For several days, Sandoval read the Bible and considered his options. The new boot suffered the usual abuse from veterans and inmates. DPS says the 2014 arrest of cartel leader Vicente Carrillo Fuentes diminished the gangs influence. The west end of the B-wing hallway was left unguarded after three-thirty every afternoon, when the guard normally stationed there was transferred to the chow hall. Upon graduating from Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014, Joshua joined the Express-News in 2014 as a breaking news reporter. An eight-inch metal shank lay nearby. The Texas Syndicate, unlike the Mexican Mafia or Nuestra Familia, has been more associated or allied with Mexican immigrant prisoners. These tattoos commonly include cuernos (horns), and words containing the letters T and S. On the way home Sandoval asked his cousin to drive the scenic route. But things got more interesting when Internal Affairs investigator Dale Schaper walked into the room and handed Sandoval copies of his phone records, showing that 25 phone calls he had made on Vicentes behalf were to a high-ranking TS official named Felix Benavidez. In some cases, a recruit is instructed to kill two people; either way, a murder is involved. Recalling the letter deliveries and phone messages, Sandoval might have wondered just what he had gotten himself into and how deeply. Coded language is frequently utilized in order to mislead law enforcement as to the true message contained in the letters or telephone calls. Sandoval is one of more than sixty TDCJ guards who have been indicted by McDonalds Special Prison Prosecution Unit over the past six years for felony offenses. [1], Development of the Texas Syndicate was initially motivated by self-protection against the historical "building tenders" in prison. The assailant was nowhere in sight. Other gangs have a voting system to determine whether the member is initiated or not. Conditions were no different on December 17, 1986, which was why Sandoval was given the assignment of B-wing hall boss that afternoon. There were estimated _____ gang members at this time. Since the late 1970s, the TDCJ has seen a gradual increase in TS-related activities within the system and the Texas Syndicate remains one of the main security threats within the TDCJ. Tejanos were being preyed upon by California prison gangs in some of the most notorious California . In fact, his disciplinary record was almost spotless, and he enjoyed the privileged position of commissary clerk. Crippin knelt and lifted the inmates legs. Joe Arredondo was taken to a hospital in Huntsville. Ten Ellis I guards who worked with Sandoval testified that they had no knowledge that Sandoval was involved in drug transactions with prison gangs. On Sandovals shift alone, at least four or five guards had been busted for bringing drugs into prison, but there were others who hadnt been busted and probably never would be. The drug trade was lucrative, and Sandoval always seemed to be hurting for money. Chip Gaines Bought Larry McMurtrys Historic Texas Bookstore. After the lockdown, the murder rate plunged. All of above. Regardless of the members friendship or association with the victim, the orders are to be carried out since the rules mandate that the TS comes first, even before family. Guards could still smell burning marijuana and still see inmates giggling to themselves. Texas Syndicate members frequently refer to each other as carnal (brother) and maintain a distinct identity by establishing and enforcing specific TS rules, holding meetings, utilizing TS gang signs (horns), and by maintaining a close relationship with fellow gang members and their associates throughout the state. The warden would later testify that Sandovals actions were somewhat heroic. But, Peterson added, the hero had seemed awfully calm in the midst of all the bloodshedperhaps too calm. All Garcia and his friend Vicente lacked was a reliable drug mule who could be counted on to transport drugs into the prison. First, they have to kill a rival gang member, and once their kill has been confirmed, they are brutally beaten by other members while local leaders count to thirteen slowly. Like a few other gangs that made it to our list, there are a few different ways to get into Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). Compared with Luis Sandovals quiet life in Alice, Ellis I must have seemed like an opium den. His mother and stepfather lived in a middle-class neighborhood, but most of Sandovals friends lived in the barrios or in the projects of Kingsville, where Sandoval attended college for three years. For all of Sandovals claims that the system was making a sacrificial lamb out of him, the system came to his rescue in the end. Yell fight, he said, but the two officers seemed paralyzed. Or if they cared to enforce the rule. Sometimes, members who have a problem or muleta that they need to work off in order to achieve better status with the TS are called upon to perform the ordered task. Sandoval described Ellis I warden Jerry Peterson as a good man but a figurehead. You were in the hallway, Smithey said. Symbols : TS, Tejanos, Texas symbols, long horns, demons, horned dragons, cuernos and syndicatos. A member who violates the rules and loses favor becomes a muleta, a term which is used to mean a problem. Such a violation may result in the TS bringing its own official gang-based charges against the member who is being accused of violating the rules. By the time 21-year-old Luis Sandoval, a new boot at Huntsvilles Ellis I Unit in the summer of 1985, was approached by an inmate with an unlit cigarette, his ears were still ringing from a more desperate request he had heard during his first week on the job. The caller, known as El Carpintero, was a convicted child molester from El Paso who nonetheless had managed to obtain a job, under an assumed name, as an x-ray technician at Ellis I. El Carpintero instructed Sandoval to drive to a location in Huntsville where a sack containing marijuana awaited. Though inmates werent allowed needles for tattooing, resident artists took to using the metal pieces of windup toys. [1], The history of the group and documented acts of violence in other jurisdictions warrant their certification as a Security Threat Group. This time, however, four Internal Affairs officers greeted him inside by reading him his rights and charging him with murder. Either way, Sandoval was out. We in the free world classify inmates according to motivation: those who do not wish to live a life of crime and those who know no other life; those who wish only to do their time and get out and those who function best in a kill-or-be-killed environment. Cocaine might be referred to by many names including sheet rock, girls, teenager, teener, french fries, bacon, white shirt and flour. Marijuana might be referred to by names including elbows, feed, stuff for horses, hay for horses, green and grass. Methamphetamines were commonly referred to as ice, crystal, windshields, the cold stuff and yellow. Suppliers and customers also use abbreviated numbers to indicate quantity and price, such as an order for a whole onion that costs at least 7 bucks, meaning that an order of an ounce of cocaine would cost $700. The Texas Syndicates control of those in prison is so far-reaching that members both in and out of prison follow a procedure by which the TS ensure that members are not and have not been police informants. Sandoval buckled. [1] Gang members smuggle multikilogram-quantities of powdered cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine, and multiton-quantities of marijuana from Mexico into the U.S. for distribution inside and outside prison. Sandoval knew this. For the vast majority of high school and college teams, at least in the United States, there is at least some form of initiation; and these days, most of them are alcohol-based. He lit cigarettes, which led to other small favors, which led to bigger ones. Tango Blast cliques along the Rio Grande Valley and in Corpus Christi are the region's major players, along with Texas Syndicate and Texas Mexican Mafia. For about three months thereafter, while state officials sought a long-term solution, every prison unit experienced a total lockdown. And, their numbers total in the thousands on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Although obtaining TS-related tattoos was once a common practice, some TS members now avoid obtaining tattoos in order to shield their association with the TS from law enforcement. Formed in the California prison system in the 1970s by incarcerated Tejanos, the Texas Syndicate sought protection against Californios. There are only weak inmates and strong inmates. Rosas would do the killing, while another TS member held Arredondo and two others stood by as lookouts. It criticized TDCJs good ol boy system, which Sandoval claimed has ruled with an iron fist since the penal system was first established. Hispanic guards, he said, were either coerced into quitting or found doing something wrong. Supervisors treated inmates like animals. He further wrote, I am not the only one who worked there that knows that TDCJ is linked to the gangs and their illegal activities. He just got involved with the wrong people.. Had Schapers investigation been thorough, this denial might have seemed implausible to the jury. a. being sexed in. But the first six months is hell. Sandoval was determined to tough it out. As of 2000, the Texas Syndicate had about 1,000 members in prisons and jails state-wide, with many more on the outside. The murder would take place in a corridor abutting the B-wing: the maximum-security area where Luis Sandoval often worked. If the recruit answers, "I will share my umbrella," he is deemed unworthy of membership and becomes a s*x slave. 0333 344 7476. muck tool progression. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Today, Sandoval says he mailed the letter and others like it with a kind heart but with bad judgment. And in an institution where judgment allowed some inmates to flaunt dangerous weapons while officials looked the other way, mailing the letter seemed like a minor transgression. The strict rules and harsh discipline governing the Texas Syndicate help insure that the organizations members and associates function as a continuing unit despite any changes in membership. They have more than one ritual to get into the gang, but two of the most common are taking a brutal beating (getting jumped in) and in other cases, recruits are told to murder someone. Somehow an inmate by the name of Vicente had gotten past the new boots boys. To keep him at ease, the Texas Syndicate requested that the inmate return from his furlough with two hundred dollars worth of heroin and marijuana. It revealed a world where drugs and weapons are freely available to inmates, where murderous prison gangs control inmate behavior far more than prison guards do, and where the guardians of law and order have just as much trouble distinguishing right from wrong as do the inmates they are watching. 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