Original subtitles

[rain falling]

[indistinct talking over radio]

License.

[Bercovici]: There's a belief in police work that every major

investigation starts with a traffic stop.

One of the things about a traffic stop,

it's probably the most dangerous thing that we do.

What happened in Burbank that night, simple traffic stop,

[gunshots blasting]

Which led to the manhunt for a cop killer,

David Garcia,

which led to going after gangs that were working

with the Mexican mafia and the Mexican drug cartels,

and then we discovered that they have infiltrated

the city government in Burbank,

and you just... you know, you really can't make that up.

[gunshot blasts]

This stuff doesn't happen in the city of Burbank,

and it did.

[sirens wailing]

What started as the murder of my son

got bigger and bigger and bigger.

They had a direct pipeline source to a super lab

from Mexico.

[man] Rival drug cartels have waged a deadly war.

[man #2] Victims have suffered violent death.

[man #3] Twelve more dead bodies found today.

Influence and money... They've got it all.

It was shocking to me that someone

at the top of city government was

swept up in the investigation.

A lot of people watched "The Wire,"

but we lived it.

♪♪

♪♪

[Bercovici] The clock was ticking on us.

Garcia's on the run, and if he was able to escape,

there is that fear that these guys are emboldened

to take on the cops, and you know they have

access to high-grade weaponry,

so we needed to catch the guy.

We're gonna send a message that you don't do this,

that you don't get away with it.

When he was relocated to Mexico, to Tijuana,

he didn't get there by himself.

There was some support there.

Now who was it?

[detective] Is that David you're talking about?

[Barba] Yeah, that... That's him, that's David.

[detective] For sure that's the guy, or maybe?

[Barba] No, that's him.

[Tim Stehr] We get a thorough interview from Alfredo Barba

and he tells us everything that happens.

He takes us through all the steps.

David Garcia runs from the crime scene.

He runs all the way to his neighborhood,

and that's where he runs De Leon,

and De Leon gives him a ride up to another house

in Arleta.

Luis Sandoval was a shot caller in that gang,

and he said, wow,

we gotta get... we got to get David Garcia out of here.

And Luis knew he had to get

someone that was clean to... to do this.

So he used Alfredo Barba, because

he didn't have a criminal record.

No one would be able to attach Alfredo Barba with the gang.

Luis Sandoval called Barba

"and said, "Take this guy, take him into Mexico

and hook him up with a Vineland Boy gang member."

His name was Eric Avina.

Eric Avina had a warrant for his arrest for gun violations.

That's why he was hiding there.

Alfredo Barba says, "Okay," loads him in a car

and delivers, uh, David Garcia into Mexico.

Alfredo Barba told us, "The last time I saw David Garcia,

I brought him to Eric Avina, across the border."

[Tim] We don't know if he's still there.

We don't know where in Mexico he is.

Our goal was to get Eric Avina now.

[Tony Burke] Now we're basically down

to one person away, who last,

possibly still has or last had contact with him.

Who physically has or knows the location of our fugitive.

[detective] Alfredo Luis.

[Tim] And Barba said to find Luis Sandoval and get information from him.

[investigator] You said, your friend Luis Sandoval...

[Adam Bercovici] Sandoval was supposedly the guy

that, you know, masterminded the entire thing.

[Tim] We can get him then,

we can maybe get David Garcia.

So, the detectives that were talking to Alfredo Barba

had learned that he, as a facilitator, he did different things.

[Barba] I do errands for him.

Like, he rented

a location to do a marijuana grow, he got the phones,

he also fed the dogs,

that were at the marijuana grow.

Uh, they were pitbull dogs that were there to guard

the outside perimeter of the grow house.

And he would have to ask for money from Luis Sandoval.

So, the idea was now, let's get Alfredo Barba

to reach out to Luis Sandoval

and say he needs to meet him for some money.

[Barba] Luis? Yeah, yeah it's me.

Yeah, I'm good, I'm good.

[Tim] And the plan was

to get Luis Sandoval there,

get him in custody before he can make a phone call

to Mexico or wherever David Garcia is.

[police officer] There's a pedestrian walking towards our location.

[Tim] We hear somebody sees him.

Luis Sandoval doesn't like the look of it.

The decision's made by the team out there,

to box him in and take Luis Sandoval into custody.

He sees him coming and the chase is on.

[tires screeching]

[police siren wailing]

[helicopter blades whirring]

[Tim] And we finally have Luis Sandoval.

And Luis Sandoval refuses to talk to anyone.

He refuses to talk to investigators,

the District Attorney, Craig Richman goes to talk to him.

Several different investigators say,

"We wanna explain to him the gravity of this,

explain what he's looking at."

You know, and that he needs to help us, you know, David Garcia.

Luis Sandoval refuses.

Luis Sandoval never tells us

anything about where David Garcia is.

So now, we're really under the gun.

Now, coming up with another plan is imminent.

And I will, again my hats off to my investigators.

They... Still talking to Alfredo Barba.

Alfredo Barba tells them...

They say, "Hey, you think you could make a call

to a person in Mexico and say hey, I'm coming down there.

I'm on my way down, Luis wants me to give you some money."

[Barba] No, not at all, it'd be normal.

[Tim] Barba said that this is something

that would be normal for him to do.

He said Eric Avina would want the money.

So we discuss it as a group.

And I'll say, probably half the people are telling me

"You know, Timothy, they're gonna know."

They're gonna know this is a setup.

If we use Alfredo Barba and send him down there,

they're gonna kill Alfredo Barba,

"because they know he's working with us."

And I said, "I don't believe we're doing that."

[Tim] We didn't have any indication that there was a call

from Luis Sandoval to Eric Avina.

I made the decision, we're gonna go ahead and try that plan.

[Tim] We were gonna take Alfredo Barba

and we were gonna drive into Tijuana, all of us.

And Alfredo Barba was gonna point out Eric Avina

and we're gonna take him into custody there.

Then we can maybe get to wherever David Garcia is.

[Barba] Yo, I was calling because I wanted to...

So Alfredo Barba makes the call into Mexico.

And we tell him, "You tell him, I'm already almost there."

And this was the eve of Thanksgiving.

[Tim] I go to the heliport with Alfredo Barba.

Start heading south down to the border.

The challenge in Mexico

is the corruption factor within law enforcement.

[Tim] I think it's pretty common knowledge,

how many are on payroll of drug cartels.

You have to find the right police to work with down there.

And that's what the Marshals do.

[Burke] On our task force, that's something that

Joe Chavarria or Don Vasquez specialize in.

[Scott Samuels] Joe was known for his ability

to reach out and talk to the right people in Mexican law enforcement.

We needed to figure out how were we going to grab this guy,

how are we gonna do it lawfully.

We're now dealing with a sovereign nation.

[Tim] It is explained to me that they don't trust the local police officers.

So, it was kinda touchy.

We link up Captain Stehr with Don Vasquez.

[Tim] He's one of the undercovers, he goes back and forth.

[Samuels] He's famous in the Marshal Service for his work in Mexico.

He probably kind of looked more,

more like a street urchin or a homeless person.

But he worked very effectively in Tijuana

and he blends in well.

Kind of like you know, myself, I don't necessarily look like

a police officer.

[Tim] Twenty minutes later, I'm in the car with him

driving into Mexico.

[crowd milling]

[dog barking]

[Tim] Goal was to get Eric Avina.

[phone ringing]

And the plan was that Alfredo Barba will get on the phone,

call him out,

while the U.S. Marshals would then call the Federales.

So that the Federales could take him into custody.

Barba had told Eric Avina

to meet him in front of a bar on Revolution Street.

Gave him the name of the bar.

Meanwhile me and Vasquez,

were waiting in the shadows, you know, watching.

Standing around he's looking, he's getting impatient.

We have Alfredo Barba telling him, "Just wait."

"I'm almost there, I'm almost there, I'm almost there."

I thought he was gonna leave.

It was just taking too long.

Finally, we see

some people jump out of a car.

[Burke] Mexican police just come up, grab him

throw a black bag over his head.

And throw him in the back of a vehicle

where two people jumped on top of him and took off.

[tires screeching]

[Burke] Captain Stehr, he's like, "Oh, my god! what just happened?

Was that the police or the cartel?"

[speaking Spanish]

Vasquez told me, "We got to get out of here."

[siren wailing]

Because the local police are gonna come.

They thought that it might be reported as some kidnapping.

[Tim] Now, we're on Thanksgiving morning.

Everybody had been up all night,

and no one's with their families.

[Burke] Eric Avina told me

that he's at one of these two addresses.

In Mexico, in Tijuana.

U.S. Marshals called the Federales.

Say, "Listen, will you allow us to come in

and go with us, to find David Garcia?"

Not sure which house, they're fairly close together.

But you know, be like, you know three or four streets apart.

Two different addresses.

But there was a pizza delivery

to this one house

and, you know, they didn't see who got the pizza, just saw the pizza man

and they see the Mexican police.

Once that pizza man left, they interviewed him really quick

and said, "Hey, was this guy there?"

He's like, "Yeah that's who I delivered the pizza to."

[sirens wailing]

[Burke] That was it, that's all they needed.

I think they actually surrounded the house with something like,

25-30 officers.

And kicked in the door

and did a full-blown raid into that house.

And apprehended Garcia.

I called Tom Hoefel immediately.

Told him we had David Garcia.

Ah but,

we don't have him across the border yet.

[Tim] Told us to send a couple people to the border.

I went, two other people went to the border.

One of them had Matt Pavelka's handcuffs.

We waited and we're waiting,

my phone rings

and it's the U.S. Marshals.

And they go, "Tim",

your Chief of Police is going to get a call

from some government official,

"do not let him take that call."

[phone ringing]

[Tim] "They're trying to make this political, do not let him take that call."

[phone ringing]

'Cause until he's processed

through Mexican immigration and deported,

we don't have him.

Politics can get in the middle of that.

And have Mexican heads of immigration,

mayors, governors

and sometimes people want to use it for their political gain

or, you know, some press on it.

Even lawyers in the area

are trying to get their notoriety,

and see if they can get him off.

And you never know what's gonna happen.

[phone ringing]

We're all on pins and needles,

it's been a little longer than usual.

[phone ringing]

The Chief of Police actually gets a phone call from a Mexico number.

Ends up that it's the governor, I said, "Just don't get the phone."

[phone ringing]

♪♪

[Tim] So it was Thanksgiving morning.

Here we stood at the border.

It had been...

a long road to get here.

And I wasn't gonna be satisfied until we had him

and till we put our handcuffs on him.

[Tim] They did call, they did call for the Chief.

He didn't take the call and then we sat with pins and needles

to wonder what's gonna happen next.

We did not know if that meant

now we're not gonna get him,

now they're not gonna give him to us.

[Tim] And finally,

probably 40 minutes later,

we see a hooded person being walked.

[Tim] I see Don Vasquez walking next to the hooded person

and that's David Garcia.

And they bring him to the border

and I had instructed

the two officers that were with me, "As soon as he's within reach,

just grab him."

We finally have David Garcia.

And...

it was almost surreal.

It had already been arranged what car he was gonna be in,

that he was gonna be in the car with some investigators

and driven back with a caravan, back to Burbank.

[Tim] Matt Pavelka's handcuffs were put on him.

And they stayed on him,

until we got him into the jail at Burbank Police Department.

[car starting]

[Tim] On the way back,

he gave a full confession to the investigators.

[Scott Meadows] I drove him to the jail.

And he was very frank

and admitted to the whole thing.

[gunshot]

[Meadows] If I were to tell you

what I ate for breakfast, for example,

that's about the same amount of emotion that came out.

I saw in his face

something that just so struck me as evil.

[Tim] I did call then, back at the command post.

And I told him that we had gotten David Garcia.

And they all were screaming on the phone

that they were so happy it's over.

[Darin Ryburn] It just erupted

in cheers, backslaps, high fives.

Right after all the cheering,

Chief Hoefel and I got in the car.

At the time Mike and Sue weren't home, they were at a friend's house.

And here comes

the Chief of Burbank

and I thought what the heck are they doing here, you know.

They said, "Well, we came to give you some good news."

Chief Hoefel told them that David Garcia was in custody.

So...

we all cried and...

It was a good day.

[Bercovici] It was Thanksgiving night, right?

And bunch of us were standing on the steps of the station.

And I saw something, to this day I'll never forget.

Somebody said, "They're on their way, they're coming."

And people from all over the community of Burbank,

ran to be at the foot of the...

of the steps of the police station.

Chief Hoefel came out, our brass showed up.

That's when the formal announcement was given

that Garcia had been taken into custody.

[Mike Pavelka] Tonight, we are very pleased

that David Garcia is in custody.

And we are here to say thanks to those that worked so hard,

including the Mexican authorities that cooperated.

[Tim] Burbank's a tight-knit community.

Many took this as one of their own that was shot and killed.

There was a candlelight vigil outside of our station.

And I believe over 2,000 people came.

[woman] At this time, it is my honor and pleasure

to introduce the Mayor of the city of Burbank, Stacey Murphy.

[Ryburn] Stacey Murphy was a huge supporter of the police department.

I mean, she loved us.

She, you know, she thought we were great.

[Stacey Murphy] Matthew loved life and possessed the values

we expect of every sworn law enforcement officer.

Honesty, hard work and dedication.

Let tonight be about committing to keeping his spirit

and the principles he stood for alive.

[applause]

[Mike Pavelka] Matthew would be proud to know

how much effort

by different law enforcement agencies was put in

to the eventual capture

of David Garcia in Mexico.

After the manhunt,

the war wasn't over.

The Vineland Boyz were out of control.

[John Williams] The gang has been involved

in killing police officers,

they have obviously no respect to human life

and no fear.

We were gonna keep pushing and turn up the heat.

On the investigators side, you know,

now the work really starts.

[police radio chatter]

What I remember, John Williams looked up at me and he said,

"We need someone who's an expert on this stuff."

We need Dan Jenks.

[Jenks] My supervisor contacted me and said,

"Hey, they're starting a task force

on the Vineland Boyz and I want you to head the investigation."

[Williams] Dan's the best that we had at putting a case like this together.

They had just had another big case

against the Shoreline Crips gang

with a big water case, it was very successful.

So it was not a hard sell to get Dan Jenks involved.

[Jenks] I was assigned to go to Burbank PD, I'd never been there before.

I stopped and picked up Dan Fournier,

who was assigned to the gang unit.

And I went into my first meeting for the task force.

[Fournier] So Dan Jenks, I really didn't know much about Dan Jenks,

but from the first meeting we had with him,

I was like, wow, just impressed.

Like, this guy really knows what he's talking about.

[Jenks] It was a clear stated goal at the beginning.

We knew that we had a problem that we'd identified

and we needed to figure out how to address it.

It was an odd position to find myself in,

I've been assigned to investigate a gang

but the crime has already been solved.

The murder of Pavelka

and the attempted murder of Campbell,

were solved by Burbank PD.

It was well handled and over with

when I first started in December.

But the mission

of dismantling the gang was something new to me

and it made me

feel a sense of awesome responsibility.

[Jenks] When I sat in that first briefing, I was advised

that, you know, the Vineland Boyz were selling narcotics

out of the Ramada Inn that night the Pavelka was killed.

The type of weapons they had

high-powered weapons, fully automatic weapons,

really concerned us.

But when I saw a hundred grams in the car,

that's a significant amount of drugs

and it'd been high quality.

Generally all the high quality methamphetamine comes

from super labs down in Mexico

associated with drug trafficking organizations and cartels.

David Garcia and Ramon Aranda,

the two people involved in the Pavelka shooting were,

what we considered street-level gang members.

But obviously we wanted to focus

on who was supplying them,

what was their importation point, to get to the root cause of it

and see if we can dismantle their organization.

I knew it was gonna be a challenge right from the beginning.

So having just come off the Venice Shoreline case,

it looked like the perfect opportunity to,

for lack of a better term, put the band back together.

[Dave Torres] 2003, and 2004, I was, um,

assigned to an LAPD, DEA Task Force,

given the same federal powers as federal DEA agents.

HIDTA Group 51, it's an acronym

for High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.

Detective Jenks was asking about our group and,

you know, my initial response was, "Good luck."

It's very difficult

to prosecute a federal case

because you have to get the United States Attorney to agree that the case

is worthy of their time, basically.

[Torres] What other law enforcement thought about Vineland Boyz,

that they were just regular street gang members

who had involved in street stuff, street robberies

car jackings, burglaries, just simple things.

I got the feeling

it was something bigger.

[Adam] Matt Pavelka, Jim Beyea,

both were shot and killed by the Vineland Boyz.

[Fournier] The ultimate goal is to cut the head off the gang.

Because the higher-ups, the shot callers are just as culpable

as Ramon Aranda and David Garcia.

It's like reading a book,

you always want to get to the last chapter and see

who the main kingpin in it and where the narcotics are coming from.

But at that time, I didn't know.

The leaders of the gang don't actually go out

and handle the drugs with their own hands,

they don't drive, pick them up and deliver.

They make sure they're at least once or twice removed

and it can't be tied back to them.

[Jenks] So, our initial plan was to work from the bottom-up.

Let's find out, okay, you got the lowline drug dealer.

Okay, well, where is he getting his dope from?

Then you get that guy.

Okay now, you know who that guy is, now you go up,

see who his associates are, who he's dealing with.

And then you get up to the next guy, you slowly move up the level

till you get to the top.

You know, it's easy to tell who's out on the street selling drugs

and you can put in undercover officers, informants.

We started to having surveillance conducted.

If you've got a bunch of guys coming in,

you know, parking isolated from everybody else.

Trunks go open,

doors go open,

there's a sudden exchange.

Guess what? You probably have a drug deal.

[Jenks] And then if they did make an arrest, we would go

interview these people, and see if we can develop

intelligence or make them an informant.

We were able to buy some drugs and make some arrests and search some search warrants.

We did that quite a bit for the first couple of months.

But we were not able to breakthrough

and get their source of supply or the hierarchy of the gang

through those arrests.

People just wouldn't cooperate.

So the traditional investigative measures

were not helping us get to the main organizers in the gang.

So we needed a new investigative strategy.

[phone dialing]

[line dialing]

[dog barking]

[man 1 speaking Spanish]

[man 2 speaking Spanish]

[man 1 speaking Spanish]

To take down a gang of this sophistication,

you need to get up on their phones

and the he only way to do that is through a wiretap.

[men conversing in Spanish]

[phone chatter]

[line ringing]

[Jenks] A wiretap is a unique law enforcement tool.

Gives us the ability to really get the inside of what's going on.

Who's communicating with who?

Who's involved in narcotics transaction?

Who's dealing in weapons?

[chatter in Spanish]

But it can only be used as a last resort.

So you can't start with a wiretap.

In order to get in a wiretap basically, we have to show

that all other investigations we've done,

tried to do it, wouldn't work.

And that's what we did.

[shutter clicking]

On April 12th, 2004, we got the first series of wiretaps

that were signed by a federal judge.

[chatter in Spanish]

[Jenks] As the wire developed, we needed somebody that spoke Spanish.

[phone ringing]

[Carlos Camacho] So at the time I was working gangs in North Hollywood.

[chatter in Spanish]

But I grew up in Los Angeles.

And during the late 80's,

there was so many gangs.

So many shootings, so many killings.

[police sirens wailing]

[Camacho] Gang members typically intimidate

the community that they are in.

One summer night

when I was in the eighth grade,

I was with my friend, my neighbor.

And we were riding our bicycles.

And all of a sudden,

some gang members came up to us

and started asking us where we were from.

And I wasn't from a gang

and I said, "Hey, I'm from nowhere."

And that's when he put the gun to my forehead

and said, "I'm gonna kill you, where are you from?"

And...

I said, "I'm from nowhere."

After that I was afraid,

afraid to be in front of my house.

And that's,

that's why I wanted to be a police officer.

I didn't want to be afraid.

And I didn't want other people to have to be afraid.

[line ringing]

[voice in Spanish]

[Camacho] On wiretaps...

[voice in Spanish]

...you would see their family side of it, you know,

taking care of the kids, picking up the kids from school,

birthday parties, being there for their event for their kids,

their baseball games.

And then you would see a whole different side

which was the criminal aspect.

[voice in Spanish]

Yes, most wiretaps when you have criminal activities

and they're discussing criminal activities, they try to be coded.

[voice in Spanish]

[Camacho] For instance, we had

some narcotics that they called the Audi

and we're like, "What are they talking about?"

[voices in Spanish]

And the high amounts of Audi, who has

ten or 20 Audis?

That's just not, it doesn't make sense, right?

They're probably not importing cars from Germany.

But when we started sending surveillance teams,

and sure enough,

they would seize narcotics

with an Audi symbol on the very top.

And that put it all together.

[phone ringing]

[Camacho] We actually make a glossary.

A Kuiper for quarter, an ounce of Marijuana or...

The Crys or the Crystal

or the Blanco, the blight, the powder.

Ventanas, in Spanish, they would say ventanas,

which is a glass.

[Jenks] Amphetamine.

It looked like little window panes,

or little pieces of broken shards of glass.

They were talking about Motores.

So, they would say, use,

"Hey, bring me the motors, I'm ready for the motors."

But what these codes mean, this conjecture,

until you actually see the seizures.

[voice in Spanish]

One particular case, somebody wanted to buy two motors.

[phone dialing]

[line ringing]

[men conversing in Spanish]

[police siren wailing]

[Jenks] Ultimately, was able to get on that purchaser

and stop that car.

And got two kilos.

So now, you know, it's consistent that

two kilos of cocaine that were seized,

were the two motors they were talking about,

with the participant who was on the phone.

Realized we got it right.

So then we start making determinations

about what code they're speaking,

what crimes they're involved in

and then the case started gaining momentum.

[policeman over radio]

[Jenks] As the case went on, I saw more narcotics

than I did in the entire three years

I was assigned to narcotics.

At one point we got, I believe was 47 kilos of cocaine.

It's a lot of narcotics.

I met with this sergeant out there that was running the crew

and he was excited because they had found

this picture.

[Torres] We had a individual,

last name was Chaidez.

Chaidez was identified as a higher-up,

probably a lieutenant within the Sinaloa Cartel.

El Chapo ran the Sinaloa Cartel.

[Fournier] I mean, come on, it went all the way to Chapo Guzman.

Cartel, I mean that's how big the organization was.

I mean, that's a shock.

I think it woke us up.

[chatter over radio]

There was a photo for a wedding.

So that tells you the personal connection

between the gang and the Sinaloa Cartels.

We found out later

that the link basically was Mariano Meza.

Mariano Meza was married to the sister

of Luis Sandoval.

[Williams] Sandoval, he was the one that got

Garcia taken that night within hours of the shooting,

across the border into Mexico.

[Jenks] So it kinda went full circle.

[Bruce Applin] Consider the gravity of that realization,

that the Vineland Boyz were connected with the Chapo Guzman organization.

We were like, "Hey, wait a minute,

so they co-opted these street gangs."

You know, they actually created a method of distribution

with these gangs

that, we up to this point kinda considered localized street gangs.

And the answer to that was yes.

[Mundo] In 2004, El Chapo Guzman was not a household name.

So, it might not have been common knowledge to the average person.

But the Mexican cartels

were already deeply entrenched

in the United States.

Street gangs and prison gangs, all fit into their puzzle.

[Iaon Grillo speaking]

Chapo Guzman of Sinaloa Cartel.

Which is arguably still the richest and most powerful

drug cartel in Mexico.

[Grillo] El Chapo escaped from prison in 2001,

after he'd been in prison for eight years.

When he came out in 2001 and he started rebuilding,

he was very aggressive.

So in this period, the Sinaloa Cartel is bringing in

tons and tons and tons of cocaine,

tons of crystal meth.

If you're a member of a Mexican Cartel, and you can cultivate

a gang like the Vineland Boyz, to sell their product,

at a large scale,

they would love that.

They would have representation on this side of the border.

[Grillo] If you have a ton of cocaine,

the Sinaloa Cartel could buy that ton of cocaine

for $2 million.

And then that ton of cocaine could be worth a $150 Million in American streets.

So it's just huge amounts of profits there being made.

So then, you have these street gangs

with some of them forging closer ties to the cartels and trying to move up.

The higher you move up, the cheaper you can buy drugs

and the more money you can make.

Vineland Boyz were trafficking any large amounts of narcotics.

Millions of million of dollars.

[Jenks] And we started looking at the criminal histories

and where these guys had been arrested.

They'd been arrested in Kentucky for selling pounds of cocaine.

Been arrested in North Carolina.

Atlanta, Tennessee, Hawaii.

Their activities ran across the entire country.

[Bercovici] The crazy thing about all of this is

that the Vineland Boyz weren't just importing drugs.

They were importing the cartel's culture and their violence.

That was surprising to me.

They were basically doing all the same things

the cartels do in Mexico, whether it be their music,

the narcocorridoes.

[hip-hop music playing]

We're hearing those all the time on the wiretap.

The drug sales,

the worshipping

of the Saints that protect them,

the cockfighting.

[indistinct shouting]

We had a lot of murders involving Vineland Boyz.

And these murders were cartel-style murders.

People shot in the back of the head, people in the trunks of car,

people kidnapped, tied up and tortured in garages.

[Camacho] The similarities were very clear.

They were trying to be or,

being like the cartels in Mexico,

in our own backyard.

As it turned out, the leader of the Vineland Boyz

lived just several blocks from where I lived

at the time, in a multi-million dollar home.

It's kinda like living with The Sopranos,

right next door.

[Mike Pavelka] There's no part of society

that many of have these gangs and the cartels don't touch.

[Bercovici] What was shocking is how deep this thing went.

We discovered that in the city of Burbank,

there was corruption connected to these gangs.

[Mike Pavelka] During several of the memorials

that we went to the candlelight vigil,

we got to know council members Stacey Murphy.

It's my sincere hope that when we walk away

from this candlelight vigil tonight,

will keep what we know about Matthew Pavelka in our hearts and souls.

Cocaine, three handguns and approximately 900 rounds of ammunition,

were seized from that residence.

[Mike Pavelka] Later, it came out that she and her boyfriend

were involved with the Vineland Boyz.

[officer] It is also known that Mr. Shaffer has 19 handguns registered to

and then on at least two separate occasions,

he has provided known Vineland Boyz gang members

with handguns, in exchange for cocaine.

I was, I was actually shocked when I found out that

that she was involved with cocaine

and he was involved in trading weapons for drugs.

Who knows what kind of information was being passed along.

[Bercovici] One thing this case taught us,

that the reach of the cartels is insidious.

I don't know what Stacey Murphy's motivation was.

But what I do know is, somebody that was in the position of trust

was drawn in by bad people.

It doesn't get uglier than that.

[tape whirring]

[Jenks] That night that they made this large seizure,

on the Vineland Boyz.

Now seeing this picture,

we began to realize

we made a significant connection.

As an investigator, once you

tie into these drug trafficking organizations

and cartels in Mexico,

then you start being able to get

the rest of what's available through the federal government.

And that support the logistics and money.

Because what we are up against was a group

that had means, opportunity and financing

to thwart our efforts.

[siren wailing]

[Bercovici] Case was now gonna go in the long haul.

We were going to take this to the full measure

and do what we had to do to bring these people to justice.

[man] I don't know, dog.

[Bercovici] We rode that wire for another 12 months.

We had car chases, we had suspects murdered

right in front of surveillance teams.

We had to try and stop a hitman on the loose in North Carolina.

[siren wailing]

And the ride was gonna get a whole lot wilder before it was over.

[gunshot]

This shit storm landed on Burbank's doorstep

through one simple traffic stop.

[Tim] With Greg Campbell, I specifically remember being told,

"Greg will never walk again."

And you know, that's not true, you know, Greg walks.

[Mike Pavelka] Greg was a fighter, he continues to be a fighter.

So no, he proved them wrong.

[policeman] Down to work limited duty, he drives himself to work now.

He's got a long way to go, but he's with us here tonight.

I just want to introduce you, Greg Campbell over here.

[applause]

[Mike Pavelka] You know, it's astounding that the murder of Matthew

just kept morphing into something bigger and bigger and bigger.

Ultimately, this story being told to me,

and the only reason I'm doing this

and I'm even willing to talk about it is because

of the sacrifice that Matt made.

And that sacrifice, was not in vain.

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