Frontline is made possible by ntributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. And by the corporation for public broadcasting. Major support is provided by the jo d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information is available at macfound. Org. Additional support is provided by the Ford Foundation working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide. At at fordfoun. Org. The park foundation, dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issue. The john and Helen Glessner family trust. Supporti trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. D by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from joand jo ann hagler. With Additional Support from Laura Debonis and scott nathan,i and and lisa kaneb. A significant show of force today in nassau county. N police convea field in roosevelt after they received a tip about a possible gang related homicide. Narrator the bodies keep turning up. Confirms the search stems from a possible homicide committed by ms13, the violentn n tin americ gang that has been a scourge ong island. Narrator teenagers mainly. Killed in the woods. 25 corpses since 2016. He and otrs still missing. D at this time, we have not found or identifiey human reins. Narrator gangs have long been a problem on long island. I cannot comment on if its ms13. Narrator but why the sudden spike in Gang Violence . Okay,hank you very much. Thank you very much. Narrator and how far will Law Enforcement go to win this Suffolk County poce today declared war on ms13. I consider them domtic terrorists. Either they wi or we win. Narrator long island stretches eastward from new york city for about a hundred miles. The place is known for its beaches and mansions, but en route is a very different world. Densely populated communities, which have become a magnet for immigrant families from central america. Some are here legally. Others are undocumented. And their numbers haveore than doubled in the last two decades. Its also home to a vicious gang that has claimed the lives of dozens mainly immigrants over that same time. man speaking in spanish th is the funeral for javier, castillo15yearold from el salvador, believed to be one of the latest victims of ms13. Ms13, its a svadorian gang. Its predominantly out of the Central American countries. Im gonna describe them as the most violent gang that we have out here on long island. Theyre killing teenagers, theyre killing children. Its just pure violence, and thats, thats what they thrive on. Narrator Law Enforcement officials here believe are anywhere from 200 to 300 active ms13 members and about a dozen subgroups, known as cliques. Brentwood, central islip, and huntington towns with large Central American presence are hotbeds. The graffiti marks a territory. It announces to the community, that there is a gang in their area. When you look for gang graffiti, you look for different colors, you look for numbers and letters. You can see, it announces their clique. The b. L. S. Is the brentwoodru local salva clique. So it doesnt necessarily mean that it was in brentwood. It could be in another town, and theyre tting the other town know that, not only are we in brentwood, were in your town also. Re you see youve got the s. L. S. W. , which is the sailor clique, the ms13 with theor an obviously in blue also. They want to cause feaand panic in an area. Narrator to go after them, the Suffolk CountyPolice Gang Unit has been working overtime. Ms13 is the type of gang l thes to hang out in the woods. We go out every day, we hunt these guys. Theytop suspected ms13 people. They engage them, theyre in their face, theres no place for them to go. We make it known to them that we do not want them here, and were doing everything we can to get them out. These woods are in the heart of brentwood thats become a hangout for ms13. Right over here is all 503 graffiti, 503 being the area code for el salvador. You can also tell by the debris they leave all over the place,sg theyre diting. They dont care about anything, they dont care about anybody, theyeave trash all over the place. They think this area is theirs, its not. Nothing is theirs. And over time, they know thatno theyrgoing to be here anymore. These guys are doing a terrific job, and ty do it every day, relentlessly. Narrator for the pw years, a perfect storm has been brewon long island. It all began in 2014, when an influx of nearly 9,000 minors, mostly from central america, started floodingn. More kids this year over last year, they say that 95 of them ere children from the bord what happened . Well, at that time what we re seeing is a drastic increase in violence in central america. Ei we were that gangs had really taken over entire neighborhoods. Children were being threatened and forcefully recruited intor gangs une threat of death to themselves or to their families. Narrator hey came north as unaccompanied minors or u. A. C. Local officials quickly felt the impact. Since 2014, we have receivedp oximately 5,000 u. A. C. S, and we have to deal with it on multiple fronts. Some of these children need special attention in school. Many of these childrensome sort of social services from the county. And, unfortunately, some of these children become victims of crimes or become offenders. Narrator huntington high is one of the many schools here that took in some of the new arrivals from central america. Y rold junior had enrolled as a freshman starting in the fall of 2016 after feing the gangs of honduras. For his protection, weve concealed his identity. His father, george, had come to ng island a decade ago. He had told his employer, arorld, about his concerns f his son. George knew that his son,to when he go certain age, that gangs down in honduras were looking to pick you up and make you a gang member. And george was very, very worried about that. Narrator after turning 13, junior took a Freight Train that has carried hundreds of thousands of migrants to america. junior speaking spanish narrator the trip lasted over a month. Junior made it to the rio grande in october and crossed the border. After being apprehended by customs and border protection, junior was taken to a holding cell. Children and migrants call them hieleras, ice boxes, and typically children describe sleeping on a concrete floor. Theres no bed. Not being feenough. Being held in these icy cold jail cells, which are only meant to be very temporary. He narrator he arrived in new york unaccompanied, his father george, and his fathers employer arnold, were waiting for him at the airport. He came over there with his little thing around his neck saying, unaccompanied minan,. And george was ecstatic. Eorge speaking spanish narrator but junior had trouble adjusting. And he would soon find out that the very gangs he had fled in honduras were also in his school. junior speaking spanish the recruitment starts rightt out school. Theyll approach you, hey, were part of the gang. A lot of these kids, especially the undocumented ones that came into the country, you know, theyd come here with refrly no nds. If they did have a Family Member or if they didnt have a Family Member, and they were very easily absorbed by these guys. It was almost like they were given a feeling that they have a family now. Narrator another teenager, jesus lopez had enrolled at huntington high in the fall of 2014. He had fled the gangs of el ngsalvador and arrived on island at the height of the surge. speaking spanish narrator at night he would work at a local restaurant. jesus speaking spanish narrator he told one of the chefs at work about e trouble he and his friends were having at school. T they were being hassled school. You know, if ms wants to come find you and wants to start trouble, its difficult to avoid. It just terrified them. Narrator junior also was terrified. Sp george king spanish right down the street from where he lives, theres a laundromat and these. These gang members were hanging out so that his son didnt even wanna go out of the house. He says, these people are, you know, are threatening me and telling me that, ifont, dou know, come with us and do what we want you twere going to were gonna hurt you. Were gonna hurt your family, you know. Were goa hurt your father. The search is on this morning for two missing teens from nassau county. Arrator these were not empty threats. The mother says her son left one night and then never turned. Narrator on long island, there had been a string of disappearances. Her missing 19yearold son. Oscar acosta disappeared two wes ago. Narrator teens who never came home. Our person of interest has been missing for two years. Hes right there. We were, at the time, investigating several missing persons, and we believe that those missing persons were not missing persons, but homicides by ms13. Narrator then one night, a tuesday, september 13, 2016, there was a brutal attack next to an Elementary School in entwood. A High School Student found dead in this neighborhood last night, on the eve. I was in my den, i remember extly where i was sitting. And we first received a briefing sheet on it, because the injuries were so horrific, that the first hypothesis was that its a Motor Vehicle crash, a hit and run. Narrator the victims were two teenage girls kayla cuevas and nisa mickens. They were run over by vehicles. You know, they used machetes, they used baseball bats. It they tooo a level that i dont think anybody was ready for. Their bodies re disfigured. One of them was found in the street, the other behind some homes. And there was no apparent motive other than they might belong or be friends with members of some other gang. They were looking to settle the score with somebody, they didn find that person and th they encountered these girls. One of them had apparently taunted them on facebook and sol theyd her and they killed her friend just because she was there with her. This set off a chain reaction, because for the very first time, youre not seeing rival gang members being murdered, and that usually was what was happening. Now you have two girls, just viciously and senselessly beaten and murdered. And thats when the Suffolk County police went into overdrive. Teenage girls, an act of savagery on this community, and theyre asking for the publics help. Immediately after, Police Officers going dootodoor to try to get more information and the Police Commissioner himself going out at one point and asking the community directly that if someone knew something, they were almost in an obligation to say something. We are going to be enhancing our presence here to target those individuals. Narrator getting the mmunity to help would be challenging. Lations between the immigrant community and the Suffolk County police have long been fraught. Announcing a 5,000ard for information leading to an arrest. Wh unfortunately, you have a Police Department where the majority of law enforcent officers dont reflect the communities they police, when you have a lack of connection to the populace that you serve, theres a lack of empathy, if you will. The police dertment in Suffolk County had created a climate of fear. People in the county who were latino felt intimidated in going to the police about mara salvatrucha. People said th they had been mistreated by the police and they were very frightened that rather than take their claim seriously, theyd simply be dismissed or maybe suspected of being in a ral gang. Four members of the ms13 gang were charged in connectionb to the sep slayings of nisa mickens and kayla cuevas. Narrator it would take six months for the police to find the suspected killers. In march 2017, Law Enforcement officials announced the manhunt was over. G amose arrested that day was jairo saenz, a young salvadoran who had arrived with the surge of minor police say he became one of thed s of a local ms13 clique, the westside sailors. A double murder, and according to Law Enforcement, most of the suspects arrested ie these nt cases were in the country illegally. Narrator we interviewedir jairos exriend, a 16yearold student at brentwood high. To protect her, weve concealede r identity. Did you know he was a gang member . No. He. When we first stard dating he was nice to me, and everything. He would treat me go. He was respectful and everything and then after months he started changing. He was threatening my family, we went to the police. Made a report. And then i got an order of protection so he couldnt get close to me or my family. Narrator despite the restraining order against him, she says jairo threatened to kill her if she didnt go with him. Ld he e that i had to be with him. So, i left so he wldnt. He wouldnt kill my family. Where did he take you . At first he took me to a wooded area around here. cause no one was gonna find me there. No one would go in there. Was he with other kids . Yeah, he was with his friends. Ld they we there, making sure i wouldnt leave. I was really scared. I thought i was gonna die. Narrator her parents filed a missing persons report. They feared jairo had taken their daughter against her will. She says for several weeks she was moved between the woods anda iros house. Eventually, she managed to escape and would discover that she was pregnant. How do you think the police handled your case . They basically didnt do anything. My mom called the police officer, they told me they woulo for me. If they wouldve gone inside his house, they probably wouldve find me. Narrator the Suffolk CountyPolice Department told us that they actively investigated her disappearance and even went to jairos house at least twice. Members of the gang ms13 appeared in federal court. Jairo saenz is now awaiting trial, along with five other members of the sailor clique, for the murder of nisa mickens and kayla cuevas if convicted, he is eligible for thdeath penalty. Law enforcement from multiple Suffolk County gangfighting units pledging to std behind a suffering community of school children. The savages who murnisa and kayla are now behind bars. Narrator commissioner sinie would see moment. If youre an ms13 gang member, take a look behind me. For every person her theres ten more. Narrator Community Advocates were skeptical. Commissioner tim sini, in front of a helicopter, armed Police Officers, he makes this grandiose announcement that for every officer that stands in front of those cameras, there are dozens and hundreds that are going to make the annihilation of ms13 their number one priority. We have promised to eradicate ms13 from our streets. Thiidea that youre going to sort of launch this repressive attack, and youre going to annihilate this gang, violence meeting violence is not going to solve this issue. And we remain fully committed to finishing the job. At say to them is, i am 100 committed, this department is 100 committ to bringing everyone to justice. And we will. This is not, oh, i hope we do. We will, theres no question about it. On friday, four bodiesla found on long , they appear to be linked to Gang Violence. Narrator a mon after the press conference, ms13 would send their own message. The attack came on a tuesday night april 11, 2017. The phone call came in from the chief of detectives in suffolk unty, and when they say four bodies, your thought process is, well, they cameou acrossbodies. Almost like a killing field. But no, that it was. They were fresh bodies was astounding. Now plunging communities in long island into fear and terror. Why arent police. Arrator the bodies were of four young men who Police Believe had been lured into the woods by two girls. Mike lopez, justin llivicura, jefferson villalobos, and jorg tigre were ambushed. Ha they wered to death by machete, the preferred weapon of ms13. They were beaten, they were knifed, they had machetes putup their bodies savagely. Narrator relatives and friends didnt know at had happened. A distraught brother desperate for answers. Ag narrator when they received some worrying me, they suspected the worst. They went to the pice, but it was not easy. Some were undocumented. Is speaking sp narrator while some Family Members were asked to fill out a missing persons report, others organizea search party. speaking spanish narrator the brother of one of the victims discovered the bodies. He calls his father, crying, hysterical, and his father is still in the police precinct, and says, dad, i found them. Hes dead. E theydead. Narrator jorge tigre was 18 when he was killed. His family says that for months, ms13 had been harassing him. His mother, an ecuadoria immigrant who cleans houses for a living, would not a taut ms13, but she told us about their lives. speaking spanish interviewer speaking spanh sniffling i talking about Illegal Immigrants that were here that caused tremendous crime. That have murdered people, raped people. Th re getting the hell out or theyre going to prison, and. Narrator a week after jorge tigre and the the others were murdered, President Trump would make ms13 a key exhibit in support of his immigration. Agen were not going to allow them to take over a block, a corner c of omunities and. They are utterly without laws, conscien, or respect for human life. The last very weak administration allowed thousands and thousands of gang members to cross our borders. I knew they were going to capitalize on the narrative theyve been promoting the entire election to sow division among the people of this country. N weve se horrible assaults and many killings all er long island. At i knew th they were going to use this particular cas fuel that narrative. And thats exactly what happened. And were sending them the hell out of our country. Narrator we requested inrviews with Presi