Word: ganged
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...many American ghettos now resemble Beirut, urban terrorists like Hagan are largely responsible, acting as roving gangs peddling drugs and violence and terror. Despite the fratricide among gangs, most of their victims are innocent bystanders. Says Lieut. Bob Ruchhoft of the Los Angeles police department's gang detail: "Life is cheap as hell in some of these communities...
...Angeles is home to more than 200 gangs with some 12,000 members, an increase of about 25% from 1980. There were 187 gang-related homicides in 1986, a 24% increase over 1985. So far, this year looks even worse. Drive-by shootings are more common than smog alerts, and the burgeoning trade in crack cocaine has turned gangs from stray hoods into multimillion-dollar enterprises equipped with Uzis and AK-47 assault rifles...
...Gangs are prospering because crime pays in the ghetto. Many gangs have made the deadly transition from switchblade bravado to organized crime, serving as highly efficient distributors for Colombian cocaine dealers. Stiff competition has prompted bloody firefights in broad daylight over market share, while the influx of drug money provides topflight weapons, fancy cars and high-tech surveillance equipment. Once an adolescent phase, gang membership is now a full-time job, enticing many members to stay well into their...
Hungry for customers, a growing number of gangs are going national, with black gangs like Los Angeles' Crips and Chicago's Disciples establishing franchises in cities from Seattle to Shreveport, La. "They're all over," says Detective Robert Jackson of the Los Angeles police department gang detail. "We've got a glut of coke here in Los Angeles, and the price is down. They can make three times as much money in Phoenix or Denver." Phoenix has suffered seven gang-related murders this year. In Denver the first Crips were detected in 1984; last March police there busted a crack...
...Angeles most black gangs call themselves either Crips, who wear blue, or Bloods, who favor red. Crips fight Crips and Crips fight Bloods; there is no central command over the hundreds of separate gangs. At stake are fiercely coveted turf and customers. "We're talking about unfeeling, murderous villains," says Sergeant Wes McBride of the Los Angeles sheriff's gang squad...