Toonerville raid nets 20

LOS ANGELES — Twenty alleged Toonerville gang members were arrested during an early-morning raid Thursday after a nine-month investigation sparked by the Glendale Police Department.

Police served 21 search warrants and 19 arrest warrants about 2 a.m. Thursday in Glendale, Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Huntington Park and Palmdale, resulting in 20 alleged gang members being arrested in connection with four murders, assault, narcotics trafficking and weapon-related charges.

Glendale police’s Special Weapons and Tactics, gang, assaults, homicide and narcotics units participated in the raid.

“This is another step in the right direction,” Glendale Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz said. “That’s the reason we have a gang injunction in place. We recognize that this is an extremely violent gang preying upon the citizens of Glendale, and we have been taking the right steps to eliminate them for our community.”

Due to Thursday’s raid, Lorenz said nine reputed gang members could be charged in connection with murder. Another 17 were arrested on suspicion of drug and gun possession. Police seized 58 guns, in addition to marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine, he said.

Thursday’s raid was the culmination of an investigation that started when Glendale police detectives began looking into the death of a Mongol gang motorcyclist, who was gunned down on the Glendale (2) Freeway on Oct. 8, Lorenz said.

“Obviously since that shooting, it’s been nine months of a grueling investigation,” Lorenz said.

The motorcyclist, Manuel Martin, was riding east on the 210 and 2 freeway interchange when a car drove up next to him, and the occupants fired 13 shots.

One round struck Martin, a Venice resident, in the chest and seven hit his motorcycle. He crashed his motorcycle and died minutes later. In the ensuing investigation, Glendale detectives identified the shooter as a Toonerville gang member.

The suspected shooter, whose name hasn’t been released, was arrested by another police agency on other charges not connected to the murder, Lorenz said. The man has not yet been arrested and charged with Martin’s murder.

Glendale’s probe also led to other discoveries, implicating the gang in more crimes, said Police Chief William Bratton of the Los Angeles Police Department at a news conference Thursday.

Glendale police then began working with the LAPD and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to pin down Toonerville gang members, he said. Glendale detectives broadened the scope of the investigation through wiretap recordings as part of the Mongol shooting death, he added.

The arrests were considered a major coup by officials who consider Toonerville to be one of the 10 most violent gangs in the Los Angeles area.

“They are incredibly active,” Bratton said. “They have engaged in ambushing with police officers. They are a particularly violent gang — that’s why they made the top 10.”

Earlier this year, Los Angeles and Glendale officials obtained a permanent injunction on certain Toonerville members, forbidding named gang members from selling or possessing drugs, weapons and graffiti tools, using lookouts, trespassing, loitering and intimidating people who live and work within the Los Angeles River and Glendale Safety Zone.

Those named in the injunction must obey a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. daily curfew. The zone encompasses a 4.5-square-mile area that includes Verdugo Road, south Glendale, the 2 Freeway, Glendale Boulevard into Los Angeles and a 1.25-square-mile area of Tujunga just north of Foothill Boulevard.

City and police officials identified the areas as a safety zone because they were known as the Toonerville turf. Anyone who violates the provisions will be arrested and prosecuted under the terms of the injunction.

The Toonerville gang is similar to the Avenues gang, which took up a neighborhood on Drew Street, just outside Glendale’s city limits, police officials said. The Avenues terrorized residents, said Capt. Bill Murphy of the LAPD Northeast Division.

Toonerville has in much the same way terrorized Chevy Chase Park, he said.

His division has already established a mobile command center in the neighborhood surrounding Chevy Chase Park and will conduct foot patrols, he added.

“We are going to turn that neighborhood like we turned Drew Street,” Murphy said.