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The books on gang crime and gang investigations
listed on this page were authored by experienced law enforcement professionals.
Detective Corporal Richard Ashby is a 20-year veteran
of the Santa Ana Police Department. He has focused his career in the area of gangs as a patrol officer, a member of special
details, and as a gang detective. He is a court-recognized expert in Hispanic gangs and has spent twelve years as a detective
with the Santa Ana Police Department’s Gang Detail. During those twelve years he worked as a gang suppression detective,
investigating all gang related assaults and attempt murders within the city of Santa Ana. He was also assigned to the Santa
Ana Gang Homicide Detail, investigating gang related homicides. In March of 2004
he was promoted to the rank of Corporal and supervised the Santa Ana Gang Homicide Detail until February of 2006.
Derrick Watkins and Richard Ashby are the co-authors
of Gang Investigations: A Street Cop’s
Guide. According to the book description, the book “provides a
step-by-step guide to gang identification, arrest, search and seizure, prosecution, and other programs that have been used
successfully by criminal justice agencies nationwide. Anti-gang strategies are discussed along with the results of their implementation. This guide will better prepare every police officer and detective to deal with the
modern street gang. With Watkins’ and Ashby’s knowledge, departments and officers can develop better strategies
to curb gang violence and the fear of street terrorists.”
A 30-year veteran with the LAPD, he is a qualified
gang expert specializing in the development of gang information, the investigation of gangs and gang-related crime, and the
training of law enforcement professionals, agencies and private companies. During his law enforcement career he has interviewed
thousands of gang members and led hundreds of gang-related investigations involving murder, robbery, rape, extortion, felony
assault, witness intimidation, kidnapping and attacks on police officers.
For the past 16 years, he has acted as detective
supervisor at the LAPD. Currently, he supervises a surveillance unit whose mission is to seek out and apprehend violent gang
members and career criminals.
Sergeant
Wesley D. McBride, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (ret.), spent 28 of his 35 year career in law enforcement
investigating gangs. From 1972, until his retirement in 2002, he continuously
worked street gang investigations as either an intelligence officer, investigator or team leader. In addition to being a nationally recognized gang expert, he is the past president of the California Gang
Investigator’s Association and the National Alliance of Gang Investigator’s Association. Wesley McBride is the co-author of Understanding Street Gangs.
According
to the book description of Understanding Street
Gangs, it “offers a unique and pioneering approach to the street and prison gang dilemma and provides both local
and national perspective. This popular book is used by colleges, universities, and academies, and also for advanced officer
training throughout the country. The authors are leading authorities on gang activities. No other book offers such insight
or understanding into this escalating threat. It covers causative factors, family structure and profiles, socioeconomic pressures,
and drugs. It also defines gangs, membership, structure and organization, communication, and measurements of gang violence,
offers perspective on gang activity, and suggests possible solutions.”
Loren
Christensen’s experience in law enforcement began in 1967 when he served in the army as a military policeman, stationed
in both the United States and in Vietnam. In 1972, after leaving the military,
he joined the Portland Police Bureau (Oregon). As a rookie he began teaching
defensive tactics to other officers. As a police officer he has worked the training
unit, the gang unit, dignitary body guarding, and all the precincts as a street officer. His
articles have appeared in a variety of magazines, to include Soldier of Fortune, Warriors, Bodybuilding, Muscle Up, Blackbelt,
Karate Illustrated, Karate International, Police, Law and Order, Chief, The Police Marksman, American Survival Guide, Police
and Security News, Martial arts Training and the American Police Beat.
Loren
Christensen is the author of Skinhead Street Gangs. According to one reader/reviewer, “I have read several books on this subject and found Christensen's
to be accurate and powerful. As a police officer, he is a recognized expert on skinheads and worked with both racists and
antiracists for almost five years. He got to know WAR leader Tom Metzger and several other key players in the white supremacy
movement. Skinhead Street Gangs has been used as a reference in movies and documentaries. I recommend it to all my students.”
Tony M. Kail is Founder
and Director of World View Intelligence. Tony has served as a consultant and law enforcement trainer for numerous regional,
state and federal agencies. He has over fifteen years of experience in research and training on the subject of magico-religious
cultures and crime.
Tony Kail has performed
fieldwork with a number of religious traditions throughout the United States. He has observed and documented a number of ceremonies
and rituals of various religious cultures. His primary expertise is in the area of African Traditional religions and Neo-Paganism.
Kail has received specialized training in the field of ritualistic crime investigation from the Miami Police Department.
Tony Kail has served
as a Sheriff's Deputy with the Madison County Sheriff's Department as well as Animal Cruelty Officer with the Madison County
Humane Society. He has served as adjunct instructor in the Police Sciences Division of the Nashville State Community College
since 2000.
Tony Kail is author
of the book A Cop's Guide to Occult Investigations from Paladin Press. He is also
the author of several articles on religious culture for such law enforcement publications as Law and Order, Police Quarterly
and The Backup.
In Tony Kail’s
book, Cop's Guide to Occult Investigations: Understanding Satanism, Santeria,
Wicca, and Other Alternative Religions, the reader finds out how to interpret
rituals, develop contacts in the occult community, recognize signs of juveniles dabbling in the occult, conduct investigations
into an occult-related crime and more. The reader will see how gangs and hate groups use occult symbolism to empower members
and terrify victims and learn to identify ritual tools with the illustrated field guide.
William Dunn, a Detective Sergeant with the Los
Angeles Police Department and a former CRASH officer and renowned gang expert, has published his second book The Gangs of Los Angeles. William Dunn has instructed
law enforcement nationwide regarding the current MS-13 gang epidemic.
According to the book description, The Gangs of Los Angeles describes that “there is no gang turf more desperately unique
than that hidden among the 464 square miles which make up the City of Los Angeles. It is a fragile place; both tantalizing
and repulsive, where wild fires can scorch hill-top celebrity homes as easily as gang members decimate a housing project with
automatic rifle fire. The Gangs of Los Angeles is a
classic, real life account of American crime. From the early Tomato Gangs of 1890's Boyle Heights to the modern Crips and
Mara Salvatrucha, with side trips through an Irish Dogtown, the gang wars of "Happy Valley", Sleepy Lagoon and the yellow
journalism of the Hearst Press, and a tragic murder at Sunset and Vine, Dunn recounts the events and notorious denizens that
spawned LA's gang subculture.”
Lee Barnard is a Police Officer was a police officer
for over 15 years and during his law enforcement career he was a member of the Simi Valley Police Department. During his career,
he has worked as a Gang Officer, a Detective, Field Training Officer, and a Weaponless Defense Instructor. Lee Barnard has
interviewed in excess of 750 Graffiti Vandals clearing over 6,800 cases of graffiti. This has given him an insight into the
Graffiti sub-culture. Lee Barnard’s Understanding
and Investigating Graffiti is the “first book to cover the entire process of the legal system involving graffiti
starting with the history of graffiti. The book leads you through the reading of graffiti, locating the vandal, the arrest
and prosecution of the vandal, and lastly the types of punishment for the vandal. Anyone who is tired of viewing the eyesore
known as graffiti will be interested in this book.”
Lou Savelli, who has
spent all of his 23 years in law enforcement in the streets, is one of the most decorated officers in NYPD history and has
received over 100 medals for bravery, outstanding police work, life saving rescues, and record setting investigations. He
retired in 2004 as the Detective Squad Commander of the NYPD's Terrorism Interdiction Unit, which he co-founded after 9-11-01
as a proactive counter-terrorism investigative unit responsible to aggressively seek out and investigate terrorist cells in
New York.
Lou Savelli was chosen
as one of the top 10 of NYPD's most effective leaders of all ranks (out of nearly 20,000 qualified supervisors) and the first
supervisor featured in NYPD's Leadership Training School newsletter because of his innovation and success in the field of
leadership. He created NYPD's first citywide gang unit called CAGE (Citywide Anti Gang Enforcement) which was awarded the
National Gang Crime Research Center's award for The Most Effective Gang Unit in the US.
Lou Savelli is the author of eight books in the “Pocket Guide Series:” Guide to Basic Crime Scene Investigation; Gangs Across American and the Symbols;
Graffiti Pocket Guide; Street Drugs Pocket Guide; Practical Spanish for Law Enforcement; Identity Theft; Cop Jokes; and A
Proactive Law Enforcement Guide for the War on Terror.
According to the description of Gangs Across American and the Symbols, “If you work the street,
you're in the often cryptic world of gangs! This pocket-sized powerhouse of gang intelligence is your roadmap to safe, effective
contact with any gang-related person, area or activity. Expertly complied, this guide includes: gang affiliation breakdowns;
gang nations' color schemes meanings; interpretations of gang graffiti; hand signs, slang translations and tattoo meanings. It covers: Street Gangs, Ethnic Gangs,
Occult Gangs, Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Hate Groups, Prison Gangs.”
According to the description of Graffiti Pocket Guide, “Graffiti can be found in every city and
town. No community is immune. The Pocketguide to Graffiti provides an understanding of graffiti, gang graffiti, and the type
of people engaging in writing graffiti. Often called 'the newspaper of the streets', graffiti needs to be deciphered and eradicated.
The Pocketguide to Graffiti exposes the types of graffiti, writing styles, taggers, gang banger grafiti, deciphering graffiti,
investigating graffiti criminals and other topics relating to graffiti.”
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