Chapter 17
Santini lay in bed at night in his Mission District apartment, worrying. How would HSI headquarters react to the premature shutdown of the auto-theft sting? The operation had now succeeded in seizing more than twenty vehicles, but he had hoped for more. His team had taken numerous guns from the gang, but he also knew they could likely get new ones.
He had two main informants to manage now and Casper was likely suspected as a rat by the gang. The FBI was constantly breathing down his neck. The murder rate in the city was on the rise, while arrests for homicides were down. Had he bitten off more than he could chew? The old fear of failure, to follow in his father’s footsteps that way, churned his gut.
Unable to fall asleep, he listened to the wind and rain pelting the apartment’s windowpanes. El Niño, the periodic Pacific weather machine, was deluging the California coast again, as it did every few years. In the city, water overflowed every pothole and planter. It gushed down storm drains in torrents, flushing away the stench from vagrants who pissed and defecated openly in San Francisco’s parks and alleys. He drifted into half-sleep, the sound of downpouring rain infiltrating his dreams with shards of memory from his time as a Border Patrol agent.
It was six years ago—another El Niño Year. The heavy rains hit Southern California hard. . . .
More than once, he gave high-speed pursuit to coyote vehicles laden with human cargo and watched them crash to a stop, the passengers scrambling out and sprinting away into the darkened landscape in every direction. The sheer desperation of the border jumpers to get into the States was palpable. If they could just get past the border zone, their chances of finding safe haven with family members or fellow countrymen in some town or city in America, where a person could find work that paid decently in US dollars, would dramatically improve.
The sprint across the border was a make-it-or-break-it moment for them and the high stakes seemed to add an extra gear to their foot speed, as they beat it toward freedom. The speediest among them often got away. All Santini saw of them was their backsides as they vanished into the nighttime landscape, leaving him and his partners to corral the ones they could snag and hold in place until backup arrived. The detainees were loaded into vans and taken to newly formed immigration courts, where they were scanned biometrically and checked for criminal records or outstanding warrants.
One night alone on patrol, driving in a Ford Bronco in a remote area of the hills across the border from Tijuana, Santini received a call over the radio from patrol spotters equipped with night vision goggles. They reported a group of five people sneaking across the line in Santini’s vicinity and directed him to pursue on foot. He parked the truck and made his way toward the suspects in the dark. When he got close enough, he flipped on his spotlight.
This was the moment of truth that he’d been through dozens of times before—when the light came on and the faces of the hunted were revealed, their eyes lit up by the flashlight’s beam. Was it a family? A father and mother, with six kids in tow? A pack of armed drug smugglers with a load of coke? These were questions that needed to be answered in an instant.
This time it was five adult or adolescent males and Santini ordered them to raise their hands. At first, they complied and marched ahead of him back to the truck. Then the situation began to unravel. The five men moved around to the opposite side of the truck from Santini, who ordered them to stand still. Every time he moved toward their side of the truck to get them corralled, they would circle back around to the opposite side.
The men started taunting Santini, laughing and calling him a fucking migra (roughly equivalent to “pig” for a cop in English). One of the suspects decided to come around to Santini’s side of the truck and face him up. At the same time, the other four males began to inch around from the other side of the Bronco, behind him. Santini reached for his collapsible steel baton and smashed the guy confronting him on the outside of his knee as he’d been trained to do—at the point of the peroneal nerve—dropping him. In the moment it took for him to reach for his baton and swing it, three of the others took off running in the dark. With the one guy down on the ground, cursing in pain and holding his leg, Santini drew his firearm and ordered the remaining one who had not run away with the others to get down on the ground.
Two out of five in custody, three on the lam, and backup on the way. With the situation somewhat under control, Santini could get a closer look at the face of the guy who had decided to test him. He had tattoos all over his neck and hands. Both his eyelids were tattooed. The left one said, “FUCK,” and the right one said, “POLICE.”
On the ground where Santini had dropped the thug, he spotted a five-inch butterfly knife, its blade in the open position and ready for use—to gash him. It could have easily happened. He imagined the steel blade ripping his guts, bleeding him out in the dark terrain. . . .
It was no use trying to sleep anymore. He got out of bed and headed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
Folsom Prison, California
Santini pulled into the visitor’s parking lot and sat for a minute gazing at the prison’s stone arch entranceway. The place looked like a medieval castle erected alongside the banks of the American River, about twenty-five miles east of Sacramento.
Built a hundred and forty years ago, Folsom was the second-oldest prison in California, occupying the former site of a mining camp. After it opened in 1880 in the wake of the Gold Rush, with a designed capacity of eighteen hundred inmates, the prison quickly became legendary for its harsh conditions. Inmates occupied stone cells that measured just four feet by eight feet, with solid steel doors and just an eye-slot to peek through.
Santini had come to Folsom to talk with Diablito, one of the 20th Street homies who had been riding in the car with Happy on the day that Memo was murdered three years before, when Happy opened fire on the busy Mission street at the Norteños. Diablito was now doing time for an assault with a deadly weapon and was scheduled for release and deportation in six months.
Recruiting and retaining MS-13 informants typically presented a maddening challenge, Santini had learned by now. Even gang members who wanted to get out of the life were constantly pulled back in by the gravitational force of group loyalty. As a result, their behavior often seemed fickle and unpredictable, but it did make more sense when viewed through their eyes. To break free of the gang, an individual needed to abandon personal connections and deep loyalties that defined his self-image, leaving an uncertain psychological void in its place.
Diego had recently and unexpectedly flaked out on Santini after having provided so much valuable intel, at considerable risk to his own life. He stopped answering all calls from Santini. When the agent went looking for him at the Crab Shack restaurant on Pier 26, where Diego was employed as a dishwasher, he discovered the informant had quit the job. He and his wife had moved out of their apartment, with no forwarding address. Unable to track him down, HSI now officially labeled Diego a fugitive. It had been a difficult decision. The downside for Santini was that he was losing what had been an extremely valuable informant. However, HSI would be eliminating a public safety liability they had with Diego loose on the streets. Santini didn’t think Diego would start back up gangbanging in the States, but there was always that chance. He had certainly proven he was capable of it previously in Honduras.
Whatever the story with Diego, Santini wanted more intelligence on 20th Street’s ongoing violent crimes, and to get it he needed new sources inside the gang. Based on what the agent learned through his two main informants and SFPD Gang Task Force partners, Cabrera and Gibson, he thought he might be able to flip Diablito.
Waiting in the prison’s main visiting room, Santini considered the vagaries of working potential informants. He could spend hours and hours, drive hundreds of miles back and forth from San Francisco to Folsom to try flipping Diablito, just to hit a dead end. On the other hand, if he just happened to get hold of a criminal at the right moment for whatever reason—like with Casper—a half hour of prodding and cajoling might be enough to turn him.
Santini was informed by prison administrators that Diablito seemed to be steering clear of other MS-13 gang members while behind bars. Unlike many prisons, it was possible for an acknowledged gang member to be housed away from his homies in Folsom, if that’s what he wanted. Diablito was working a job in the prison kitchen and had avoided getting into any trouble.
The agent watched as the guards checked Diablito through the metal gates that led from the cell blocks into a separate wing where families, friends, and lawyers came to visit. The guards patted him down all over his denim prison uniform, then led him into the big visiting room with thirty-foot-high vaulted ceilings, the floor filled with folding chairs all lined up in rows as if ready for a high school pep rally.
“You would like to stay in the US with your woman and baby when you get out of here, right?” Santini said.
“Yeah, sure,” Diablito said. “So, what you want from me?”
“Look,” Santini said, “I know you know who dropped the dude at the liquor store,” referring to the murder of a member of 20th Street’s rival Army Street Gang suspected to be committed by Cyco.
“I’m just asking you to tell me what you know, and I can see about getting a good deal for you,” the agent said. “Make it so you can stay in the country and get a good job and start a new life for your family?”
“What I gotta do for that?” Diablito said.
“You need to tell me everything you know about the shooting at the liquor store, for starters,” Santini said.
He could see that Diablito was maybe open to a deal, but he didn’t want to push him too hard, too fast.
“Hey, take a few days to think about it and I’ll come back next week, alright?” Santini said.
“Yeah, I’ll think about it,” Diablito said.
A week later Santini returned and Diablito told him he might be open to negotiate. On the other hand, Diablito said, he was just as likely to keep his mouth shut and accept deportation when he was released in a matter of months. He hadn’t visited his mother in a long time and he was eager to see the old country again.
Over the next several weeks, Santini was accompanied by Cabrera and Gibson on visits to Folsom. Based on their extensive knowledge of past crimes on the city’s streets, the SFPD gang cops peppered Diablito with questions about what he knew about specific violent incidents.
One piece of information provided by Diablito led Santini to immediately put another gang member named Cobra on his front burner. According to Diablito, Cobra had shot and killed a young Samoan man named Manolo Muna in the Sunnydale Projects section of San Francisco. Muna was standing on the street with some friends at the time and wearing a red 49ers team jacket, drinking a beer, when he was shot down. SFPD homicide detectives had assumed at the time that a black gang was responsible for the killing, not MS-13. What made Santini and his partners especially anxious to bust Cobra was that he recently enlisted in the US Marines. His induction into the Corps was imminent.
Soon, Santini worried, a murderous thug would be wearing the uniform of America’s vaunted fighting force. He’d be trained up in the use of a high-powered rifle and possibly stationed overseas, maybe even guarding an embassy. His fellow marines would rely on him to cover their backs in a fight. Maybe he’d be put on patrol in the neighborhoods of an occupied country like Iraq or Afghanistan. And God help the locals there if Cobra’s beast within found release on their streets. The thought of it had Santini and his partners scrambling to prevent Cobra’s enlistment.
“We know you capped Muna,” Santini said.
He had called up Cobra and requested a meeting at a Starbucks in South San Francisco.
“No, man,” Cobra said. “I didn’t shoot nobody. That’s bullshit. Who told you that?”
“Never mind,” Santini said. “We know you did it. You can forget about being a marine. That ain’t going to happen.”
“You can’t stop me,” Cobra said. “I didn’t do nothin’.”
“Just admit what you did and they’ll go easy on you. You’ll be out in, maybe, five years and it’ll be behind you. You can start fresh.”
“I ain’t admittin’ nothin’,” Cobra said. “I didn’t do it.”
On a few more occasions, Santini tried to break Cobra, calling him up and requesting face-to-face meetings. Each time Cobra showed up, probably just trying to find out what exactly Santini knew, and how he knew it. But each time the interviews were stalemates. Cobra admitted to nothing and Santini couldn’t crack him.
Cobra was right. Without admissible evidence that he had committed the Muna murder—not just the unsworn statement of Diablito, an MS-13 jailbird—there was nothing Santini could do to stop his induction into the marines. Soon, Cobra raised his right hand in the recruiter’s office and swore his allegiance to the red, white, and blue, to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. He shipped off for basic and three months later emerged as a full-fledged private in the US Marines.
Diablito eventually stopped talking. He decided he wanted to go back home to see his mother in El Salvador. The agent’s inability to flip another 20th Street member was aggravated by his larger frustration with Diego, who had gone to ground and stopped communicating with his government controllers. Every attempt by Santini to contact him failed. He still had no idea where Diego was or what he was doing.
On her way to the office, an HSI agent who had worked extensively with Santini and Diego happened to drive right by the fugitive walking along Davis Street and recognized him. She immediately pulled her car over and grabbed her cell phone to call Santini.
“Hey, Michael,” she said. “I have Diego in my sights.”
“Where?!” Santini said.
“I’m near the corner of Davis and Sacramento,” she said. “He’s just walking down the sidewalk with what looks like some grocery bags.”
“Keep your eye on him,” Santini said. “I’m on my way!”
He leapt from his seat and ran down the hall to his partner’s office. “1301 is at Embarcadero 3!” Santini called.
Without a word, his partner set down his coffee mug and raced to follow Santini who was already at the elevator, pushing compulsively on the DOWN button, pacing back and forth. The elevator doors slid open and a group of passengers, sensing the agents’ urgency, quickly made space for them. At ground level they ran across the lobby and through the revolving doors to the street.
They broke into a sprint, rounding the corner at Battery Street. And there was Diego, walking with his back to them and carrying several grocery bags. Santini rushed up quietly behind him and grabbed him by the shoulder, spinning him around. When Diego saw who it was he dropped his arms to the side, deflated. Santini reached for his handcuffs and spun him back around, snapping them on his wrists. The Honduran seemed to wither under Santini’s furious stares. He knew he was screwed.
“I am sorry, Michael,” he said.
“Ain’t no ‘sorry,’ brother,” Santini said. “We had a deal. And you broke it.”
The agents called for a vehicle and the ride back to the office with Diego was intensely silent. There was nothing to be said. The informant had taken his chances and decided to put the demands of his family and a new day job ahead of what Santini and his partners were requiring from him.
Unfortunately for Diego, he had decided to take employment at a restaurant literally only three blocks from the HSI SAC Office, a move that had severely degraded his odds of evading capture. The big wheels of justice had spun and landed on “DEPORT” for Diego. He was headed back home to Honduras. Santini was losing one of his two main informants and a potentially critical witness for any future prosecutions. But HSI could not afford the risk of allowing him to remain in the country, now that he had proved unreliable.
Franklin Square Park
Sitting in an unmarked car with Casper, Santini pulled out a compact digital recorder and switched it on. “This is Special Agent Michael Santini. The date is April 21, 2007. The time is thirteen hundred hours. HSI source 1312 will meet with gang leader Ivan Cerna to discuss gang-related activity.”
He hit the stop button and handed the recorder to Casper, who was sitting in the backseat, waiting to do his thing. He looked nervous, wiping sweat from his brow. Casper was on edge because Tigre was one of his oldest friends. Through the years, Tigre had always treated him like a younger brother. Casper was conflicted about stabbing Tigre in the back, but he was also determined to do what it took to escape the gang life.
Santini was nervous, too. He had concluded that Casper was fast approaching his expiration date—the point at which the risk of the gang discovering he was an informant outweighed the value of whatever further intelligence he might be able to produce. Ever since the fiasco of the auto warehouse sting, it seemed that Casper had been skating on thin ice. He was brave, the agent had to give him that. But he wasn’t sure if Casper’s courage had to do with his Big Homie brother, Snoopy, or simply because he was too dumb to be scared.
“Game time, perro!” Santini told Casper. “Let’s go fight some crime!”
“Yes, homie,” Casper said. “Let’s see what the boss has to say today.”
Santini reminded Casper of what to coax Tigre into discussing. He specifically wanted recordings of Tigre talking about gang leadership, taxing the Miceros, evidence of the Big Homies calling shots for 20th Street, and details on gang members committing specific crimes. Casper said he understood what Santini wanted him to do and the agent started the car.
He dropped Casper on the corner at a bus stop just a few blocks away from Franklin Square Park, where Casper had arranged to meet Tigre. For Santini, this was a crucial operation. Tigre had been a no-show on the streets for months and this was going to be a unique opportunity for the agent to get a recorded conversation between the clique leader and another senior gang member. It could provide the type of evidence the US Attorney’s Office salivated over.
Santini watched from a distance as Tigre’s tan pickup truck rolled slowly into view in the lot adjacent to Franklin Square Park. He could see Casper and Tigre sitting together in the truck’s cab. They parked at the entrance to the soccer field and the two homies strolled onto the grass where they could observe three youngsters kicking a ball around.
“Have you talked lately with the ones down below?” Casper said
“No, not lately,” Tigre said. “But I am worried about Peloncito. He is doing work on his own, without checking for approval.”
“Yes,” Casper said. “He does not seem to understand the rules of La Mara.”
“He is pushing too hard on Patas and the Miceros,” Tigre said. “It is causing trouble. The 20th Street is not strong enough to push it. Besides, there is plenty to go around for everyone. Peloncito should not be so greedy.”
Tigre stretched out on the grass, his body tired and aching from a long day on the construction site. “The three-letter suit-and-tie guys [FBI agents] came to talk with me again,” he said. “Those fuckers are snooping around for something. I think maybe I should contact them and tell them I’m definitely not the one they want.”
“I don’t know,” Casper said. “I wouldn’t trust those sons of bitches for anything. I wouldn’t do it.”
“Sí,” Tigre said. “You’re probably right.”
Tigre stood up straight and jingled his truck keys, signaling he was ready to head out. His family was waiting for him to eat dinner. The kids would want to play some futbol before homework and bedtime. He held out his hand for Casper to shake.
“A La Mara,” he said.
“Mara Salvatrucha forever,” Casper said.
When Santini and his partner debriefed Casper immediately after the meeting, Casper told them the FBI had been attempting to flip Tigre as an informant. Tigre told Casper the Bureau agents actually came to his house and questioned him about his gang involvement.
Santini could hardly fathom that the FBI would jeopardize his investigation by making direct contact with his number-one target. He immediately complained to his counterparts at the Bureau, who admitted they had gone to Tigre’s residence in an attempt to turn him as an informant.
The fallout from the incident was exceptional, with reports sent from HSI in San Francisco to agency headquarters in D.C. In turn, top brass at HSI and FBI headquarters had several heated exchanges. In the end, the Bureau made the rookie agent who facilitated the “knock and talk” with Tigre—the same one who had screamed at Santini on the phone earlier in the investigation—seem to vanish from the face of the earth, probably relegated to a dead-end desk job.
Interagency law enforcement politics and rivalries aside, 20th Street was taking a more violent and ruthless turn. Violent attacks on Mission streets were escalating. No amount of talking the problem down in the media by city government officials or newly announced plans to tackle the gang crime situation were having the desired effects, actual or perceived.
Santini felt the growing pressure. Three years of hard work had produced a significant amount of evidence, but no improvement in terms of public safety. If anything, conditions on the street for Mission residents were worse than ever. The clock inside Santini’s head was ticking all the time. Every new violent crime that occurred in the neighborhood was a stark reminder for him of what he still had not accomplished. There was no guarantee he could succeed in dismantling 20th Street.