The arrest Thursday of 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, an illegal from El Salvador who operated as the east coast leader of the violent MS-13 gang, is reverberating across local law enforcement agencies in the Washington, D.C. area. MS-13 has long been a plague on the DC suburbs, particularly in Northern Virginia, where many illegals from El Salvador and other Central American countries choose to set up camp.

As a resident of one of those Northern Virginia suburbs, Loudoun County, I was pleased to see such a high-profile arrest of such a low-life criminal. I did, however, also wonder what the arrest would mean for communities like mine, which has suffered the ill-effects of MS-13’s continued presence. So, I reached out to Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman, who was clearly thrilled at this development.

Chapman told RedState:

“I congratulate Attorney General Bondi and our law enforcement partners on today’s arrest of a leader of the violent MS-13 gang. This sends a clear signal to gang members who come to America to commit violent crimes, participate in human trafficking, and distribute illegal drugs. We will track you down and we will arrest you. That has been our approach in Loudoun County, and today’s arrest in our neighboring county should be celebrated by all law-abiding citizens.”

Here are some things to know about Loudoun County (besides the fact the parent revolution of 2021 began with our kooky school board and its vile army of concern-troll moms): we share a border with Fairfax County, a community where common sense has been replaced by woke ideology, and Prince William County (PWC), which is only slightly less woke than Fairfax and where today’s arrest of Santos took place. 

However, unlike Fairfax and PWC, Loudoun has solid leadership in the form of common-sense conservatives like Sheriff Chapman and our commonwealth’s attorney, Bob Anderson.