XPost: alt.native, sac.politics, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
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   From: x@out.com   
      
   FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. –  Down the road from Hank Blair's trading post   
   in the tiny community of Lukachukai on the Navajo Nation, a sign   
   occasionally would pop up in a corn field saying the crop was   
   ready.   
      
   But the announcement wasn't for corn. It was a sign that a local   
   gang was dealing a fresh supply of cocaine and methamphetamine.   
      
   For 15 years, the Red Skin Kingz terrorized this remote section   
   of the vast reservation near the Arizona-New Mexico border.   
   Dealing in drugs, murder, kidnapping, arson and aggravated and   
   sexual assaults, the gang intimidated the community where law   
   enforcement is more than 45 minutes away on a good day.   
      
   "They were the most organized, worst people that we've had   
   around here forever," said Blair, who has owned the Totsoh   
   Trading Post for 34 years. "It was scary."   
      
   Now, after the recent sentencing of three high-profile gang   
   members, including a mother and son, authorities believe they   
   have shut down the gang that meted out a level of violence not   
   seen by gangs on the reservation since the 1990s.   
      
   Authorities conducted more than 300 interviews in the   
   investigation of the Red Skin Kingz, using a task force made up   
   of tribal, state and federal officials, said Michael Caputo, an   
   FBI assistant special agent in charge for the Arizona district.   
   It was formed in the mid-1990s when the Navajo Nation saw an   
   explosion of gang activity in and around its capital of Window   
   Rock, with turf wars, drive-by shootings and retaliatory   
   killings. The model since has expanded to other parts of Indian   
   Country.   
      
   Navajo Nation residents, numbed to silence by a gang that raised   
   its profile on social media and threatened people to keep them   
   from talking to police, are encouraged but still wary.   
      
   "This investigation did cut off the head of the snake, if you   
   will, and we took out all the main players that were involved in   
   this gang," Caputo said.   
      
   "Did we get everybody? Hard to say," he said.   
      
   Lukachukai is at the base of the mountains, about 10 miles from   
   Dine College, the first college established by an American   
   Indian tribe in the United States. The community of about 1,700   
   has a boarding school, gas station, post office, the trading   
   post and mostly scattered housing.   
      
   Community members witnessed the gang's crimes for years, Blair   
   said. But with the closest police district so far away, no one   
   was sure authorities would or could make a difference, he said.   
      
   The death of a man in late 2014 was a turning point. Tim   
   Saucedo's family in Gallup, New Mexico, reported him missing,   
   and authorities discovered he was shot in the chest by two gang   
   members at a picnic area in Wheatfields Lake where they met for   
   a drug deal. Saucedo's body was dismembered and burned in a fire   
   pit, according to court documents.   
      
   Federal prosecutors charged gang leader Devan Leonard and Kyle   
   Gray in Saucedo's death the following year, a move that Navajo   
   Nation police Capt. Michael Henderson said helped show the   
   community that law enforcement was paying attention.   
      
   "It started falling together, looking at all these and doing the   
   research all the way back to the 2012 time frame," he said.   
      
   The Red Skin Kingz didn't match the level of gang violence in   
   the 1990s, but the drug trafficking operation was among the most   
   organized police have seen on the reservation, Henderson said.   
   The planning of criminal activity centered mostly around a   
   steamed corn business, according to court documents. Members   
   would gain status by selling drugs, collecting debts and   
   assaulting community members, court documents state.   
      
   The charges against the five Red Skin Kingz under a federal   
   racketeering statute meant to combat organized crime are rare in   
   Indian Country, prosecutors said. The other two defendants —   
   Uriah Shay and Randall Begay — will be sentenced later this year.   
      
   Getting the community to talk was difficult because people   
   feared retaliation. Some lived near the suspects and others are   
   family or related by clan. Many who worked up the courage to   
   talk would only do so anonymously, Henderson said.   
      
   Philip Sandoval Jr, the vice president of the Lukachukai   
   Chapter, was hesitant to say anything even after Gray, Leonard   
   and Leonard's mother, Lucille, were sentenced to lengthy prison   
   terms.   
      
   "You start opening your mouth and saying this and that,"   
   Sandoval said. "You don't know who is still out there."   
      
   The fear wasn't unfounded.   
      
   After Saucedo was killed, the gang kidnapped a witness and   
   threatened to harm her child if she told anyone what happened.   
   Gang members also stole vehicles and burned the dwelling of one   
   of their victims because they believed the family was   
   cooperating with law enforcement, court documents state.   
      
   Samuel Yazzie, the Lukachukai Chapter president, said that even   
   after the arrests, some residents remain afraid, unwilling to   
   photograph or report suspicious activity, or publicly call out   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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