Believing they were being interviewed by academics studying gang
activity, members of a Freeport gang revealed plans to blow up police
headquarters and an officer's house with stolen explosives, a federal
agent testified Wednesday.

The purported college professors and graduate students who gained the
trust of the "Vatos Locos" -- Spanish slang for "crazy guys" -- turned
out to be undercover agents who secretly recorded the gang members as
they proudly discussed their activities, authorities said.

"They bought it hook, line and sinker," Freeport Police Chief Evelyn
H. Gonzalez said of the ruse by Drug Enforcement Administration agents.

The plot to use stolen plastic explosives from Fort Hood was discussed
in testimony by DEA Special Agent Wendell Campbell during a federal
arraignment hearing for David Rangel, 21, the alleged head of the
Vatos Locos.

Rangel and 11 other gang members or relatives have been indicted on
various drug-trafficking offenses in connection with the sale of crack
cocaine. He is charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine,
possession with intent to distribute cocaine and employing a minor to
distribute cocaine.

The Vatos Locos planned to drill a hole in a wall at police
headquarters, plant some C-4 plastic explosive and detonate it by
shooting it from a distance, Campbell testified in a Houston federal
court.

He said the gang, which has 40 to 50 members, also schemed to use the
explosives on the home of a Freeport officer and against rival gangs.

Although they had obtained about 4.5 pounds of the explosive -- an
amount that police compared to a 500-pound bomb -- the gang members
apparently did not have a detonator. Campbell said it was highly
unlikely the material could be set off by shooting it.

Authorities first learned that the gang had obtained plastic
explosives after they were found in a junk car in Clute in January
1998. The owner of the car called police after finding the material in
a duffel bag in the car.

After tracing serial numbers on the explosives, Campbell said, federal
agents and military authorities determined that they had been stolen
from a military stockpile at Fort Hood, an Army base in Central Texas.

Federal authorities destroyed the explosives and the FBI is still
investigating the theft, Campbell said.

Gonzalez, the Freeport chief, said that even though the gang didn't
have a detonator to make the explosives lethal, police took their
threats seriously and asked federal authorities to join the
investigation.

"I believe if (the gang) had all the right devices to get this done, I
think they would have made an attempt," she said.

She declined to name the officers the gang members targeted, but said
they also spoke of blowing up a local bank.

In Wednesday's hearing, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Calvin Botley,
Rangel, wearing shorts, sandals and a torn gray T- shirt, pleaded not
guilty. His court-appointed attorney, Marjorie Meyers, declined
comment after the hearing.

Botley ordered Rangel jailed without bond, saying that Rangel has a
"continuous history" of criminal activity and might attempt to flee if
he were released on bond.

Botley cited a list of Rangel's prior arrests on charges including
harassment, retaliation and terroristic threats, manufacture and
distribution of cocaine, theft of services, auto theft, aggravated
assault with a firearm and delivery of a controlled substance.

Rangel also is unemployed, unmarried and allegedly conducted the
leadership of the gang from his mother's Freeport home, Botley said.

During the hearing, Campbell and Assistant U.S. Attorney Claude
Hippard said Rangel and the Vatos Locos had attempted to distribute
more than 50 grams of crack cocaine.

DEA agents have been helping to investigate the gang since 1997, when
Freeport police sought their aid, Campbell said.

Damaging evidence was gained last August and September, during
interviews when federal agents posed as out-of-state university
professors and graduate students researching the gang's activities,
Campbell said.

In several days of interviews that were secretly audio- and
videotaped, he testified, gang members identified Rangel as their
leader and described initiations known as "click ins' or "kick ins,"
in which members were beaten and given bags of crack cocaine to sell.

Campbell said the members range in age from 15 to 25.

Gonzalez said the gang members were eager to talk about their exploits
for what they thought would be an academic survery.

"Most of these gang members are pretty proud of themselves," she
said.