Almighty Saints

After the formation of the People Nation and Folk Nation during the 1980s, the Saints initially decided to remain renegades, refusing to align with either Nation. By the late 1980s to early 1990s, many Saint gang members were incarcerated within the prison system which led the Saints to join the People Nation for protection. They were brought into the People Nation by the Almighty Latin Kings as cousins, hence the addition of "Almighty" ... and the five-point star.[2]

On May 4, 2018, at approximately 3:15 a.m., 27 year old Almighty Saints gang member Ernesto “Ernie” Godinez was acting as a lookout for his gang in Chicago's Back of the Yards neighborhood when he opened fire on members of an undercover joint task force who he mistook as rival gang members, striking 28 year old ATF agent Kevin Crump. Crump and other agents were placing court-approved tracking devices on vehicles belonging to suspected gang members during a joint mission by Chicago Police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Kevin Crump and other members of the strike force were acting on information that the Almighty Saints gang in the Back of the Yards might have just received a number of guns, according to a law enforcement source. Crump was part of the strike force formed in June 2017 to cut the flow of illegal guns into Chicago and crack down on people repeatedly arrested on gun charges. 20 ATF agents were assigned to the task force, along with a number of officers from the Chicago Police Department and the Illinois State Police. No other officers were hurt in the incident, but he was the 4th law enforcement officer shot in the city's Back of the Yards neighborhood in the past year, the Tribune reported. Previously in the area, two Chicago police officers were shot with a high-powered rifle while driving in an undercover van in May 2017, one officer was hit in the arm and hip, the other in the back. Another officer was shot in the leg in July 2017 while chasing down robbers in the vicinity of 46th Street and Ashland Avenue. The Back of the Yards neighborhood had become a hotbed for gang-related shootings in the past two years, leading to the deaths of 50 people out of the more than 140 that had been hit by gunfire from the fall of 2016 to the end of 2017 by gang members wielding rifles as their use spread across the South and Southwest sides. ATF agent Kevin Crump was not hit by rifle fire. Sources said 9 mm bullet casings, presumably from the suspect's handgun, were found by investigators. A Chicago police officer also returned fire but did not manage to hit anyone. The shooting prompted a massive manhunt for the gunman, as hundreds of officers from specialized gang and organized crime units were reassigned to take part in the search for the suspect while a $61,000 reward was also offered in the case. The FBI and ATF each offered a $25,000 reward for information. The U.S. Marshals Service committed $10,000 and community activist Andrew Holmes $1,000. Police and federal agents scoured the Back of the Yards neighborhood for days after the shooting, executing at least eight search warrants. Agents in full armor used battering rams to knock down doors over the weekend. On the evening of May 7, 2018, Godinez turned himself in to federal agents after his attorney said surrender arrangements were made with authorities. According to some sources, the terms of surrender were worked out during conversations that had occurred over the weekend. On May 8, 2018 Godinez was charged in a federal criminal complaint with the assault of a Federal Officer with a dangerous and deadly weapon in the shooting of an ATF agent in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood as undercover law enforcement agents conducted a middle-of-the-night “covert” operation. The charges were announced by John R. Lausch Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Celinez Nunez, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives; and Eddie T. Johnson, Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department. On May 16, 2018, Godinez, 28, was formally indicted on a single count of assaulting an ATF agent with a deadly weapon. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Eichenseer said footage showed Godinez, driving around his block in the Back of the Yards neighborhood shortly before the shooting, “essentially patrolling the neighborhood, presumably on the lookout for rival gang members.” Godinez’s lawyer, Lawrence Hyman, argued that the evidence against Godinez was flimsy. Authorities had no evidence showing that Godinez even had a gun that night, he said. Hyman called the allegations that Godinez shot at someone a half a block away “an absurdity.” He also suggested the agent may have been struck by return fire from his colleagues. On May 21, 2018 Godinez pled not guilty to charges accusing him of shooting an undercover federal agent who was part of a "covert" operation near his house in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. Prosecutors alleged that Godinez fired five rounds from the mouth of the gangway toward the agents down the block, striking the victim in the face. Godinez's lawyer, Lawrence Hyman, had ridiculed the evidence in court as "flimsy", noting the video didn’t show that Godinez had a gun that night. On June 17, 2019 a federal jury found Ernesto "Ernie" Godinez, guilty of assault of a federal officer and of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. The jury deliberated less than three hours before finding Godinez guilty of one count each of assaulting an agent with a deadly weapon and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime stemming from the May 2018 shooting in the gang-infested Back of the Yards neighborhood. Federal prosecutors said surveillance cameras captured Godinez leaving his house at 43rd and Wood moments before the shooting, then walking down an alley toward 44th and Hermitage just before the shooting, and running back through the alley to his house moments after the attack. While the shooting itself was not captured, prosecutors alleged Godinez fired five rounds from the mouth of the gangway toward the group of undercover agents. Shortly after the shooting, prosecutors said Godinez hopped into a car with his girlfriend, Victoria Jean-Baptiste and allegedly told her, “I feel good . . . f--- that flake.” When Baptiste took the stand last week, she said Godinez told her, “I feel good.” In his closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Eichenseer said the cameras — as well as Godinez’s text messages with his girlfriend — showed that he had “posted up” in the neighborhood looking for rivals when several suspicious-looking men in hooded sweatshirts began circling his block in a brown Chevrolet Impala. At the time, the task force officers — including Crump — were dressed in sweatshirts with their hoods up and were driving unmarked vehicles according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Kavitha Babu. Feeling that “something was about to go down,” Godinez sprinted through an alley to his home and retrieved a gun, then ran to the gangway knowing that it offered perfect cover, Eichenseer said. As the agents walked down the street a half a block away, Godinez fired off five shots in their direction in a little over two seconds, then ran back to his house and texted his girlfriend to come pick him up, Eichenseer said. When he got in the car, Godinez was sweating and out of breath. Defense attorney Lawrence Hyman used his closing argument to point out a person in a white shirt who also appeared on surveillance video. One of the ATF agents at the scene the night of the shooting testified that, after the shooting started, he turned and saw “an individual with a white shirt down the block.” Hyman also told jurors that Godinez had stashed his marijuana in a trap house in the gangway and ran away after the shooting began. “He did not fire a gun at all,” Hyman said. However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kavitha Babu called the idea of a mystery shooter in a white shirt a “distraction.” That person appeared on the surveillance video nearly a half-hour before the shooting, she said. Five fresh bullet casings were found in the gangway, from which the shooter would have had a clear shot at the ATF agent, prosecutors said. A ShotSpotter sensor also indicated that the shots came from the gangway. Prosecutors said a bullet entered ATF agent Kevin Crump’s neck and exited between his eyes. Crump suffered permanent damage to his vision, no longer had tear ducts in his left eye, and sustained nerve damage to the left side of his face. Crump, who testified last week, needed several reconstructive surgeries including steel mesh and titanium implants to repair his injuries. Godinez faced up to 20 years in prison for the assault conviction, and a minimum of 10 additional years for the firearm conviction. On December 4, 2019, U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber sentenced Godinez to 16 years and 8 months in prison.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]

On February 12, 2006, 23-year-old Francisco Romero, a member of the Saints, escaped from Cook County Jail along with five other inmates. He had been convicted of murder and sentenced to 45 years in prison. He was later captured.[17]

In December 2004, there was a police raid in the Saints neighborhood dubbed "Operation Broken Halo"; 25 members were arrested and detained in prison on drug dealing and weapons charges. The Saints were still very active in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.[18]

In 1998, a 12-year-old boy shot two teen Gangster Disciple members in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, in the hope of joining the Almighty Saints street gang.[19]The 12 year old was later convicted in juvenile court and sentenced to prison until his 21st birthday.

• Latino gangs in Chicago