Police have announced that they have solved two murders in Virginia linked to the violent gang MS-13, which is primarily made up of Central American illegal immigrants.
At a press conference earlier this week, Alexandria Police Chief Earl Cook reported that arrests have now been made in the case of two murders carried out by members of the California-based Hispanic gang.
Late last year the bodies of the two victims, Jose Luis Ferman Perez, 24, and Eduardo David Chandias Almendarez, 22, were discovered in separate cases. Police determined that neither victim was a member of the Salvadoran-dominated gang but both were killed by gang members.
Perez’s body was discovered in November. Now police have announced that a 17-year-old MS-13 gang member has been arrested and charged with the murder. A 16-year-old girl and another adult male will also soon be charged for Perez’s death, authorities say.
As to Almendarez’s murder, Chief Cook said that 18-year-old Edwin Alexander Guerreo Umana, also an MS-13 gang banger, was arrested and charged with that murder.
The chief reported that MS-13 activity has been increasing in the area.
“All of this gang activity in this region, and many of you have reported on it recently in the last couple years, the intensity of the violence has risen a great deal in the last couple years. We unfortunately had two of the victims here in Alexandria die because of that violence,” the Chief said.
Alexandria is certainly not alone in seeing a rise in MS-13 activity.
During the same week that police in Alexandria were announcing their arrests, plea deals were being announced in North Carolina as prosecutors go after a large number of MS-13 gang members.
Police in Washington D.C. were also announcing an uptick in the gang’s activity in the nation’s capital and say that the gang is responsible for a rise in homicides in the city.
Additionally, officials in Maryland were also saying that there has been a resurgence of MS-13 activity in the Old Line State.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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