Fresno police announce crackdown on Southeast Asian gangs

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- After five years of relative calm, Fresno police say Southeast Asian gangs went back into action with a murder on October 20. Six more shootings followed.

Fresno Police Lt. Mark Salazar says it's the result of a turf battle.

"It's pretty much rival Asian gang members in West Fresno and that's what led to conflict. That's the main reason why these shootings took place," he said.

Police launched a crackdown, arresting a suspect in the murder, and in the past few days rounding up 18 additional gang members on weapons charges. Police displayed some of the weapons. Police Chief Jerry Dyer noted many were taken from teenagers.

"There's an increasing number of juveniles not only in these gangs but that have armed themselves or are arming themselves with firearms to include assault rifles -- assault rifles that are being utilized to do drive-by shootings," he said.

Police were also surprised to see that the Southeast Asian gangs now include Hispanic and African-American members, and police say small incidents between them can lead to violent streaks like what they've seen in recent weeks.

"There's a variety of reasons, could be for territory, could be for females involved and or drug sales, or a variety of the two, and then what we see is retaliatory shootings back and forth," said Paul Cervantes with the Fresno Police Gang Unit.

Police say the murder victim was 22-year-old Aushown Simmons. They believe he was shot to death because he refused to carry out a gang-ordered shooting and was trying to get out of the "Tiny Rascals" gang.