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The Crips are a primarily, but not exclusively, African American gang founded in Los Angeles, California in 1971 mainly by 17-year-old Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams. What was once a single alliance between two autonomous gangs is now a loosely connected network of individual sets, often engaged in open warfare with one another.

The Crips are one of the largest and most violent associations of street gangs in the United States. with an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 members. The gang is known to be involved in murders, robberies, drug dealing, among many other criminal pursuits. The gang is notorious for its gang members' flamboyant use of the color blue in their clothing. However, this practice has waned due to contentious police crackdowns on gang members.

Crips are publicly known to have an intense and bitter rivalry with the Bloods. Crips have modern territory problems with the East Side Piru's in East Sacramento and have caused severe ties with all latinos gangs on drug trafficing. Crips are known for repersenting the west while bloods repersent the east which have pushed on bloody gang wars from Sacramento to Long Beach, L.A. Crips have been documented in the U.S. military, found in bases in the United States and abroad.

History

Stanley "Tookie" Williams met Raymond Lee Washington in 1971, and the two decided to unite their local gang members from the west and east sides of South Central Los Angeles in order to battle neighboring street gangs. Most of the members were seventeen years old. Williams discounted the sometimes cited founding date of 1969 (or even the early 1950s), in his memoir, Blue Rage, Black Redemption. The original name for the alliance was "Cribs", a name narrowed down from a list of many options, and chosen unanimously from three final choices, which included the Black Overlords, and the Assassins. Cribs was chosen to reflect the young age of the majority of the gang members. The name "Cribs" generated into the name "Crips" when gang members began carrying around canes to display their "pimp" status. People in the neighborhood then began calling them cripples, or "Crips" for short. The name had no political, organizational, cryptic, or acronymic meaning. Williams, in his memoir, further discounted claims that the group was a spin-off of the Black Panther Party or formed for a community agenda, the name "depicted a fighting alliance against street gangs—nothing more, nothing less", Williams wrote. Washington, who attended Freemont High School, was the leader of the East Side Crips, and Williams, who attended Washington High School, led the West Side Crips.

Williams recalled that a blue bandanna was first worn by Crips founding member Buddha, as a part of his color-coordinated clothing of blue Levi's, a blue shirt, and dark blue suspenders. A blue bandanna was worn in memorium to Buddha after he was shot and killed on February 23, 1973, which eventually became the color of blue associated with Crips.

The Crips became popular throughout southern Los Angeles as more youth gangs joined; at one point they outnumbered non-Crip gangs by 3 to 1, sparking disputes with non-Crip gangs, including the L.A. Brims, Athens Park Boys, the Bishops, The Drill Company, and the Denver Lanes.

By 1971 the gang's notoriety had spread across Los Angeles. The gang became increasingly violent as they attempted to expand their turf. By the early 1980s the gang was heavily involved with drug trade.

Crip on Crip violence

In 1971, a Crip set on Piru Street in Compton, California, known as the Piru Street Boys was formed. After two years of peace, a feud began between the Piru Street Boys and the other Crip sets. It would later turn violent as gang warfare ensued between former allies. This battle continued until the mid 1970s when the Piru Street Boys wanted to call an end to the violence and called a meeting with other gangs that were targeted by the Crips. After a long discussion, the Pirus broke off all connections to the Crips and started an organization that would later be called the Bloods, a street gang infamous for its rivalry with the Crips.

Since then, other conflicts and feuds were started between many of the remaining sets of the Crips gang. It is a popular misconception that Crips sets feud only with Bloods. In reality, they fight each other — for example, the Rollin' 60s and 83rd Street Gangster Crips ("Eight-Tray") have been rivals since 1979. In Watts, Los Angeles, the Grape Street Watts Crips and the P Jay Crips have feuded so much that the P Jay Crips even teamed up with the local Bloods set, the Bounty Hunter Bloods, to fight against the Grape Street Crips.

Practices

The literacy practices of Crip's gang life generally include rapping, tagging and substitutions and deletions of particular letters of the alphabet. The letter "b" in the word "blood" will be "disrespected" among certain sets and written with a cross inside it because of its association with the enemy. The letters "CK", which stand for "Crip killer", will be avoided and substituted with a double "cc". The words "kick back" will instead be written as "kicc bacc". Many other letters are also altered due to symbolic associations.

See also

• Crip Walk

References

1. U.S. Department of Justice, Crips, p.3.
2. ^ U.S. Department of Justice, Crips, p.1.
3. ^
5. U.S. Department of Justice, Crips, p.2.
8. ^ Williams, Stanley Tookie; Smiley, Tavis (2007). Blue Rage, Black Redemption. Simon and Schuster. pp. xvii–xix, 91–92, 136. ISBN 1416544496.
9. http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/inside/3533/Overview
10. Crip History
11. A Brief History of the Los Angeles based Crips
12. "War and Peace in Watts". LA Weekly. July 14, 2005. Retrieved 2007-05-04.
13. Smith, Debra; Whitmore, Kathryn F. (2006). Literacy and Advocacy in Adolescent Family, Gang, School, and Juvenile Court Communities. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0805855998.

Reference publications

• National Drug Intelligence Center (2002). Drugs and Crime: Gang Profile: Crips (PDF). U.S. Department of Justice. Product no. 2002-M0465-001.

External links

• History of Crip Gangs in LA early formation of Los Angeles Crips
• Snopes Urban Legend – The origin of the name Crips
• L.A.-based gangs – An overview of LA-based gangs

• Crips
• 1971 establishments
• Gangs in New York City
• History of Los Angeles, California
• Modern street gangs