Marine on leave after serving in Iraq, was armed with an SKS rifle and opened fire on officers, hitting Officer Ryno and killing Sergeant Stevenson. On January 9, 2005, in Ceres, California in Stanislaus County, Officer Sam Ryno was the first to respond to a call of a man with a gun in front of George's Liquors. Their receiving members include other Norteños, and in few cases Mexican narcs. Norteños have trafficked drugs across the Mexican border. Tagging (graffiti) to vandalize a rival gang's territory Norteños also use images of the Mexican American labor movement, such as the sombrero, machete, and the logo of the United Farm Workers which is a stylized black Aztec eagle ('Huelga bird'). A Norteño derogatorily refers to a Sureño as a 'scrap' (Hispanicized scrapa) or 'Sur rat' (south rat). Some Norteños will tattoo themselves with four dots. Norteños use the color red to signify affiliation. It is sometimes written in Roman numerals as XIV, or a hybrid of Roman and Arabic numerals, X4. Norteños use the number 14 which represents the fourteenth letter of the English alphabet, the letter N, in order to pay allegiance to Nuestra Familia. This event put into motion the longest-running gang war in the state of California and the founding of Nuestra Familia. The spark that led to the ongoing war between Norteños and members of the Mexican Mafia involved a situation in which a La Eme allegedly stole a pair of shoes from a Northerner. While La Eme had initially been created to protect Mexicans in prison, there was a perceived level of abuse by members of La Eme towards the imprisoned Latinos from rural farming areas of Northern California. Norteños, affiliated with Nuestra Familia, were prison enemies of the Southern Latinos, who are composed of members and affiliates of La Eme, better known as the Mexican Mafia. In 1968, Mexican American inmates of the California state prison system separated into two rival groups, Norteños (northerners) and Sureños (southerners), according to the locations of their hometowns.

The gang's membership consists primarily of Mexican Americans. The statewide north–south dividing line between Norteños and Sureños has roughly been accepted as Bakersfield, California. Their biggest rivals are the Sureños from Southern California. Norteños may refer to Northern California as Norte Califas. Norteños (Spanish: meaning Northerners Norteñas for females) are the various, affiliated gangs that pay tribute to Nuestra Familia while in California state and federal correctional facilities. Mostly in California, Arizona and Texas (Other parts of United States), and Mexico

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