Word: cambodians
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...traded shots with Slicc was a member of the East Side Longos, a large Mexican-American gang rooted in the Hispanic community that settled along Anaheim Street in Long Beach (pop. 429,000) after World War II. Three decades later, Cambodian immigrants seeking affordable homes arrived. "At school the Mexicans looked down upon us and hurt us," recalls Mad Dog, 29, a "retired" homeboy whose mother was a Phnom Penh university professor. "We saw that American people had groups, white with white, black with black. We decided to become more famous. If they could steal cars and do drive...
Harassed by the East Side Longos, the Cambodians organized gangs with names like Tiny Rascals and Asian Boyz. They helped swell Long Beach's gang membership to more than 10,000. Mad Dog and the others imitated their enemies. They "kicked back" on street corners and marked their turf with graffiti. Between turf shoot-outs, they also began to extort "protection" money from local businessmen. Fearing reprisals, the merchants have rarely complained. Gang detective Norman Sorenson remembers contacting dozens of Cambodian merchants after police found a detailed list of extortion victims in the car of a Tiny Rascals leader. "They...
...Many Cambodian gang members became hardened to violence during their escape from the killing fields of Southeast Asia. "I remember walking and walking," recalls Little Devil, 16, describing his family's trek out of Cambodia when he was five. "If we didn't keep up, we'd be lost." Perhaps because of their past globe trotting, Cambodian gang members can be astonishingly mobile. When Long Beach cops saturated the "Anaheim corridor" this summer after a burst of shoot-outs, the Cambodian gangs vanished. "They took off for Stockton and Modesto -- maybe farther," says Mike Nen, an ethnic-Cambodian cop. Adds...
Some observers think the East Side Longos would be wise to get airplane tickets too. "The Cambodians know what real war is," says Nen's partner, Patrolman Dan Brooks. "The Hispanics have a street mentality. They shoot on impulse and go home thinking they're safe. But the Cambodians know better." When combat looms, for example, Cambodian gang members sometimes call in reinforcements from hundreds of miles away. Little Devil is an Oriental Lazy Boy from downtown Los Angeles who rode into Long Beach recently with Lazy Boys from Tacoma to help battle the Longos. They left when...
CRIME: The newest faces on the mean streets of Long Beach are tough Cambodian gangs...