When gang members “put some work in,” they go after rival gang bangers, the gang leader said.
They don't go after innocents.
The 34-year-old gang leader testified Tuesday that he was outraged when he learned that some younger members of his gang, 18th Street, may have been caught up in the robbery spree that left Luis Fernando-Silva and Tari Glinsmann dead and Omahan Charlie Denton wounded.
“My concern was that they took innocent people's lives,” he said. “It shouldn't have happened. That's not what we do.”
The old-school gang member's view of that vicious crime spree came as prosecutors transitioned their case from details of the deadly shooting spree to the three teens authorities allege committed those crimes.
Hands stuffed in his hooded sweatshirt, the gangster took the stand and said he is a member of 18th Street — a Los Angeles-based gang with offshoots in Omaha.
In November 2008, he said, he knew some of the younger members of the gang, including Eric “Scrappy” Ramirez, 17, and Edgar “Blackie” Cervantes, an 18-year-old who lived with the elder gangster.
He also knew a teenager he said was a member of a gang friendly to the 18th Street gang: Juan “Hectic” Castaneda. Castaneda, then 15, was a member of MBC, a gang alternately known as Melrose Boulevard Criminals and Must Be Crazy.
Shortly before midnight, Nov. 12, 2008, the gang leader said, Cervantes returned home with a message both veiled and not so veiled.
“We shot someone at 15th and Dorcas Streets,” Cervantes said, according to the gang leader. “Watch the news.”
He said he stayed up all night, waiting for the 5 a.m. news.
He said he was outraged by the images he saw on TV. Reports of three working people shot, of a murderous rampage from 15th and Dorcas Streets through two parts of Dundee.
A spree that went against their code.
The elder gang member said he confronted Cervantes.
“He said, ‘Scrappy went trigger happy,'” the gang leader recalled in court Tuesday.
He said he ordered Cervantes out of his house, in part because of his outrage and in part because he knew that Cervantes had been using his car.
He didn't want to get caught up in the mess, he said.
Cervantes eventually cooperated with authorities and told them what he told his gang leader — and more. He is expected to testify later in the trial.
Castaneda's attorney, Douglas County Public Defender Tom Riley, pressed the gang leader on what he said were varying statements to police.
Riley: “The detectives asked you some of the same questions that we're asking here, didn't they?”
The gang leader: “Yes.”
Riley: “It's just that some of the answers are different?”
The gang leader: “Always.”
Before the gang leader gave jurors a snapshot of gang life, prosecutors gave a glimpse of the last moments of the last victim, Tari Glinsmann.
During a break in the trial, Eugene Glinsmann described how much his wife had said his youngest daughter Tari took after him. Gentle demeanor. Ready laugh. Quick smile.
And he described something else: How much his stomach was churning at the thought of her death being replayed in court.
Dread gave way to reality Tuesday morning.
Two pictures went up on a courtroom screen, one after the other.
In the first photo, Glinsmann relaxed on a stoop in her home. Hair pulled back into a ponytail. Flip-flops on. Jeans rolled up her calves. A beaming smile.
In the second photo, the 27-year-old was on the ground, her body splayed next to her car in the Infinite Oil parking lot, 52nd and Leavenworth Streets.
The crime-scene photo captured other elements of what prosecutors described as an execution-style killing: A single, spent bullet in a puddle of blood near Glinsmann's body. The stocking cap that she had gone back into the convenience store to retrieve — only to be met by two robbers with a gun.
It was all Glinsmann's loved ones could take. Eugene Glinsmann cupped his chin in his palm and stared solemnly ahead.
Seated nearby, his oldest daughter, Patti Glinsmann, let out a muffled groan with each crime-scene photo of her little sister.
As an investigator described the photos, she folded her arms in front of her, lowered her chin and softly wept.
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