this might answer the original question.
Wild-living Aryan Brotherhood generals fall to Texas probe
By Dane Schiller | June 10, 2012 | Updated: June 11, 2012 11:34am
The generals
Aryan Brotherhood of Texas is led by generals who command members inside and out of prison. Some who have served:
In a cellphone photo confiscated by police, Aryan Brotherhood of Texas general Steven Cooke poses with two stainless-steel .45-caliber pistols aimed straight ahead; a finger on each trigger; barrels locked and loaded.
Authorities contend that he later used one of those pistols to shoot an Aryan rival in the head. In another picture, he clutches a daunting .50-caliber military-style rifle. In one more, he holds a modern "street sweeper," a 12-gauge shotgun fed by a drum of about 20 rounds.
After four years, an ongoing statewide investigation into some of the gang's most menacing members has resulted in the prosecution of 34 for federal crimes such as racketeering and murder, and in the incarceration of another 30 in state prisons. Cooke, known as "Stainless," is one of them.
A review of court files and exclusive interviews with those investigating and prosecuting the gangsters - and some associates who remain free - documents a drug-enraged trail of crime across the state.
"What we noticed is that they tend to beat up on each other a lot," said Malcolm Bales, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, noting that most attacks are retribution against renegades or rivals.
"We continue to get information about people who have been disappeared, and the level of violence associated with their organization is something that we cannot tolerate," Bales said. "I don't compare them to the Mafia. They are too weird and dysfunctional in how they handle their lives - heavy drug use and sociopathic personalities."
Authorities have secretly recorded their conversations, phone calls and meetings. Photos show them meeting in a barn-turned-hideout and a Tomball bar.
Some now sit in prison isolation cells as authorities limit their reach; others hide after informing on fellow Aryans.
The gang is carved into five territories, each with a so-called general, who commands legions of convicts, both in and out of prison, and doesn't hesitate to beat down, burn or blow away those who cross them.
Acts of violence
Richard Boehning, an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and Army Ranger who is a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives special agent, leads an 80-person multi-agency statewide task force in nabbing the gang members.
When Boehning testified against one now-imprisoned gangster, he described the significance of the Aryans' tattoos, the roots of their white supremacist views, and the mantras that guide their wrath.
Among the most common: "God forgives. Brothers don't," he said. "It simply means that you may seek forgiveness from the good Lord, but when it comes to not doing something for the organization, 'we are not going to forgive you.' "
One general near Lufkin had a gangster blast his own best friend in the head with a shotgun or he'd be killed for not obeying. Another in Dallas had a gang tattoo burned off a guy's torso with a blowtorch.
In Tomball, Cooke ordered a dozen gang members to stand in a circle and pulverize one of their own for stealing dope, a gun and a girlfriend from a ranking officer. Grunts and taunts were captured on a cellphone video made by one of the gangsters.
Texas Department of Public Safety agent Brandon Bess interviewed four of the five generals.
"Every one of them have a completely different personality," he said, "a completely different way they operate - the way they control people, from extremely calm to extremely gangster to extremely intelligent."
Addicted to meth
What they all had in common - besides the ability to be brutal, charismatic and quote chapter and verse from the gang's constitution - is a methamphetamine habit that made them wild, paranoid and ultimately vulnerable, he said.
"A lot of them share being like a father figure; a lot of people who end up with our families don't have a family of their own," said a person who is part of the Aryans.
Cooke, a professional tattoo artist seen as one of the most controlling of the leaders, was sent to prison in part on his wife's testimony.
"Of course I fear for me my life," Sharleiy Cooke said from an undisclosed location via e-mail. "I think him being in the feds (federal prison) just gives him more power and control over a higher class of criminal."
Carl Carver, another general, ordered a hit that resulted in a gang member and his girlfriend being lured into the countryside in Nacogdoches County and blasted in the head with a shotgun. He pleaded guilty to racketeering and violence charges last year. He was sentenced to life, but is not listed as in U.S. Bureau of Prisons custody.
Terry Sillers, who goes by "Little Wood," was busted last year after using a Harley-Davidson motorcycle to lead Fort Worth-area police on a chase broadcast live via a news helicopter.
'General of generals'
Another general, Frank "Pancho" Roch Jr., died in Houston last year. He was found in the cab of a truck parked along U.S. 59. A master manipulator, authorities say, with head-to-toe tattoos, he spent nearly all of his adult life behind bars. He was the gang's "general of generals," but is believed to have died of natural causes. He was under investigation at the time of his death.
Larry "Slick" Bryan was sentenced to 30 years in state prison on a Bexar County drug charge, and is to be released next year.
He is now the gang's most senior general. A position even more powerful in the streets.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/...-to-3623596.php
