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'Heinous and violent': MS-13's appeal to girls grows as gang becomes 'Americanized'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/heinous-and-violent-ms-13s-appeal-to-girls-grows-as-gang-becomes-americanized/2018/05/04/a4132e94-40bf-11e8-bba2-0976a82b05a2_story.html?utm_term=.973f83c8ba4f
For 15 years, the girls lived parallel lives. Left behind in El Salvador by mothers bound for America, they grew up a few miles apart in San Vicente, entering adolescence just as the city sank into gang violence.
They fled within weeks of one another, traveling north in 2014 along the same smuggling route, before ending up in the Washington suburbs.
It was there that Venus Iraheta and Damaris Reyes Rivas finally met, after becoming entangled in the same violent street gang, MS-13. And it was there, in a wooded park in Springfield, Va., that Venus stabbed Damaris 13 times.
Even amid a nationwide surge in MS-13 slayings, the 2017 killing stood out. Female victims are nothing new for MS-13, which is infamous in Central America for making young women choose between rape and execution. But in a gang as chauvinistic as it is fearsome, female killers are almost unheard of.
As Iraheta, now 18, awaits sentencing for murder later this month, authorities say the killing may be a sign of growing female involvement in MS-13 in the United States.
Unlike their counterparts in Central America, some MS-13 cliques in the United States now allow female members, said Michael Prado, assistant special agent in charge of the Washington office of Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“In that regard they are somewhat progressive,” he said. “The [cliques] here are a little bit more, for lack of a better term, Americanized.”
For 15 years, the girls lived parallel lives. Left behind in El Salvador by mothers bound for America, they grew up a few miles apart in San Vicente, entering adolescence just as the city sank into gang violence.
They fled within weeks of one another, traveling north in 2014 along the same smuggling route, before ending up in the Washington suburbs.
It was there that Venus Iraheta and Damaris Reyes Rivas finally met, after becoming entangled in the same violent street gang, MS-13. And it was there, in a wooded park in Springfield, Va., that Venus stabbed Damaris 13 times.
Even amid a nationwide surge in MS-13 slayings, the 2017 killing stood out. Female victims are nothing new for MS-13, which is infamous in Central America for making young women choose between rape and execution. But in a gang as chauvinistic as it is fearsome, female killers are almost unheard of.
As Iraheta, now 18, awaits sentencing for murder later this month, authorities say the killing may be a sign of growing female involvement in MS-13 in the United States.
Unlike their counterparts in Central America, some MS-13 cliques in the United States now allow female members, said Michael Prado, assistant special agent in charge of the Washington office of Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“In that regard they are somewhat progressive,” he said. “The [cliques] here are a little bit more, for lack of a better term, Americanized.”
Feminism can be found in all sorts of places.
6 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
But we can't let facts get in the way of some good old fashioned angry GOP outrage, can we?
It's amazing where the minds of DUers are these days. 
