Black Gangs

The trouble began soon after they arrived. The black family - a mother, three teenage children and a 10-year-old boy - moved into a little yellow home in Compton over Christmas vacation. When a friend came to visit, four men in a black SUV pulled up and called him a "nigger," saying black people were barred from the neighborhood, according to Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies. They jumped out, drew a gun on him and beat him with metal pipes. It was just the beginning of what detectives said was a campaign by a Latino street gang to force an African American family to leave.

KAUFMAN, Texas - They burned the gang's tattoo off the arm of one man who failed to follow orders. Another new member was kidnapped, shot and killed for disloyalty; gang leaders wanted his finger severed as a trophy. These are just two of the incidents traced to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a white supremacist prison gang whose motto is "God forgives, brothers don't. " Some fear that the gang may be involved in the recent slayings in north Texas of Kaufman County Dist. Atty.

Being a member of the Los Angeles-based Crips gang, I find myself commenting on the article on skinheads. Skinheads pose the most dangerous threat to the fabric of this society. Unlike black and Hispanic gangs in our area, skinheads enjoy the best of both worlds. Like the black gangs in Los Angeles, skinheads are a loosely knit lot with no clear recognizable leaders. A law enforcement official quoted in the article mentioned that skinheads "won't survive because they don't have an economic base.

The trouble began soon after they arrived. The black family - a mother, three teenage children and a 10-year-old boy - moved into a little yellow home in Compton over Christmas vacation. When a friend came to visit, four men in a black SUV pulled up and called him a "nigger," saying black people were barred from the neighborhood, according to Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies. They jumped out, drew a gun on him and beat him with metal pipes. It was just the beginning of what detectives said was a campaign by a Latino street gang to force an African American family to leave.

Re "Execution Closer for 'a Model of Humanity,' " Oct. 25 Admittedly an outsider, I am often amazed at the heroes and "leaders" supported by the black community. A generation of young black men and women has been decimated by gang activity. Yet they rally around a man (Stanley "Tookie" Williams) who is responsible for the creation of organized black gangs and for the deaths of not just four but thousands of people. Is there not a person more deserving of their support? Following the advice of Bill Cosby would do more for the black community than rallying around gangsters and the leaders who see racism everywhere.

As a native of Los Angeles and the barrio, I feel obligated to correct and elaborate on some of the "gang jargon" that appeared in "L.A. Speak" (Palm Latitudes) on May 12. Calo is the correct spelling of the slang spoken by some people of Mexican ancestry living in the United States. To characterize it as spoken only by gang members is erroneous. Furthermore, it is relatively rare to hear Calo spoken by people from Mexico and other Latin American countries. The scholarly work on Calo suggests that it developed in the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez area sometime before World War II. As an idiom, it is more widely understood than actually used.

Monrovia always had big dreams of remaining a small town. For more than 30 years, it toiled to shed blight and biker bars and redevelop itself into a 21st century version of quaint Americana. Today it is home to a number of national retailers, a cafe-lined downtown and one of the largest concentrations of high-tech firms in the San Gabriel Valley, all spread at the foot of a majestic mountain range. "There's a feeling about this town that keeps me here," said Keith Ganley, a local resident and teacher.

Three youths were shot to death and a 60-year-old man was seriously wounded Thursday night in South-Central Los Angeles in what a policeman called a gang war. The first of the shootings occurred about 9 p.m., when two of the youths were killed in an alley at the rear of Avalon Boulevard near 52nd Street, according to Detective Bernie Skiles.

The six young men were seated in places of honor and were applauded by a crowd of more than 200. They were treated to a performance by armless guitarist Tony Melendez, who is best known for playing for Pope John Paul II. They shared the dais with Pomona Police Chief Richard Tefank and with a Roman Catholic bishop, who spoke glowingly of them. "You guys are really special," Bishop Juan Arzube of Los Angeles told the six privileged guests. "All these people have come here for your benefit."

They favor monikers and identifying colors: red or blue. They communicate with hand signals and a special language of mispronounced words. They are the Crips and the Bloods--Los Angeles-area street gangs--and, according to authorities, they pose as serious a problem inside jail as out of it. By best estimates, there are about 800 Crips and 540 Bloods among the 7,526 inmates in the county's Central Jail, a gray, 22-year-old fortress-like structure near Union Station in downtown Los Angeles.

Monrovia always had big dreams of remaining a small town. For more than 30 years, it toiled to shed blight and biker bars and redevelop itself into a 21st century version of quaint Americana. Today it is home to a number of national retailers, a cafe-lined downtown and one of the largest concentrations of high-tech firms in the San Gabriel Valley, all spread at the foot of a majestic mountain range. "There's a feeling about this town that keeps me here," said Keith Ganley, a local resident and teacher.

Prosecutors charged three black gang members Monday with killing two Latino boys and an adult standing in the frontyard of a South Los Angeles home, saying the assailants picked the victims at random while searching for rival gang members.

Re "Execution Closer for 'a Model of Humanity,' " Oct. 25 Admittedly an outsider, I am often amazed at the heroes and "leaders" supported by the black community. A generation of young black men and women has been decimated by gang activity. Yet they rally around a man (Stanley "Tookie" Williams) who is responsible for the creation of organized black gangs and for the deaths of not just four but thousands of people. Is there not a person more deserving of their support? Following the advice of Bill Cosby would do more for the black community than rallying around gangsters and the leaders who see racism everywhere.

When the Rev. Eugene Rivers blew into Los Angeles from Boston recently, the welcome wagon wasn't exactly waiting for him. Rivers, head of the National TenPoint Leadership Foundation, had been invited by Bishop Charles Blake, a longtime friend and mentor, and Police Chief William J. Bratton, who had worked with Rivers in Boston, to lend a hand in stopping the orgy of gang killings in Los Angeles. The city certainly needs some help.

After decades of operating in separate worlds, black and Latino gangs have begun to clash over turf and drugs, sparking a series of violent interracial battles that authorities say signals an ominous turn in the region's gang warfare. In communities from Venice to Riverside, gangs that once coexisted peacefully--sometimes even allying themselves to fend off outsiders--have become rivals in a power struggle that is linked to racial conflicts inside the jails and prisons, officials say.

Bill Simpson was killed the day he left klan country. He couldn't take it any more in Vidor, Tex. There had been too many threats, too many nights of wondering if the whites of Vidor would decide to use the darkness as a time to take him out. So Simpson left Vidor on Wednesday, the last African-American to live in what is known as one of the meanest towns in the South, where the common wisdom for a black man is to be gone by sundown. He went to nearby Beaumont.

When the Rev. Eugene Rivers blew into Los Angeles from Boston recently, the welcome wagon wasn't exactly waiting for him. Rivers, head of the National TenPoint Leadership Foundation, had been invited by Bishop Charles Blake, a longtime friend and mentor, and Police Chief William J. Bratton, who had worked with Rivers in Boston, to lend a hand in stopping the orgy of gang killings in Los Angeles. The city certainly needs some help.

Alarmed by a sudden increase in gang violence, particularly drive-by shootings, the Pasadena Police Department has assigned more officers to deal with gangs and is preparing to issue citations to gang members, warning them that they are liable for prosecution under a new state law against street terrorism. Police say Pasadena is averaging two or three drive-by shootings a week. Sixteen people, including six bystanders, have been hit by gunfire since the beginning of the year. "It's happening at both ends of town," said Lt. Wesley A. Rice, detective section administrator.

Pulling up to a curb on Johnson Street, Police Officers Timothy Brennan and Robert Ladd eye a small group of gang members leaning against cars and fences. "What's happening?" Brennan says casually. How's that truce holding up? he asks. The young men glance quickly at their leader, a heavy-set man in a green shirt, who stares straight ahead, expressionless. "What truce?" someone grumbles low. Then they all clam up.

I enjoyed the article about black church life ("Refuge and Strength," Feb. 9). Too many people sit back and say "poor me," and never do anything to improve their lives or any one else's life. The three pastors interviewed have huge problems in their congregations, and yet they seem to have such positive attitudes. They are chipping away at the problems. They are helping children finish school, which is a powerful weapon against poverty. Too bad our elected officials can't see that.