On 1 February 2008, Michael Lopez-Garcia pleaded guilty to brutally murdering an 82-year-old man with a machete in Corpus Christi, Texas last year. He was high on cocaine when he stabbed his elderly friend, according to prosecutors. But what really earned the case more attention from the US authorities was the MS-13 tattoo on Lopez-Garcia’s back – a tattoo signaling membership in and loyalty to one of the US’ most ruthless street gangs, Mara Salvatruchas.
Lopez-Garcia is one of many thousands who since the early 1990s have participated in a cycle of immigration, gang membership, and deportation, the downward spiral of which has led to a real public security problem in Central America and an alarming street gang presence in many US cities.
Lopez-Garcia, a 22-year-old undocumented immigrant, pleaded guilty this month and was sentenced to 50 years in prison, but his legal status leaves no doubt that he will be deported to his home country once his jail term has been served, though he will be over 70 years old by that time.
Organized Stalking is a form of terrorism used against an individual in a malicious attempt to reduce the quality of a person’s life so they will have a nervous break-down, become incarcerated, institutionalized, experience constant mental, emotional, or physical pain, become homeless, and/or commit suicide. This is done using well-orchestrated accusations, lies, rumors, bogus investigations, setups, frame ups, trumped-up charges, intimidation, overt or covert threats, vandalism, thefts, sabotage, torture, humiliation, emotional terror and general harassment. It is a “ganging up” by members of the community who follow an organizer and participate in a systematic “terrorizing” of an individual.
Organized stalking gang members are given targets’ names or have the target identified for them. They usually don’t know the target before hand and the gang stalkers are tightly networked with stalking groups in other communities as well.
Gang stalking groups are not youth/ race/ biker or Mafia gangs. Other interchangeable terms used for “gang stalking” include: group stalking, community stalking (wide area supervised local harassment), cause stalking (stalkers use a “cause” for recruitment), mobbing (organized stalking in the workplace) and street theater (harassment skits done in view of the target out in the community). Some victims of organized stalking claim they are also victimized by electronic harassment including: electronic harassment, electronic assault, directed energy weapons (“DEWs”), non-lethal weapons, mind control (the through-wall electronics can affect the mind) and voice to skull.
Skeptics of gang stalking point their finger at the target claiming he/ she is delusional or paranoid, thus furthering the goals of the perpetrators. It is readily reported by victims of gang stalking that law enforcement will ignore their pleas for help and actually participate in the gang stalking themselves along with fire fighters, various utility workers and post office employees.