MS-13

Here's a real good reason to get control of our southern border -- the gang known as MS-13.

These ruthless bastards aren't content to kill you. They'll sodomize you, too.

They favor spider web and "laugh now, cry later" clown tattoos. And blue bandanas.

Their handshake is touching thumbs and pinkie fingers.

Salvadorans first formed the gang in Los Angeles. Now they're in Houston, Dallas and just about every other major city in the United States.

MS stands for Mara Salvatrucha.

"Mara" is a Salvadoran word for gang, and "Salvatrucha" means Salvadoran guy. They also adopted the number 13, just as local Mexican American street gangs (in LA) had for years.

The LA Times reports:

Refugees formed the gang in the 1980s near MacArthur Park, just west of downtown Los Angeles, after fleeing a U.S.-backed civil war against insurgents in El Salvador. As the gang grew, immigration officials began a decade-long campaign to deport members, including ex-convicts and hardened leaders who helped spread MS-13 across Central America and solidify its structure.

In the United States, the gang has spread from California into 33 other states and the District of Columbia. Investigators say members are involved in murder, extortion, drug dealing and witness intimidation. The expansion has come from migration as well as from calculated efforts by its Los Angeles leaders to tap new markets of criminal activity. In Seattle, for instance, gang members arrived from Los Angeles in 1997 to distribute marijuana, heroin and crack cocaine, according to investigators.

[lat]