West Drive Locos gang is very heavy into murder
West Drive Locos, now with about 60 members, takes its name from a main north-south street through a tough neighborhood in the middle of the city.Police say the gang's reputed founder, Emilio Avalos, came to the desert from the San Fernando Valley shortly before the gang's founding.“He brought some of the background and knowledge of the L.A. gangs he knew out there to form the gang as we know it today,” Monis said.Avalos, 31, is currently jailed awaiting a May murder trial for the Dec. 19, 2001, drive-by slaying of Marine Cpl. Henry Lozano, 20, in Desert Hot Springs. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.Lozano was dating Avalos' ex-girlfriend. As Lozano left his girlfriend's home on Third Street, Avalos was lying in wait in a car at the corner, police say. As Lozano turned to head north on Palm Drive, slowing for a drainage channel in an intersection, Avalos allegedly pulled alongside Lozano's Ford Focus and riddled it with gunfire.The Marine's death shocke...