Detectives in Arlington's gang unit are focusing on the Buckingham neighborhood, south of Ballston, after investigations revealed Mara Pershing, a gang that has remained dormant for years, has resurfaced on local streets.
Evidence of the gang's return came to light March 20 after a fight broke out at a home on the 4300 block on 4th Street. That night, according to an affidavit filed by Cpl. Larry Goven, police responded to calls from neighbors to arrest four people linked to the gang, which claims the area as its turf. Witnesses said three had shouted the letters "MP" during the attack, the gang's moniker.
One of the men arrested, Freddy Portillo-Villatoro, Goven wrote, readily admitted his membership in Mara Pershing to investigators, stating that he was "jumped-in" — beaten as a means of initiation — to join. Police later searched his home in Falls Church, retrieving undisclosed evidence affirming Portillo-Villatoro's gang affiliation.
Cracking down on gang crime is a top priority for Arlington police after the recent creation of its gang unit. In most cases, said supervisor Lt. Jim Wasam, local gang crime amounts to little more than graffiti and property damage. Of the more than 500 gang-related reports police received last year alone, according to police statistics, almost 90 percent involved vandalism like the spray-painting of "tags," or territory markers. Mara Pershing's, the letters MP in black, can be found on the rear walls of stores and apartments buildings around Buckingham. With the return of Mara Pershing, Wasam said, detectives are not wasting any time.
"Our policy is that we don't wait," said Wasam. "We don't wait for things to escalate. We don't wait for it to become a political issue. We moved in right away."
Wasam said detectives are now coordinating with officers in the department's community police center in Buckingham to gather intelligence on Mara Pershing. With only about a dozen members and many more affiliated nonmembers, Wasam said, Mara Pershing — otherwise known as Nueva Pershing — gained a reputation in the late 1990s, but police have heard little from it in recent years. Despite the name, he added, MP is not connected to Mara Salvatrucha, the Latino gang also called MS-13. Mara Pershing thugs, he said, are mostly teens whose activities are most often concentrated in the Buckingham area, an area populated by many Latino residents.
THE ATTACK in March, Wasam said, began when gang members tried to gain entrance to house where a party was being held. They were not invited.
"They wanted to get in, and people tried to stop them. That's how it started," Wasam said.
As spring draws clear, warm weather to Arlington, Wasam said police expected an increase in gang activity.
"Any time you get nice weather, you have more people outside, out on the street, and you'll have more of this kind of thing," he said.
Although the gang is small in comparison to other criminal syndicates, Wasam said it has many allies in Buckingham.
"For every person we meet who admits to being part of a gang, there are usually two or three affiliates who don't," he said.
And most of its activity is directed at the local community.
"It's a territorial thing," Wasam said. "They just fight for their little piece of turf."