◆ SpookStack

=e tee ae Sraffiti marking ‘turf’ in LA, Grape Street Watts Gang ROL these gangs make a point of staging their ‘ assassinations in broad daylight whenever possible. “You don't kill no mother—~ from across the street.” one young hit man explained toundercover agents. “You walk up to him, you kill him in his head.” Gang culture—the mock-feudal tradi- tion of inner-city kids banding together for comfort, support and mutual protection— has a long-and, seme would say. romantic : history in America. Think of “West Side : Story.” [t is still true that many gangs are : little more than collections of neighbor- hood youths with a penchant for macho posturing, petty crime and street brawls over girls or turf. Recruitment begins ear- ly, in the grade-school years: gang veterans call their young acolytes “peewees” or “wannabees” (want-to-be’s). Though old hands say the custom is dying out. initia- tion by a Los Angeles gang is supposed to be a brutal ritual known as being “courted in” i or “jumped in.” To be jumped in is to re- ceive a beating administered by three or four gang members: the candidate is ex- pected to show his fighting spirit. If he passes the test, the peewee then becomes a “banger” or “gang banger” and is entitled to share in the gang’s fortunes or, more commonly, misfortunes (George Will’s col- umn, page 76). Colors and signs: The two most notorious L.A. gangs—the Bloods and the Crips— | are not really gangs at all. Instead, the names denote legendary confederations among hundreds of subgroups, or “sets.” Sets are formed along neighborhood lines, and only a few have more than 100 bang- ers; 20 to 30 members is commonplace. Leadership is usually collective, and inter- nal organization is rudimentary. One gang expert with the Los Angeles Police | Department, Deputy Chief Glenn Levant, Says most sets are as casually organized as a pickup basketball game. Bloods wear red and Crips wear blue; traditionally, each gang member wears or carries a bandanna this “rag”) to show his colors, (Many gangs also use “signs.” which are hand gestures Dressed for battle: Washington, D.C., cop MARTY KATZ—OUTLINE Sore #9 PA : 7 7% | { i t | 7 | other only over turf and colors are fading | } I t like a letter of the deaf alphabet, for iden- tification when the members are not wear: ing their colors.) But local variations on ; the theme are endless, and Crip gangs are almost as likely to fight each other as thev are to fight the Bloods. The days when rival gangs fought each fast. In Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and dozens of other cities, gang conflicts i havebecomea form of urban-guerrilla war- fare over drug trafficking. Informers, ' welshers and competitors are ruthlessly punished: many have been assassinated. Gang turf, which is still demarcated with graffiti in Los Angeles, now involves more than bragging rights: it is sales territory. / Some gang graffiti are coded threats. One | in south-central L.A. reads as follows: “Big | Hawk 1987 BSVG c 187.” To translate, Big | Hawk is a gang member’s street name. | BSVG stands for Blood Stone Villains |’ Gang, a Bloods set. The lower-case c, which i is deliberately x’d out, indicates that the | writer kills Crips, and the number 187 re- i fers to the section of the California crimi- i nal code for murder. | ‘Rollers and 0.6.'s’:- The variety of drugs | sold by big-city gangs (page 27) includes’ | heroin, marijuana, PCP, hallucinogens ! and designer drugs like fentanyl, asynthet- ic heroin that is even more potent than the real thing and just as addictive. But crack cocaine is the rage—and the scourge—of the ghetto. Crack isa drug peddler’s dream: it is cheap, easily concealed and provides a short-duration high that invariably leaves the user craving more. It was probably in- evitable that street gangs, observing crack's arrival in their neighborhoods over the past several years, would be drawn into trafficking themselves, South-central Los Angeles today. like Miami and New York. is flooded with crack. It is sold on street corners by peewees and in rock houses op- erated by bangers. Somewhere behind the , Scenes, much of the ghetto cocaine trade is controlled by what Los Angeles calls “rollers” and “O.G’s"—old gangsters. a term that usually refers to gang veterans, many of them still in their 20s. who have ‘ been to prison. Rollers, short for “high rollers,” are gang members who have made it big in the drug trade, whether or not they are actually at the top of the distribution pyramid. Typi- cally, rollers are in their teens or 20s. They ! tend to wear gold jewelry and drive flashy cars: Datsun sports coupes, five-liter Mus- ; tangs, BMW's and Mercedes-Benzes are : among the most Popular models. Roger Hamrick, a community-relations worker in Miami. remembers a gang member who ; moved to Davtona Beach, Fla., to peddle ' crack. “When he left [Miami], he was on a | bicycle,” Hamrick says. “When he came | back, he were more gold than Mr. T. and : he was sitting in a white Mercedes. He’s NEWSWEEK : MARCH 28. 1988 23