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MS-13 Gang Member Sentenced to 20 Years for Machete Attack

Harry Reid Says Early Voting States Iowa, New Hampshire ‘Not Representative of the Country Anymore’

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said on Nov. 18 that early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire are “not representative” of the United States in the modern era. “I don’t think it matters what happens in Iowa or New Hampshire because those states are not representative of the country anymore,” the longtime Nevada senator told reporters in Las Vegas. Reid said his state of Nevada is the third to weigh in on the election but the first that looks like the rest of the country, with a sizeable Latino population and significant groups of Asian American and black voters. While Nevada’s population is about 48 percent white, Iowa has a white population of about 85 percent and New Hampshire has a white population of about 90 percent, according to…

A Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang member at the prison of Ciudad Barrios, 100 miles east of San Salvador, El Salvador, on June 19, 2012. (Jose Cabezas/AFP/GettyImages)

A male MS-13 gang member has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for his involvement in a “brutal” machete attack in a park just outside Dallas, Texas, the Department of Justice announced on Nov. 18.

Manuel Amaya-Alvarez, 22, pleaded guilty in May to four counts of violent crime in aid of racketeering (VICAR) and was sentenced in the district federal court in the Northern District of Texas last Thursday, the department said.

Amaya-Alvarez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador and a member of the violent MS-13 gang, admitted that he and fellow gang members tried to “take out” or kill four individuals at Running Bear Park in Irving, Texas, in September 2017.

Gang members lured a man, who they thought was a rival gang member, to a park under the guise that they wanted to buy the man’s tattoo machine. That man arrived at the park with three other people—two men and a female acquaintance.

Upon their arrival, the gang members then lured the group into a wooded area at the back of the park where gang members armed with a shotgun, machetes, and clubs were waiting.

Court documents said Amaya-Alvarez and another gang member, who were seated on a park bench, greeted the victims before other gang members came out of hiding and surrounded the victims. The gang members forced them to kneel on the ground before robbing them and attacking them with the weapons.

The three men managed to escape but the female victim could not and was severely injured and left for dead. Two of the men also suffered from serious injuries.

Earlier this year, another MS-13 gang member was sentenced to 55 years in prison for his involvement in the murder of four men. The man, Josue Portillo, is an illegal alien from El Salvador and faces deportation from the United States.

The MS-13 gang, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, was initially formed by Salvadoran immigrants fleeing the civil war in their home country. It is widely viewed as one of America’s most violent criminal groups, which also endangers the safety of communities in Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

The gang’s motto is “kill, rape, control” and routinely uses brutal assault methods on victims to instill fear and force compliance.

Former ICE Deputy Director Tom Homan in front of MS-13 gang-related photos during a press briefing at the White House in Washington on July 27, 2017. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

It was also designated as a transnational criminal organization by the Department of Treasury in 2012 and became a priority for the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces in 2017 under the Trump administration. The administration also made MS-13 a focus for its crackdown on drug trafficking and illegal immigration.

During the 2018 fiscal year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents arrested 959 MS-13 gang members and associates. Meanwhile, nearly 6,000 gang members, including 1,332 MS-13 members were removed from the country—a 24-percent increase from the 2017 fiscal year, according to ICE data.

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Oklahoma Walmart Shooting Leaves 3 Dead, Police Say

At least three people were killed during a shooting at a Walmart in Oklahoma on Monday morning, it was reported. Fox affiliate KOKH reported on the deaths, saying the shooting occurred in Duncan, which is about 75 miles south of Oklahoma City. KFOR also reported that the three people were killed. It cited the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Duncan Police Chief Danny Ford told KSWO that the people were shot and killed outside the store by a vehicle, and one of the people who was killed was identified as the shooter. District Attorney Jason Hicks is on the scene of the crime, telling KOKH that the scene is contained and it is not an active shooter situation anymore. Several people were wounded in the incident, according to The Associated Press, which…