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This is a list of notable criminal gangs in Los Angeles, California.
The County and the City of Los Angeles has been nicknamed the "Gang Capital of America," with an estimated 450 active gangs with a combined membership of more than 45,000. [1]
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.
Colors is a 1988 American police procedural action crime film starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall, and directed by Dennis Hopper. The film takes place in the gang ridden neighborhoods of Los Angeles: late-1980s South Central Los Angeles, Echo Park, Westlake and East Los Angeles. The film centers on Bob Hodges (Duvall), an experienced Los Angeles Police Department C.R.A.S.H. officer, and his rookie partner, Danny McGavin (Penn), who try to stop the gang violence between the Bloods, the Crips, and Hispanic street gangs. Colors relaunched Hopper as a director 19 years after Easy Rider, and inspired discussion over its depiction of gang life and gang violence.
Venice 13 or West Side Venice 13, abbreviated as V13 or VX3, is a Mexican American street gang based in the Oakwood neighborhood of Venice, a section of Los Angeles, California. It has a substantial presence in East Venice as well as the Culver City/Los Angeles border, especially around Washington Blvd.
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 "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.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, African American organized crime emerged following the first and second large-scale migrations of African Americans from the Southern United States to major cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and later the West Coast. In many of these newly established communities and neighborhoods, criminal activities such as illegal gambling, speakeasies and were seen in the post-World War I and Prohibition eras. Although the majority of these businesses in African-American neighborhoods were operated by African Americans, it is often unclear the extent to which these operations were run independently of the larger criminal organizations of the time.
The Pirus are a subset of the larger Bloods gang alliance, an organized crime group in the United States.
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.
Santa Monica 13 or SMG is a Mexican-American street gang located in Santa Monica, California, United States. They reside mainly in the Pico neighborhood. Even though Santa Monica 13 is a Sureño gang, they wear their traditional black bandanas. The acronym SM17 refers to Santa Monica 17th Street, which is the gang's primary subset or "clique". They write up "SMG" or "Santa Monica Gang" to show solidarity.
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.
The Bounty Hunter Watts Bloods, also known as the Bounty Hunter Bloods, is a "set" of the Bloods gang alliance situated in the Nickerson Gardens public housing projects in Watts, Los Angeles.
The Rollin' 30s Harlem Crips are a "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.
Chicago is considered the most gang-occupied city in the United States, with 150,000 gang-affiliated tenants, representing more than 100 gangs. Gang warfare and retaliation are common in Chicago. Gangs were responsible for 61% of the homicides in Chicago in 2011.
The Crips and the Bloods, two street gangs founded in Los Angeles, California, have been engaged in a gang war since the 1970s. The war is made up of smaller, local conflicts between 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. The gangs often identify themselves using clothing colored blue for Crips and red for Bloods; people wearing those colors in gang territory are often targets of violence.
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