Word: truce
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...feels like heaven," says Michael Broadnax, 26, of South Central Los Angeles. A former member of the Bloods, Broadnax did not dare venture into neighborhoods dominated by Crips until factions of the rival gangs forged their remarkable truce in the heat of last month's riots. "I can go to places I've never been or even ridden through before," he says. "It's like freedom." Those words are echoed over and over in South Central these days, as residents marvel at the pact that has brought relative peace to an area more accustomed to gunfire and bloodshed than...
Despite claims that the truce was an effort to focus gang fury against the police, there has been no evidence of increased attacks on officers and there has not been a single black gang-related homicide in L.A. since the riots. "They are not coming together to organize against law enforcement," says community gang worker Charles Norman. "They are coming together for mere survival because they have been to too many funerals...
Others are more cautious. "If the gangs are maintaining the truce because, as some say, they want to be a part of the rebuilding of South Central L.A., that's a good sign," says Sergeant Wes McBride, a member of Operation Safe Streets (oss), the gang unit of the L.A. County sheriff's department. "But if it's so they don't have to cover their backs as much and can become major dealers of narcotics, that's something else...
Some of the skepticism exists because the truce does not cover all Crips and Bloods factions. Nor does it affect the city's more violent Latino and Asian gangs. One of the widest and most organized peace efforts involves about 12,000 black gang members in four Bloods and three Crips "sets," or factions, within a 3.5-sq.-mi. area of South Central. The Monday after the riots, their leaders came to Norman seeking his help in keeping their peace. There were unity meetings between members of at least 100 gang sets in housing projects and other locations. Norman hopes...
Clark's hiring of the infamous "five white men" resulted from a process of careful negotiation whose aim was to create a truce between the conservatives and the liberals on the Law School faculty...