El Lobo

Book excerpt: El Lobo, a recently released ex-con, returns to the barrio and the Westside Eleventh Avenue gang. With instructions from the incarcerated el grandes, El Lobo is to build up the gang by controlling the drug and human smuggling trade in Phoenix. El Lobo starts by instilling fear in the residents by making them pay a new use tax for driving on one of the barrio's city streets. Barrio resident Mrs. Tino suffers the consequences for unknowingly not paying the tax. It is not until John Thompson, a city resident from outside the barrio, makes a wrong turn down North Eleventh Avenue and gets robbed that police are made aware of this use tax being charged by the Westside Eleventh Avenue Street gang. The Police Department's Special Patrol Investigative Squad, the Community Action Team (CAT), led by Sergeant McGuire and Senior Officers Kincade and Boland, are called in to investigate. The investigation quickly uncovers the gang's involvement in the dangerous world of the drug and smuggling trade. Follow as the CAT squad works with residents, other city departments, and state and federal agencies as their investigations goes outside Phoenix to other major cities, including Chicago and Miami. The investigation accumulates in a large search warrant operation, taking down a number of locations at the same time, resulting in the arrest of many of the outstanding gang members. However, the day of the warrants, is unable to produce El Lobo. Several days after the takedown, El lobo's reign of terror ends on the streets of Phoenix during a traffic stop.