Founding location | Watts |
---|---|
Years active | 1970s – present |
Territory | California, Tennessee, [1] New Jersey [2] |
Rivals | Bounty Hunter Bloods [3] |
The Grape Street Watts Crips is a Crip subset based in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. The gang's rivalry with the Bounty Hunter Bloods has been described as being "the most violent and long lasting feud between two gangs that are in the Watts area." [3]
Brandon "BL" Bullard, a veteran of the Grape Street Watts Crips, was murdered by the East Coast Crips in 2008. The murder of Bullard sparked a war that resulted in 26 wounded and 9 dead in the six weeks that followed. [4]
Members of the Grape Street Watts Crips appeared in the documentary Crips and Bloods: Made in America , directed by Stacy Peralta. [5] Another Crips member and legendary rapper Eazy-E mentioned the area of Grape Street and maybe the gang's set of the same name in that territory in his song "Creep n Crawl".
The Bloods are a primarily African-American street gang which was 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.
Raymond Lee Washington was an American gangster, known as the founder of the Crips gang in Los Angeles. Washington formed the Crips as a minor street gang in the late 1960s in South Los Angeles, becoming a prominent local crime boss. In 1971, Washington formed an alliance with Stanley "Tookie" Williams, establishing the Crips as the first major African-American street gang in Los Angeles, and served as one of the co-leaders. In 1974, Washington was convicted of robbery and received a five-year prison sentence, during which his leadership and influence in the Crips declined.
The Mexican Mafia, also known as La eMe, is a Mexican American criminal organization in the United States. Despite its name, the Mexican Mafia has no origins in Mexico, and is entirely a U.S. criminal prison organization. Law enforcement officials report that the Mexican Mafia is the deadliest and most powerful gang within the California prison system.
Stacy Douglas Peralta is an American film director and entrepreneur. He was previously a professional skateboarder and surfer with the Zephyr Competition Team, also known as the Z-Boys, from Venice, California.
The NETA Association is the name of a gang that began in the Puerto Rico prison system and spread to the United States mainland. Although Puerto Rico has many small street gangs claiming its poorer neighborhoods, NETAS is by far the largest and most dominant, controlling the illegal drug trade in the island's prison system.
The Rollin 60s Neighborhood Crips is a street gang based in Los Angeles, California, originally formed in Los Angeles in 1976 from the Westside Crips and having since spread to other cities in the United States. Membership is estimated to be around 1,600 people, making it one of the largest gangs in the Los Angeles area.
The Crips are a primarily African-American alliance of street gangs that are based in the coastal regions of Southern California. Founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1969, mainly by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams, the Crips began as an alliance between two autonomous gangs, and developed into a loosely connected network of individual "sets", often engaged in open warfare with one another. Its members have traditionally worn blue clothing since around 1973.
The Watts truce was a 1992 peace agreement among rival street gangs in Los Angeles, California, declared in the neighborhood of Watts. The truce was reached just days before the 1992 Los Angeles riots and, although not universally adhered to, was a major factor in the decline of street violence in the city between the 1990s and 2010s.
The Jungles faction of the Black P. Stones street gang is a division ("set") of the Bloods gang alliance in Los Angeles. Originating in Los Angeles' Baldwin Village neighborhood in the 1960s, the Black P. Stones became one of the largest gangs in the city. The gang has been linked to various crimes, including murders, assaults, robberies, narcotics violations and firearms violations, and has been the subject of numerous FBI and LAPD investigations.
Sanyika Shakur, also known by his former street moniker Monster or Monster Kody, was an American author and former gangster. He was a member of the Los Angeles-based Eight Tray Gangster Crips. He got his nickname as a 13-year-old gang member when he beat and stomped a robbery victim until he was disfigured. Shakur claimed to have reformed in prison, joined the Republic of New Afrika movement, and wrote a 1993 memoir called Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member.
Crime in Los Angeles has varied throughout time, reaching peaks between the 1970s and 1990s. Since the early 2020s, crime has increased in Los Angeles.
The United Blood Nation, also known as the East Coast Bloods, is a street and prison gang active primarily in the New York metropolitan area. It is the east coast faction of the California-based Bloods street gang. Their main source of income is the trafficking and sale of illegal drugs.
Crips and Bloods: Made in America is a 2008 documentary by Stacy Peralta that examines the rise of the Crips and Bloods, prominent gangs in America who have been at war with each other. The documentary focuses on the external factors that caused African-American youth to turn to gangs and questions the political and law enforcement response to the rise of gang culture.
Imam Mujahid Abdul-Karim is an African-American convert to Islam, who is best known for his involvement and "spearheading" of the April 26, 1992 Watts Gang Truce between the four influential rival gangs— Watts Hacienda Village Bloods, Grape Street Watts Crips, Bounty Hunter Watts Bloods, and PJ Watts Crips. He is imam of Masjid Al Rasul mosque in Watts, Los Angeles and the leader of The Imam Mahdi Movement.
The Bounty Hunter Watts Bloods, also known as the Bounty Hunter Bloods, is a predominantly African American street gang situated in the Nickerson Gardens public housing projects in Watts, Los Angeles.
The Rollin' 30s Harlem Crips are a faction, or "set", of the Crips alliance of street gangs. The gang was formed by Belizean American Crips who had moved from South Los Angeles to Belize and then to Harlem, New York.
Sons of Samoa is a Crips-affiliated street gang based in Long Beach, California, United States. Its membership mainly consists of Samoan Americans with other Pacific Islander members.
The Florencia 13, also known as South Side Florencia 13,Florence Gang, F13 is an American criminal street gang based in Los Angeles, California, composed mainly of Mexican-Americans. The gang is named after the Florence area of Los Angeles County, controlled by the Mexican Mafia. They are involved in drug smuggling, murder, assault and robbery.
The Crips and the Bloods, two street gangs founded in Los Angeles, California, have been in a gang war since the 1970s. The war is made up of smaller, local conflicts perpetrated by chapters of both gangs, and has mostly taken place in major cities in the United States, especially Los Angeles (L.A.). It is also present in other countries, including Belize. The gangs often identify themselves using clothing colored blue for Crips, or red for Bloods; people wearing those colors in gang territory are often targets of violence.