 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(November 2020) |
 European Kindred emblem | |
| Founded | 1998 |
|---|---|
| Founding location | Snake River Correctional Institution, Oregon, United States |
| Years active | 1998–present |
| Territory | Oregon |
| Ethnicity | White American |
| Membership (est.) | 500 [1] |
| Activities | Drug trafficking, dog fighting, extortion, murder, assaults, home invasions, hate crimes |
The European Kindred (EK) is a prison and street gang that began in the Oregon prison system. [2]
As of 2006, parole and probation officers report the gang may have around 500 members in the Oregon prison system. [1] EK members have a propensity for violence and are one of the most powerful gangs within the Oregon Department of Corrections.[ citation needed ]
The group was founded in 1998 by David Patrick Kennedy and another inmate of Eastern Oregon's Snake River Correctional Institution. Membership in the EK is nearly exclusively male, and membership is restricted to those with no more than one-sixteenth Native American ancestry. The group has a formal structure, rules, and ritual. It is highly secretive. [3]
The gang has a reputation for extortion, assaults, moving contraband goods throughout the Oregon correctional institutions, and dog fighting. New members are encouraged to "earn their bones" (their membership) through hostile action consistent with the group's cause. [3]
A 2016 BBC documentary show entitled "A Black and White Killing" focused on the trial (and eventual conviction) of an EK gang member accused of the murder of a young black man. The documentary interviewed an ex-gang member, who stated that EK operates an unbreakable policy of 'Blood in, Blood out'. This rule requires that all potential new gang members must 'shed blood' as a condition of entry to the gang, typically in directed attacks made against members of rival gangs ('blood in'). The former member went on to explain that an attempt to leave the gang is seen as a betrayal of the 'brotherhood' of all remaining gang members - even those who are members of other gangs. The price for attempting to leave the gang, once inducted, is one's life. The spilling of the deserting gang member's blood (during their subsequent murder) constitutes the requirement for 'blood out'.
There is no documented information indicating EK members attack prison guards. Outside of prison, EK members appear to be involved in the distribution and possibly manufacture of methamphetamine.
EK members mark their membership with the initials EK in a shield on their right calf or on other parts of their bodies. Women are associated with the group, but are marked with the initials FW. The initials represent prison slang: F stands for "feather", prison slang for female, and W stands for "wood", prison slang for a caucasian. [3]
Released members are attempting to recruit new young members in prisons, jails and on the street. According to the Portland Tribune , EK members claim that they use high schools in the Portland, Oregon area to find new recruits. [3]
In 2002, a county grand jury indicted Joshua Robert Brown, a 21-year-old, on charges of killing Anthony Cleo Wilson, a 47-year-old African-American. Brown joined European Kindred in 2000 while serving a four-year sentence for robbery. After 3 weeks from being released, police claimed that Brown stabbed Wilson to death. Authorities say Brown's motive may have been that Wilson, who'd been busted for possession and manufacture of narcotics, sold him some bad or phony drugs, but they also believe it may have been a hate crime. [4] [5]
On August 10, 2016, European Kindred member Russell Courtier, 38, egged on by his girlfriend Colleen Hunt, 35, used his 1991 Jeep Wrangler to run over 19-year-old African-American Larnell Bruce. This incident occurred after Larnell propelled Russell’s head into a window, causing a concussion. Larnell Bruce then walked off after the encounter at a 7-Eleven in Gresham, Oregon. Security cameras showed the teen attempting to avoid the Jeep and escape before being hit. Police arrived after receiving a call from an employee of the 7-Eleven about the incident and found the teen bleeding, critically injured and lying in the street. Trials were eventually completed in March 2019. On March 13, Hunt pled guilty to manslaughter. [6] Six days later, Courtier was convicted of murder and hate crime. [7]
The Aryan Brotherhood, also known as the Brand or the AB, is a neo-Nazi prison gang and an organized crime syndicate which is based in the United States and has an estimated 15,000–20,000 members both inside and outside prisons. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has characterized it as "the nation's oldest major white supremacist prison gang and a national crime syndicate" while the Anti-Defamation League calls it the "oldest and most notorious racist prison gang in the United States". According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Aryan Brotherhood makes up an extremely low percentage of the entire US prison population but it is responsible for a disproportionately large number of prison murders.
The Bloods are a primarily African-American street gang founded in Los Angeles, California. The gang is widely known for its rivalry with the Crips. It is identified by the red color worn by its members and by particular gang symbols, including distinctive hand signs.
Volksfront, also known as Volksfront International, was an American white separatist organization founded on October 20, 1994, in Portland, Oregon. According to Volksfront's now defunct website, the group described itself as an "international fraternal organization for persons of European descent." The logo of Volksfront was the Algiz rune, a common rune used as a neo-Nazi symbol common among other organizations such as National Alliance. Volksfront had approximately 50 members in the United States split between four chapters designated as Pac-West, Central States, North East, and Gulf-Atlantic, and an additional 50 members dispersed in other countries including Germany, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Spain. The goal of the movement was to create an all-White homeland in the Pacific Northwest. The flag of Volksfront was based on the Nazi flag in the colors of black, white, and red with the Volksfront logo and the slogan was "Race Over All" implying that race mattered over everything else. In August 2012, the United States branch of Volksfront announced their dissolution via their website. Citing harassment and investigations by the authorities, the group said it was disbanding.
A prison gang is an inmate organization that operates within a prison system. It has a corporate entity and exists into perpetuity. Its membership is restrictive, mutually exclusive, and often requires a lifetime commitment. Prison officials and others in law enforcement use the euphemism "security threat group". The purpose of this name is to remove any recognition or publicity that the term "gang" would connote when referring to people who have an interest in undermining the system.
Peckerwood is a term used in the Southern United States for a woodpecker which is also used as a racist epithet toward white people, especially poor rural whites. Originally a racist slur, the term has been embraced by a subculture related to prison gangs and outlaw motorcycle clubs. The term was in use as an inversion of woodpecker by the 1830s, with the sense referring to white people documented from the 1850s. African-American folklore in the 1920s contrasted the white "peckerwood" bird with the African-American blackbird. The word became a common term in Jive.
Mulugeta Seraw was an Ethiopian student who traveled to the United States to attend college. He was 28 when he was murdered by three white supremacists in November 1988 in Portland, Oregon. They were convicted, and Mulugeta's father and son—who was six years old—filed a civil lawsuit against the killers and an affiliated organization, holding them liable for the murder.
About one to two percent of United States Armed Forces members are estimated to belong to criminal gangs in the United States, a much higher proportion than in the civilian population.
The Nazi Lowriders, also known as NLR or the Ride, are a neo-Nazi, white supremacist organized crime syndicate, and prison and street gang in the United States. Primarily based in Southern California, the gang is allied with the larger Aryan Brotherhood and Mexican Mafia gangs, and fellow peckerwood gang Public Enemy No. 1. The Nazi Lowriders operate both in and outside of prison.
James Michael Francke was a New Mexico judge and director of the state's Corrections Department, the governmental bureau which manages prisons, inmates and parolees. He was later appointed by then-Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt to oversee a plan to double the state's inmate capacity as director of Oregon's Department of Corrections. On January 18, 1989, his body was discovered outside the department's office building in Salem; an autopsy determined he had been murdered the night before. A local petty criminal was eventually tried and convicted for the crime, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. However, the convicted killer maintains his innocence, and several conspiracy theories have been advocated, claiming that the killing was a murder for hire conducted by corrupt state prison officials threatened by an investigation Francke was conducting into prison mismanagement.
The Aryan Circle is a white supremacist, Neo-Nazi prison gang spread throughout many U.S. correctional facilities.
Curtis Michael Allgier is an American white supremacist skinhead who is being held in the Utah State Prison in Draper, Utah, for the murder of corrections officer Stephen Anderson.
Crime rates in Alabama overall have declined by 17% since 2005. Trends in crime within Alabama have largely been driven by a reduction in property crime by 25%. There has been a small increase in the number of violent crimes since 2005, which has seen an increase of 9% In 2020, there were 511 violent crime offenses per 100,000 population. Alabama was ranked 44th in violent crime out of a total 50 states in the United States.
A prison gang is an inmate organization that operates within a prison system, that has a corporate entity, exists into perpetuity, and whose membership is restrictive, mutually exclusive, and often requires a lifetime commitment. Political scientist David Skarbekargues the emergence of prison gangs are due to the dramatic increase in the prison population and inmate's demand for safety. Skarbek observes that in a small, homogeneous environment, people can use social norms to interpret what behavior is acceptable, but a large, heterogeneous setting undermines social norms and acceptable behavior is more difficult to determine. Prison gangs are geographically and racially divided, and about 70% of prison gang members are in California and Texas. Skarbek suggests prison gangs function similar to a community responsibility system. Interactions between strangers are facilitated because you do not have to know an individual's reputation, only a gang's reputation. Some prison gangs are transplanted from the street. In some circumstances, prison gangs "outgrow" the internal world of life inside the penitentiary, and go on to engage in criminal activities on the outside. Gang umbrella organizations like the Folk Nation and People Nation have originated in prisons.
211 Crew is a white supremacist prison gang, active both in and out of prison, that was formed in 1995 at Colorado's Denver County Jail. It was linked to several high-profile murders and criminal investigations. Those included the assassination of Colorado Department of Corrections head Tom Clements. Due to a threatening letter sent by a Texas Aryan Brotherhood member, it was suspected to be linked to similar assassinations of Texas district attorney Mike McLelland, and his assistant prosecutor Mark Hasse, but a former Justice of the Peace was eventually indicted for those murders.
The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT) is an American white supremacist and Neo-Nazi prison and street gang. According to the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas is one of the largest and most violent neo-Nazi white supremacist prison gangs and organized criminal enterprises in the United States, responsible for numerous murders and other violent crimes.
On May 26, 2017, Jeremy Joseph Christian fatally stabbed two men and injured a third after he was confronted for shouting racist and anti-Muslim slurs at two black teenagers, Destinee Mangum and Walia Mohamed, on a MAX Light Rail train in Portland, Oregon. Two of the victims, Ricky John Best of Happy Valley and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche of Portland, were killed; the third victim, Micah David-Cole Fletcher, survived with serious wounds.
On August 10, 2016, Larnell Bruce, a black 19-year-old, was run over by a Jeep driven by Russell Courtier, a member of the European Kindred gang, outside a 7-Eleven convenience store in Gresham, Oregon; Bruce died 3 days later.
White Boy Posse (WBP), a.k.a. Whiteboy Posse, are a Canadian white supremacist neo-Nazi organized crime group founded in 2003 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, the organization is primarily active in Western Canada.
Michael D. Schrunk was an American attorney who served as district attorney of Multnomah County, Oregon, United States from 1981 until 2012. He is believed to have been the longest-serving district attorney in the state of Oregon.