IN THE BEGINNING

I was just thinking about how in the beginning, (1972-78) we were involved in training not only other law enforcement agencies, but also in some of the prisons in California. We were not only in the fore-front, but we were also in the learning stages ourselves. We were fortunate to have some of the best people helping us out. People like the late Bill Hankins, "SMOKEY" Thomas, Captain Thompson and Warden Jake Gunn from Folsom Prison. There were other prison personnel too numerous to name. We also had the help of the late "Tony" Casas, Danny Vasquez and Don Elder. We also had the leadership of the "Admiral" Joe Moody. Remember it was his Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (DALE) partner, Richard "Moe" Moreno, the "Pacman's" cousin that wrote the federal grant that took us from the stone age to the modern age, with a working place (trailer) that housed us in. Most of this is in the book, however, for those that haven't read it, they can trace a part of history that may or may not have been told to them.

The main focus of this article is to advise all those in the criminal justice field of one of the outstanding associations that exists, the INTERNATIONAL LATINO GANG INVESTIGATORS ASSOCIATION. I would be remiss if I left out some of the others as they too are also fine associations. The ones that I have been associated with are in alphabetical order, ARIZONA GANG INVESTIGATORS ASSOCIATION, (AGIA) the CALIFORNIA GANG INVESTIGATORS ASSOCIATION (CGIA), the SECURITY THREAT INTELLIGENCE NETWORK on GANGS(S.T.I.N.G.) out of Colorado, and the TEXAS GANG INVESTIGATORS ASSOCIATION (TGIA).

The ILGIA has been fortunate to have had two of the best presidents in the business, "Gabe" Morales who got it started, and now Nelson Arriaga. With all these resources, I would find it hard to believe that there is a reason that some of those in the criminal justice field should be in the dark about what is going on with street gangs and those in prison gangs. The info is out there for the asking. A lot of the different states have set up similar training sessions, and those that haven't it behooves those in these fields to advise their departments to see if they can be sent to one or more of these training sessions ... Moco