Crips

Five reputed gang members were indicted in federal court Tuesday on charges that they conspired to steal firearms from Southern California gun dealers. Four of the five were arraigned Tuesday morning in U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter's courtroom. The fifth, named in the indictment as George Batiste Thenarse, was arraigned later Tuesday.

The shooting rampage, carjacking and kidnapping involving a Downey family had its roots in a Craigslist ad the family had placed in an attempt to sell their Chevy Camaro, prosecutors said Monday. Authorities allege that the gunman responded to the ad, and for reasons that are still unclear, opened fire in a bizarre series of crimes that began at the family's business and ended at their home. Prosecutors charged a parolee Monday with multiple counts of capital murder, attempted murder, carjacking and kidnapping.

Matthew (Crazy Case) Vick, a member of a black street gang in Long Beach called the Insane Crips, moved here three years ago to live with his grandmother and straighten out his life. But the pattern of crime and violence that began for Vick in Southern California followed him across the Rocky Mountains, where he helped found a gang called the Rolling 30 Crips.

A Riverside County jury Monday found former Crips gang member Colton Simpson, who wrote a tell-all book about his life on the streets of Los Angeles, guilty of robbing a jewelry store, a decision that could send him to prison for life. The jury convicted Simpson of planning the March 2003 heist at the then-Robinsons-May Co. in Temecula, driving the getaway car and leading police on a high-speed freeway chase.

Los Angeles street gangs who forged a truce more than a year ago took the stage Saturday night beside seated ministers, celebrities and political leaders as Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan poured out a message of unity. "We came to Los Angeles to pay tribute to the Bloods and Crips who are trying desperately to make peace among themselves," Farrakhan told an enthusiastic gathering of about 8,000 at the Los Angeles Sports Arena.

The Los Angeles city attorney's office plans to go to court today to seek broad restrictions against the activities of a violent, 200-plus-member Westside street gang. The office, which recently filed a lawsuit against the Playboy Gangster Crips, will ask today for a temporary restraining order under the theory that the gang is an unincorporated association whose individual members are liable for the actions of the entire group. In the lawsuit, City Atty. James K.

Eight gang members escaped from a maximum-security juvenile detention facility in Downey after they overpowered two guards, tied them with bed sheets and locked them in a closet early Saturday, authorities said. The inmates, members of a Crips street gang from the Watts area, beat two guards at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall and used the guards' keys to flee the facility, said Sgt. Mark Dryer of the Downey Police Deparment.

As the story goes, the East Coast Crips robbed a Florencia 13 drug connection of a large quantity of dope nearly a decade ago. Since then, the tale of how a black street gang ripped off a Latino rival has taken on mythic proportions. But to this day police are uncertain if the fabled heist ever occurred. "You hear so many different variations of this crime," said Terry Burgin, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department gang detective. "Who knows what really happened?

IF, COME DECEMBER, California executes the man who reputedly founded the Crips street gang, I won't take it as a sign of the apocalypse. But I will see it as a sign of failure. Earthquakes, floods, mudslides, volcanoes, famine, war and pestilence have been front-page news. Deluged by deadlines, swamped by housework and overcome by cooking, class preps and committee meetings, I'd seen the apocalyptic photos but kept the effect at arm's length.