Toonerville Rifa 13, also known as The Ville, is a
Mexican-American street gang
A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collective ...
located in
Los Angeles county
Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is th ...
.
History
Toonerville Rifa 13 was formed in the 1930s in North East
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...
and South
Glendale. Prior to taking the name of Toonerville in the early 1940s, the gang was known as the "Latin Souls." The change to "Toonerville" came in the 1940s and named after the Pacific Electric Railway trolley that used to run through Atwater Village and South Glendale. The Pacific Electric Trolley was referred to by locals as the "Toonerville Trolley," after the cartoon trolley featured in the
Toonerville Folks comic strip. Around 1960s and 1970s, Toonerville was known to be involved in drive by shootings, homicides, robberies, assaults and burglaries within Glendale.
Toonerville or TVR 13 has a history of brutal violence and murder against enemy
street gangs
A gang is a social group, group or secret society, society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over Territory (animal), territory in a communi ...
and the
police
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest a ...
.
One of the members,
Timothy Joseph McGhee
Timothy Joseph McGhee (born April 27, 1973) is a convicted serial killer and Toonerville Rifa 13 gang member from the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. He is alleged to be responsible for at least 12 homicides between 1997 ...
, was sentenced to death in 2009 for his role in three separate homicides. Additionally, he is suspected of taking part in as many as twelve murders in the Los Angeles area.
U.S. Department of Justice
/ref> TVR 13 claims Atwater Village
Atwater Village is a neighborhood in the 13th district of Los Angeles, California. Much of Atwater Village lies in the fertile Los Angeles River flood plain. Located in the northeast region of the city, Atwater borders Griffith Park and Silver La ...
, Glendale, and Tujunga as its turf.
See also
* List of California street gangs
References
External links
Timothy McGhee laughs during sentencingGang leader convicted of murders Timothy Mcghee may face death in killing of rivals
* ttp://www.streetgangs.com/topics/2003/011203capt.html L.A. police hunt allegedly murderous gang leaderbr>Toonerville gang injunctionToonerville gang injunction map
{{Organized crime groups in America
Organizations established in the 1930s
1930s establishments in California
Sureños
Latino street gangs
Gangs in Los Angeles
Mexican-American culture in Los Angeles
Atwater Village, Los Angeles