numbers obviously grew through due to recruitment. and those recruited members now became known as big ears, but it also has like a slang meaning, nosy, like you're listening out. so the san antonio inmates took this name, they were proud of it. >> according to officer rodriguez, the recruits were not often rewarded for the dangerous jobs they were assigned. >> these new recruits, they were abused early on in the mid to late '80s. they were used for all of the job, the suicide missions if you want to call them that, jobs you knew you were going to get caught doing. those referred to these guy as crash dummies. they said, you're going to do this job, and get it done. now they kind of started thinking about it why are we doing all of these jobs and we're not get anything out of it? and as time progressed, they realized that, they outnumbered the true members of the mexican mafia.