A South L.A. gang member known on the streets as "Batman" will now be facing his own kind of justice behind bars, sentenced to a 12-year stint in federal prison for running a drug trafficking ring out of his business storefront. Andrew Tate, 56, who pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute meth and cocaine last August, was handed down his sentence today, as reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California.

Tate's conviction is the final chapter in "Operation Hoover Dam" — an indicting sweep that saw 10 members of the notorious Hoover Criminals Gang brought to justice; his market, TNN Market, served as a hub for narcotics distribution, where crack cocaine and meth were passed off to users in a community all too familiar with the vicious cycle of addiction and despair, as per the U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California, Tate's operation along with his accomplice, Bobby Lorenzo Reed, was a back-and-forth trade of supplies and referrals, which kept the drugs flowing and the streets captive to their illicit machinations.

Reed, 59, known by his aliases "Zo" and "Z," who operated H&E Smoke and Snack Shop, is already serving a 10-year sentence after his guilty plea in June of last year; together, they turned their storefronts into drug dens, masquerading as legitimate businesses while they peddled poison. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California, “Tate participated in an extensive and long-running drug conspiracy to sell drugs, including methamphetamine and crack cocaine, in South Los Angeles,” prosecutors emphasized in a sentencing memorandum, and now the DEA, LAPD, and California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation can claim a victory in their extensive investigation, leading to this web of convictions.

The FBI in conjunction with local authorities methodically peeled back the layers of this drug ring to reveal the chokehold it had on South Los Angeles — a community plagued by drug-fueled violence and misery; this sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr., not only marks the end of a significant criminal enterprise but is, perhaps, a signal to those who remain ensnared in this underground market that their time, too, will come, as the city's efforts to reclaim its streets from the grip of gang warfare and substance abuse rage on.