"SUR-13" - These symbols represent Sureños (Spanish for
"Southerners") a group of Mexican American (Chicano) street gangs
with origins in Southern California.

[1] There are hundreds of Sureño gangs in California, and each has its
own identity on the streets. The gang's strong hold have historically
been in Los Angeles and San Diego. Sureños are controlled and
influenced by the Mexican Mafia, who represent about half of the gang
membership. These gangs are found throughout the urban and rural areas
of Southern California.

*(from wikipedia)

Mexican SUR-13 Gang Defaces Historic Texas Cemetery

http://community-1.webtv.net/historic-cemetery/MexicanSUR13Gang/

(Follow above link to article, comments and NUMEROUS photos)
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Vandals defame tombstones, markers
By Karen Gleason
Del Rio News-Herald

Published November 18, 2007

“I think it’s really sad when people do something like this,” said Dr. Gene Haverlah as he surveyed the black and blue spray painted scrawls on the Wells family marker in the Westlawn Cemetery Saturday morning.

The imposing red granite stone that marks the Wells family plot was one of about a dozen headstones, tombs and monuments defaced by vandals sometime during the past week, Haverlah noted.

The Westlawn Cemetery, which lies just south of Del Rio International Airport at the end of West Second Street, is the final resting place for members of many old Del Rio and Val Verde County families.

Bullriding legend George Paul lies in the Westlawn Cemetery, and his white, above-ground tomb also was attacked by the spray-can wielding vandals.

The vandals also left their marks on a statue depicting the crucifixion of Christ in another part of the cemetery. After scrawling letters and numbers on the statute’s base, they sprayed blue paint on the faces of some of figures ranged below the cross.

Neither was the damage at the cemetery limited to the resting places of the affluent. The vandals had also spray painted small weathered headstones in an older section of the cemetery.

David Allen, owner of A-C Memorials Inc. of San Angelo, joined Haverlah and members of the Wells family to examine the damage to the large marker Saturday morning.

Allen, whose company maintains an office at Del Rio’s Cox Memorial Funeral Home, said cleaning the dense, oily spray paint from even a single marker can cost up to $300 – if the paint can be removed at all.

In some cases, once the spray paint is power-sanded away, it will still leave a faint ghost-image of itself on the stone, Allen said. Then, only time will re-weather the stone, he added.

Allen said he was notified by the Westlawn Cemetery manager Tuesday regarding the attack of vandalism at the cemetery. Allen said the Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office also was notified, since the cemetery lies just outside the Del Rio city limits.
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