Attack on young woman highlights Osceola’s gang problem | Street Gangs Resource Center – Los Angeles and California | The Gang Experts | Crips | Bloods | Mara Salvatrucha | 18th Street

Attack on young woman highlights Osceola’s gang problem Street Gangs Resource Center – Los Angeles and California The Gang Experts Crips Bloods Mara Salvatrucha 18th Street: "Three young men were recently convicted of abducting and raping a Poinciana woman last year in an attack that illustrates the extreme violence of Central Florida’s street gangs.
The men belonged to the Crips — one of about 20 street gangs with more than 500 members in Osceola County.
They were sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison and have been labeled as sexual predators for life for attacking a woman Jan. 18, 2009 after she visited an Orlando nightclub.
The ringleader — Emmanuel “Miami” Mendez, 21, — was awaiting trial for murder at the time the woman was gang raped in a rental home in Poinciana.
Court records show all five men in the case — the three rapists and two other men who watched while the woman begged and screamed for help — had long criminal histories and belonged to gangs based near the Osceola-Polk County Line."