04x02 - Terror in Times Square: Chasing a Madman

[bunniefuu]

- I'd received a phone call.

"You need to turn
on the television."

And there was one
of our partners

on a gurney, having
his chest pumped.

And he was obviously
not going to make it.

- 35-year-old, Jerry Ortiz,

shot and k*lled in the
line of duty Friday night.

- ex*cuted is the way
I would describe that.

- Following the m*rder
of Deputy Ortiz,

the Sherif's department sought
Federal and Local assistance

to help destroy the
Hawaiian Garden's g*ng.

- They said, "We'd like you
to handle the investigation."

And I said, "I'd be honoured."

- You're talking about
creating a task force

that has a singular mission.

And that mission is to
bring them to their knees.

- We knew that a representative
from the FBI was coming in there.

And to tell you the
truth, we needed it.

- Thank you very
much, everybody.

- We realized,

"Man, we're looking at over


- When we picked that
spot and we showed up,

we thought, "This is
going to be huge."

- This is the thin blue line.
This is what it looks like.

- FBI! Open the door!

In the FBI,
we make a lot of headlines.

Drug busts, mob stings,

t*rror1st takedowns.

We understand why
people want to tell stories about us.

- Freeze!
- FBI.

- FBI!
- Action!

- But they don't
know the half of it.

What really goes down,

we save that for each other,

when we're talking
agent to agent.

This is FBI True.

- The Varrio Hawaiian Gardens is
a g*ng out of Southern California.

And even though Hawaiian Gardens
the city is one square mile,

he did have at least 1,200
documented g*ng members out of there

and at least 200 affiliates.

- Gary Sloan worked as a Deputy

with the Los Angeles County
Sherif's Department for 30 years.


investigator and g*ng detective.

- I have to stop you.
So it's one square mile

and you have how many
documented g*ng members?

- 1200.
- Okay, that's unbelievable.

- Kristy Kottis is a


She worked gangs,
crimes against children

as well as human and
drug trafficking.

- Multiple murders,
multiple robberies.

The whole fear
within the community

was exactly textbook
when it comes

to what the g*ng life is
truly, truly all about.

And that's to put the
fear into the community,

take what you want
when you want.

Believe it or not,

the rules of the street are
actually set in State Prison.

And the State Prisons
are segregated.

Blacks do not get
along with Hispanics,

Hispanics do not get
along with Blacks.

And that tone then trickles down

into the street when
it comes to etiquette

and when it comes to rules.

Mexican Mafia...

who is going to run all of Southern
California's Hispanic street gangs

sets the tone as to what
you can and can't do.

And not only are you going to
retaliate against an African-American

who is involved in a
criminal street g*ng,

you're also going to
target any African-American

because they are not allowed
within their community.

- Police say Latino g*ng membes
were looking for a Black perso,

any Black person, to
sh**t and they found one."

On the day she was k*lled,
Cheryl Green was 14 years old.

- And this is what brought it
to another level for all of us.

We felt that, you know, this isn't
one criminal against another criminal.

- Maureen O'Connell grew up
on the Southside of Chicago

and comes from an entire
family of first responders.

She was a special agent
with the FBI for 25 years.

She worked white-collar
crimes, violent street gangs,

and major narcotics.

- This is a bunch
of predatory th*gs

against innocent citizens
in our community.

And that's something
we're not standing for.

- They were known
as the "Hate g*ng."

This is a self-proclaimed name
that they gave themselves.

The reason being is because
they targeted African-Americans.

- The victims in Hawaiian
Gardens, the black victims,

they were not g*ng members.

We're talking about
just civilians

who wanted to just
live in the city.

- Michael S. Lowe
was a prosecutor

for the U.S. Attorney's
offices in Eastern Pennsylvania

and the Central District of
California, in Los Angeles

for 25 years.

- That's one of the reasons that VHG
called themselves "The Hate g*ng"

because they had
an avowed mission

to rid Hawaiian Gardens
of Black people.

By the time we were involved
in our investigation,

there were very few Black people
living in Hawaiian Gardens.

- Orozco was... He
was a g*ng member

and had been since
he was 11 years old.

He's wanted for attempted m*rder

and as*ault with
a deadly weapon.

Orozco had shot an
African-American

who had been hired
to do some yard work.

I'm here to tell you right now,

if you have ever,
ever met pure evil,

this is pure evil.

- He had devil tattoos
on his forehead.

- Deputy Sherif Jerry Ortiz
was doing a standard patrol.

He was going to all
these targeted areas,

and sure enough, he saw Orozco.

And they locked eyes

and Orozco took off
running down an alley

that was just adjacent to
this apartment complex.

Jerry got out of his car,

he walked up to the open
door threshold there.

He saw what possibly could
have been the suspect

and he asked that
person to come over

and talk to him at the
threshold of the door.

Jerry asked for the
ID of the person

and the guy cooperated.

Also, sitting there was
two young little girls.

There were right around
seven and nine years of age.

- Little ones, right.
- Yes.

Unfortunately,

Orozco was standing
behind the door.

- Ugh...

Between the door frame and the door,
there was a small little crack.

He raised a
.38-caliber p*stol...

Orozco had fired one round that
struck Jerry in the side of the head.

And Jerry was dead before
he ever even hit the ground.

- It's so horrible.
m*rder*d, assassinated.

- ex*cuted.
- Yeah.

- ex*cuted is the way
I would describe that.

One of those girls
tried to tend to Jerry.

And as that person that Jerry was
initially speaking to was leaving,

he looked back at
the girl and said,

"Don't help that pig."

- Friday afternoon, hundreds of
officers descended on this neighborhood

after investigators say


known as a g*ng member,

shot Deputy Jerry Ortiz
point-blank in the face.

- So basically, within 24
hours of the m*rder of Ortiz,

we're executing search
warrants for arrest...

- Correct.
- On Orozco.

- here on Norwalk and Carson and
much of Hawaiian Gardens tonight

is on a virtual lockdown

as they search door-to-door
for the suspect.

- They were able to
find Orozco, cowardly.

And I say, "cowardly."
- Yeah.

Lying down in a bathtub

trying to, you
know, resist arrest.

He was handcuffed,
taken out of there.

- You're forgetting
an important part.

Mr. Tough Guy wet his pants.

- Jerry was just married
three weeks prior.

Thousands of people
showed up to his funeral.

- Without ever having met Jerry,

I went to the funeral

because I would not have
missed that funeral.

Having suffered a few duty
deaths in my own family,

I cried for him like he
was my brother that day.

- So after Jerry
Ortiz was m*rder*d,

the Sherif's Department,

they saw a lot of overt pride

being demonstrated
for the m*rder.

Shrines to Orozco found
during search warrants.

"HG kills cops,"

these are graffitied on
Sherif's patrol cars.

"HG kills pigs,"
"Rest in Piz, Ortiz."

The Sherif's department
eventually went to my office.

And they said, We want
to create a task force.

Let's invite every Federal
Agency to participate.

And then we'll use every Federal
Law, Criminal Law, we can.

And we'll take as many of these g*ng
members off the street as possible.

- And the reason why we named
this operation "Knockout"

is because Jerry was a boxer on
the Los Angeles County boxing team.

- The FBI came along, like,
right at the beginning.

- I was thrilled to be on it

because I wanted to be
part of the solution.

I wanted to take
these people down.

I was willing to go after
them with everything I had

and I wasn't going to
leave anything on the field

by the time I was
done with this case.

- What was your understanding of
your role when the Bureau said,

"Hey, look, we need you
to go over VHG task force

that the United States
attorney is pulling together?"

- They said, "Maureen,
see whatever they need

and figure out a way
to get it to them."

And I said, "No problem."

I will say that when I walked in

and being the only female
in the big conference room,

there may or may not have been

a collective group of eye
rolls from him and others.

- I don't remember that
at all, I got to tell you.

- Go ahead, Maureen.

- Sergeant Rivera asked
Gary to show me around.

He brought me all around Hawaiian
Gardens, showed me where everyone lived.

We're driving down the
street and he said,

"Now, this guy here, he's
been in the wind for..."

it was a couple of months.

So as we turn the corner
in his white Corolla,

there's our boy that they've been looking for, for months.
- There he is!

- I undid my seatbelt,
opened my door,

held it slightly. And he
goes, "What are you doing?"

I said, "I'm going to tackle his a*s
when he comes through this house."

And he goes, "We're going
to along just fine."

We were building
packets for a takedown

pretty much from
the very beginning.

One of the things we did,

which was at the very
beginning of social media,

is we went through every single
solitary photograph we could find.

Officers were told,

"If you find any g*ng
photos, bring them to us."

We would look at
all the FI cards

and we would go from station to
station to station to station,

and ask for any FI cards
for Hispanic gangs.

We would compare and contrast that with
the list that we had in our possession.

- We went up on our first
wiretap in December 2005.

- First person
that we came across

and thought was going to be
the best information for us

was a guy by the name
of George Flores.

George Flores was a long-standing Varrio
Hawaiian Gardens original gangster.

Called OGs.

All the dope was going
to George's house.

- The way these wiretaps -
any wiretap generally works -

is you find out who the...
who you have access to.

You keep trying to
move up the chain

so you intercept
the lower phone,

you see who it's calling,
you get the phone calls.

- Wiretaps would only last for 30 days.
- Right.

- Sometimes, we would
re-up on the same person

because the information was
so great coming out of it,

but for the most part, 30 days,

we would get our
indictable offences,

and we would get
our next target.

Sometimes, that turned
into two more targets.

- So they just
talked on the phone?

- Like you couldn't believe.
- In code.

But when you have the
level of intelligence,

when you have a few informants,

when you have these years on the
streets working with these guys,

you understand what
these things mean.

- We had intercepts where he
was talking about g*ng business.

Meetings that would be held,

what beefs were going on

between this g*ng member
and that g*ng member.

All stuff that helps us establish
that this is a real RICO enterprise.

The whole key to RICO is being able to
prove that there's a criminal enterprise

through a pattern of
racketeering activity.

So it was a really good wiretap.
- What happens next?

- We were continuing
to make arrests.

Make drug seizures.

Make g*n seizures.

We were getting cases
charged and convictions

on the Federal side,
on the State side.

- At one point and time,

we got some people detained

and they said, "When
is this going to stop?"

And the homicide detective,

who was in charge
of Jerry's m*rder,

he goes over, he
opens up that door,

he looks in there, and he says,

"This is never
going to end. Ever."

- We were showing results
month after month.

- Now the Federal
takedown is coming.

The g*ng community, they
know what's going to come

after there is a police
officer shot or k*lled.

They know it's going
to come hard to them.

- Maureen, what's the FBI
doing as we plan this takedown?

- We were trying to determine, first of
all, the manpower that we're going to need.

And we realized, we don't have
enough SWAT teams in L.A. County.

- Right.
- We don't have enough in the seven-county A.O.R.

that Los Angels handles.

We had to bring in SWAT from
San Diego and San Francisco,

and we had to tap into
all of our friends

and all these other
smaller departments.

We had all the big
federal agencies.

We realized, "Man, we're looking at
over 1000 law enforcement officers."

In addition to that, one
of my training agents

was a former HRT guy

who was on the FBI
L.A. SWAT team.

When I briefed him, I said,

"I need resources and
I need a lot of them."

And they said they would love to
come and support this endeavor

because this was
important to all of us.

And so, now, we've
got HRT coming out

and everybody else, and
every smaller department.

All the smaller
departments wanted in, too.

Because Jerry was their brother.

This is the thin blue line.
This is what it looks like.

- This is a
logistical nightmare.

And we had to
literally write down

every team that was
flying in or coming in,

where they were going to stage,

and what route they
actually could take.

- We decided that Los
Alamitos' military base

would be the best
place for us to go.

It's close enough
to Hawaiian Gardens.

And it's big enough to
house all the big boys.

It's ramped up to a level
you can't even imagine.

- This is the largest
search warrant

that's ever been written in the
history of the United States.

This is going to be huge.

- First of all, thank
you very much, everybody.

Thank you very much for coming.

- This is a controlled chaos.

- There are federal arrest warrants
for everybody that we're going after.

- Just take into consideration,

this is 150 locations being
hit all at the same time.

This is unprecedented.

It will probably
never happen again.

- We had to hit at the same time

because we can't let
anyone make phone calls.

We can't let anyone
get the word out.

We can't let this guy call
that bad guy or that bad guy.

Don't think for one second
that we didn't think

that another cop could get
k*lled in this operation.

- So you guys were at
the front of this group.

And you're looking at your brothers
and sisters in Law enforcement.

We're ready to execute.
- You could hear a pin drop.

- Sergent Rivera is talking,

"This is what we worked for.

All these years and I want
every one of you to understand

that when one of us gets k*lled,

when these people are operating
with this type of impunity,

we will stand tall

and do whatever it
takes to stop them."

- We're making a
stand against the VHG

who are taking over
this small community.

With crime, and
m*rder, and mayhem.

- I'm getting the chills
just now thinking about it.

Then we tell everybody,

"This is where
you're going to be.

We will not be talking
to you anymore.

You go to your staged location."
Where we have set them up.

- For officer safety,

one of the crucial
things we did,

which brings in the FBI
a little more deeply is

I assigned an FBI
agent to each location,

for any team that was
coming from out of the area.

And by 4:30 in the morning,

we were able to
actually announce

that there's a green light.

Be able to be on the radio

and officially make
that announcement

to 1500 law
enforcement officers...

Nothing that's ever
been done before.

Actually...
- Descend.

- Just descend onto
this one square mile.

And to hear the
sounds of the knocks.

- FBI, warrant, open the door.

- You hear the announcements.

- Anybody else in the
house; identify yourself.

- To see the doors
being smashed open.

- Hallway's clear.

- We got three more coming out.

- Get down on your knees,
hands on the back of your head.

- Such a collaboration
of such professionalism,

but so much emotions.

We made sure Jerry's
wife, Chela, was there.

It was unbelievable
to have her there

because all you would
hear over and over,

"Code four, target in custody."

"Code four, target in custody."

She sat there and
wept the entire time.

She just sat there and cried.

- They found meth everywhere.
- Excellent.

- Baggies all over...
Everyone was being punks

so they hooked everybody up and
I'm bringing them all back here.

These people are getting walked
in, like he said, arrested,

being brought in by the teams.

They're walking into this
place thinking, "Holy."

"That's my neighbor, that's my
neighbor, that's a gangster.

That's a guy I sold to."

We would tell a lot of them,

when they're walking out
from being interviewed,

"Look to the ground,
do not look up.

Do not look up no matter what."

Part of that was FBI PSYOPS.

So when they walked
out, looking down,

the gangsters are like, "Son
of a b*tch, they talked."

- So during this massive
takedown, how many shots fired

or incidents of
violence occurred?

- Zero.
- Zero?

- No.
- Wow, that's unbelievable.

- Everyone one of them
went down and complied.

We didn't even have
one use of force.

Not one.

- It's being called the largest
g*ng takedown of the U.S.

- Doing something like this is really
the only way we can have a major impact.

They've controlled the flow
of drugs in that community.

They basically run crime
in Hawaiian Gardens.

- Today, we have unsealed
five Federal indictments

that name a total
of 147 defendants.

This morning, 63 of those defendants
named in the indictment were arrested.

- This was the largest g*ng
prosecution in U.S. history.

We charged 212
defendants federally.

- What did Flores
get? Do you remember?

- Flores got 30 years
on a guilty plea.

- 30 years on a guilty plea?

That's pretty intense.

Imagine, you're pleading
guilty to 30 years.

- In Hawaiian Gardens,

they were saying that,
first time in years,

first time in memory
for some of them,

they could walk down the street

and not be confronted,
and just, you know,

treated warmly as a lot
of these citizens were.

We also talked a lot about
the reduction in crime.

- It was upwards close to 90%.

- You have to feel
happy about that?

- It's absolutely huge to be able
to have that sort of an impact

on something that these people
have been dealing with for decades.

- I was never more thrilled with the
results that we got for everyone involved.

From Chela to the vulnerable
people of the community

to everybody else.

And the relationships
that we all forged

that we hold so
dear to this day.

And doing it together

and doing it with people that you
really love, respect, and admire.

It was a gift, it
was a blessing.

- After Jerry was m*rder*d,

his wife, Chela,

then put together the Jerry
Ortiz Memorial Boxing Ring.

- Right hand, Jerry, let it go!

Let it go, Jerry!

- Here's to Jerry.
- Here's to Jerry.

- To Jerry.
- To Jerry.