesia-13. [3]
As a child, Enriquez idolized his older brother Marc, who was already an Artesia-13 gang member. Marc gave Enriquez the nickname "Boxer" and used him to break into neighbors' homes. At age 12, Enriquez was jumped in to his brother's gang. [4] By 13, Enriquez began to drink after a year of smoking marijuana. By this time, he already had encounters with law enforcement for property damage. Within a year, he became a regular user and dealer of PCP (phencyclidine), and later LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide). [5] [ page needed ]
In 2015, Enriquez testified that Marc and other members of Artesia-13 savagely beat him up behind a gas station as a gang initiation. Enriquez subsequently went to juvenile hall after he was convicted of armed robbery for several hold ups of convenience stores. [6]
In his late teens, Enriquez was arrested after committing a string of armed robberies and was sentenced for a long period in prison.
At the age of nineteen, Enriquez first encountered the Mexican mafia, or La eMe. While Enriquez was imprisoned at the Deuel Vocational Institution, he acted as a hitman for the Mexican Mafia and stabbed a gang member from Los Angeles, who survived the stabbing. Enriquez later killed an imprisoned Vagos Motorcycle Club member nicknamed "Chainsaw."
In 1985, Enriquez became a full-fledged Carnal (Mexican vernacular Spanish for brother) or made guy in the Mexican Mafia. He projected the Mexican Mafia into a status of unprecedented organizational structure with a base army of approximately 60,000 heavily armed gang members who controlled the prison system and a large part of California crime. He stated, "I believe I'm a cut above the rest. As a mafioso, you have to be an elitist. You have an elitist, arrogant mentality. That's how you carry yourself in the Mexican mafia. That's how you project yourself." [7]
In 1989, Enriquez was released on parole and began extorting street tax from drug dealers and other criminals in the territory the Mexican Mafia had assigned to him. In the process, he committed two murders. He put out a contract on alleged drug dealer Cynthia Gavaldon, whom Enriquez believed was holding back street tax from La Eme. Enriquez also personally murdered fellow Carnal, David Gallegos, who had been greenlight for running from a gunfight. Enriquez personally gave Gallegos an overdose of heroin and then shot him five times in the head.
Enriquez was arrested and charged with Cynthia Galvadon's murder, to which he later pled guilty in return for a life imprisonment, rather than facing the death penalty.
In 1991, Enriquez and another man assaulted Mexican Mafia leader Salvador "Mon" Buenrostro at a lawyers' interview room in the Los Angeles County Jail. They stabbed him 30 times, but Buenrostro survived. [8]
In 1993, the state sent him to Pelican Bay State Prison on California's remote north coast. [9] Since he was a prison gang member, Enriquez was locked in a windowless isolation cell in the Security Housing Unit, or SHU. There inmates spend 23 hours a day alone without seeing the outside world, except during their yard time in which they are transferred to a small cage outside filled with workout equipment. Years later, Enriquez described the SHU: [3]
"What impacts me immediately as soon as I walk in, is the smell. I just stepped outside from the bus and you smell the pines, the redwoods, the forest ... these earthy, loamy smells. But as soon as you step into the SHU, it hits you like a wave. It's the smell of despair, depression, desperation. This is a place where people come to die." [3]
In the mid-1990s, the Mexican Mafia put out calls to stop drive-by shootings among L.A. Latino gangs. But Enriquez says the aim was not peace. [3]
"Our true motivation for stopping the drive-bys was to infiltrate the street gangs and place representatives in each gang, representatives which then, in turn, tax illicit activities in the areas," he said. Enriquez said the Mexican Mafia wanted to channel the random shootings into a form of violence it could control, for profit. [3]
"And we already had it planned out that California would be carved up ... into slices, with each member receiving an organizational turf," he said. [3]
In 2003, Enriquez left the Mexican Mafia. [10] Since then, he has provided intelligence and other information to help law enforcement, acting as an expert witness in dozens of State murder and Federal racketeering trials and has spoken at a number of conferences and training sessions. In 2014, officials from at least 11 federal and state law enforcement agencies wrote letters to the State Parole Board attesting to his contributions. [1]
According to Enriquez's parole officer, "There is a possibility Rene may get out of prison once his work with the feds are done, however there is also possibility that he may not."[ citation needed ]
In February 2015, Enriquez told the parole board that if released, he would enter the Federal Government's Witness Protection Program because he remains on the Mexican Mafia's hit list more than a decade after his 2003 cooperation with law enforcement. He would not appear as a registered sex offender in the witness protection program, he said, but added that he would be under stringent monitoring by the U.S. Marshals Service. [8]
"I cannot undo the past. But I can contribute to the future," Enriquez told the parole board. "I can contribute to dissuading other individuals from participating in this." [1]
California Governor Jerry Brown, however, blocked Enriquez's release, writing, "Because he is a high-profile drop out targeted by the Mexican Mafia, Mr. Enriquez's parole poses a serious security risk to him, his family, his parole agents, and the community in which he is placed." [1]
On November 2, 2017, California Governor Jerry Brown denied parole for Enriquez, making it the third time he has been denied by the governor. [11]
In April 2019, Enriquez was again denied parole by California Governor Gavin Newsom. Although he again expressed remorse for his criminal past and a desire to change, the family of Cynthia Gavaldon also testified before the parole board, disputing Enriquez's allegations that she was a drug dealer and questioning the sincerity of Enriquez's decision to break with the Mexican Mafia.
In July 2022, Enriquez was granted parole. [12]
Norteños are the various, affiliated gangs that pay tribute to Nuestra Familia while in California state and federal correctional facilities. Norteños may refer to Northern California as Norte Califas. Their biggest rivals are the Sureños from Southern California. The statewide north–south dividing line between Norteños and Sureños has roughly been accepted as Bakersfield, California. The gang's membership consists primarily of Mexican Americans.
Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) is a supermax prison facility in Crescent City, California. The 275-acre (111 ha) prison takes its name from a shallow bay on the Pacific coast, about 2 mi (3.2 km) to the west.
California State Prison, Corcoran (COR) is a male-only state prison located in the city of Corcoran, in Kings County, California. It is also known as Corcoran State Prison, CSP-C, CSP-COR, CSP-Corcoran, and Corcoran I. The facility is just north of the newer California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran.
The Mexican Mafia, also known as La eMe, is a Mexican American criminal organization in the United States. Despite its name, the Mexican Mafia did not originate in Mexico, and is entirely a U.S. criminal prison organization. Law enforcement officials report that the Mexican Mafia is the deadliest and most powerful gang within the California prison system.
Nuestra Familia is a criminal organization of Mexican American (Chicano) prison gangs with origins in Northern California. While members of the Norteños gang are considered to be foot soldiers of Nuestra Familia, being a member of Nuestra Familia itself does not signify association as a Norteño. Some law enforcement agents speculate that the Nuestra Familia gang, which operates in and out of prisons, influences much of the criminal activity of thousands of Norteño gang members in California. The gang's main sources of income are distributing cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine within prison systems as well as in the community and extorting drug distributors on the streets.
A prison gang is an inmate organization that operates within a prison system. It has a corporate entity and exists into perpetuity. Its membership is restrictive, mutually exclusive, and often requires a lifetime commitment. Prison officials and others in law enforcement use the euphemism "security threat group". The purpose of this name is to remove any recognition or publicity that the term "gang" would connote when referring to people who have an interest in undermining the system.
James Michael Coonan is an American mobster and racketeer from Manhattan, New York who served as the boss of the Westies gang, an Irish mob group based in Hell's Kitchen, from approximately 1977 to 1988. Coonan was incarcerated and began serving a 75-year prison term in 1988.
Ignazio Lupo, also known as Ignazio Saietta and Lupo the Wolf, was a Sicilian American Black Hand leader in New York City during the early 1900s. His business was centered in Little Italy, Manhattan, where he ran large extortion operations and committed other crimes including robberies, loan-sharking, and murder. By the start of the 20th century, Lupo merged his crew with others in the South Bronx and East Harlem to form the Morello crime family, which became the leading Mafia family in New York City.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is the penal law enforcement agency of the government of California responsible for the operation of the California state prison and parole systems. Its headquarters are in Sacramento.
OVS is a Mexican American (Chicano) gang from Ontario, California.
Joseph Morgan was an American gangster who became the first non-Hispanic member of the Mexican Mafia. He received the nickname "Pegleg" by authorities because of his prosthetic leg.
Deuel Vocational Institution (DVI) was a state prison located in unincorporated San Joaquin County, California, near Tracy. The prison closed on September 30, 2021.
The Cleveland crime family or Cleveland Mafia, is an Italian American Mafia crime family based in Cleveland, Ohio and throughout the Greater Cleveland area. The organization formed during the 1900s, as leadership turned over frequently due to a series of power grabs and assassinations. In 1930, Frank Milano became boss and was able to bring some stability to the family.
Dennis "Cutty" Wise is a fictional character inspired by real-life boxing trainer Calvin Ford on the HBO drama The Wire, played by actor Chad Coleman. Wise is a reformed criminal who sets up a boxing gym for neighborhood children. The name "Dennis Wise" was taken from an actual Baltimore contract killer who is serving a life sentence in prison. The nickname "Cutty" originates from the character serving time in the Maryland State Penitentiary in Jessup, Maryland, which was nicknamed "The Cut."
Rodolfo Alvarado "Cheyenne" Cadena was a Mexican-American mob boss and a prominent figure in the Mexican Mafia prison gang also called La eMe .
Sureños , also known as Southern United Raza, Sur 13 or Sureños X3, are groups of loosely affiliated gangs that pay tribute to the Mexican Mafia while in U.S. state and federal correctional facilities. Many Sureño gangs have rivalries with one another, and the only time this rivalry is set aside is when they enter the prison system. Thus, fighting is common among different Sureño gangs even though they share the same common identity. Sureños have emerged as a national gang in the United States.
White Fence is a predominantly Mexican American street gang in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles.
Azusa 13 is a street gang based in Azusa in the eastern San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles. Started in the 1960s, it is now one of the most aggressive Sureño street gangs, currently claiming around 400 active members.
The Florencia 13, South Side Florencia 13 or Florence Gang is an American criminal street gang based in Los Angeles, California, composed mainly of Mexican-Americans. The gang is named after the Florence area of Los Angeles County, controlled by the Mexican Mafia. They are involved in drug smuggling, murder, assault and robbery.
Vineland Boys is a street gang composed mainly of Hispanic Americans operating in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles.