MS-13 gang member charged with shooting pregnant woman in northern VA

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MS-13 gang member Jose Gordillo Portocarrero has been charged with attempted murder, after allegedly shooting a man and a pregnant woman in Sterling, Va.

On the night of Sept. 13, 2008, Portocarrero along with two other gang members, allegedly drove around the town of Sterling looking for members of the 18th Street gang members to attack.

The two victims were standing outside a house ion North Argonne Avenue, when the three saw them and stopped.

According to federal court documents, Portocarrero parked around the corner, two of the gang members then exited the car, one carrying a baseball bat, and the other a gun. The gunman began shouting at the two victims, then opened fire.

The pregnant woman was hit in the chest, while her companion was hit in both the stomach and chest. All three assailants then fled the scene. Though seriously wounded, both recovered, the woman’s unborn baby also survived the shooting.

Last month, Portocarrero was arrested by Loudoun County sheriff's deputies on unrelated charges. In custody, he admitted to being an MS-13 gang member, as well as to his role in the 2008 shooting.

In recent years, Northern Virginia has been inundated with illegal alien, and the notoriously violent Salvadoran gang known as MS-13 has emerged as the area’s most prominent gang.

The FBI's National Gang Task Force Director Robert Clifford, said: "The migrant moves and the gang follows. If you follow the construction trade, that is where a lot of these immigrants go."

MS-13 set up shop in Northern Virginia during the 1990s, lured by the region's fast-growing Salvadoran population, later expanding into the Maryland suburbs of Langley Park and Gaithersburg.

During 2004-2005, there were two machete attacks in the Northern Virginia area. An Alexandria teenager lost four fingers during a savage encounter with MS-13 members, while a Fairfax man also became a victim of an MS-13 machete attack. Both incidents are believed to have been acts of initiation.

In 2005, two MS-13 members were convicted in an Alexandria, Va. United States District Court for killing a 17-year-old pregnant girl. A rope was placed around the neck of Brenda Paz,, she was then stabbed repeatedly. Her body was left along the muddy banks of the Shenandoah River. The murder was retribution for the girl´s cooperation with a federal investigation into the gang´s activities.

 

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