Free Republic

Police: Mother A Crip, Father A Westside Baller COMMERCE CITY, Colo. -- A couple fighting about which gang their 4-year-old toddler should join caused a public disturbance that resulted in the father's arrest, Commerce City police said Thursday. On Saturday, Joseph Manzanares stormed into the Hollywood Video store where his girlfriend worked, threatened to kill her and knocked over several video displays and even a computer, Commerce City police Sgt. Joe Sandoval said. After he ran out of the store, police were called and the 19-year-old was arrested at his home. His girlfriend told police that they had been arguing...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The murder of the popular student body president at the University of North Carolina may have been gang related, police told FOX News on Monday. Eve Carson, 22, was shot dead last week in an upscale residential neighborhood in Chapel Hill, N.C., where the elite school's main campus is located. Chapel Hill police believe Carson's killing may have a link to the Hoover Crips gang because of a retro Houston Astros baseball cap worn by a man caught on camera allegedly trying to use Carson's ATM card. The hats, which have an "H" emblem, are sometimes...

The Black-Brown Divide By GREGORY RODRIGUEZ Jan. 26, 2008 I imagine he said it as if he were confessing a deep, dark secret. And, of course (wink, wink), he had no idea his little confession would make the rounds. But when Sergio Bendixen, Hillary Clinton's pollster and resident Latino expert, told the New Yorker after her win in New Hampshire that "the Hispanic voter--and I want to say this very carefully--has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates," he started a firestorm of innuendo that has begun to shape how the media are covering the...

It was not the most spectacular domestic terrorism plot since the Sept. 11 attacks, and certainly not the best-known. But no other case posed such a real and immediate threat as the audacious scheme to attack more than a dozen military centers, synagogues and other sites in Southern California, experts said Thursday. "If you look at the roster of defendants in terrorism cases, it often seems like a casting call. They all have aspirations, but most lack real talent and helpful connections," said Brian Levin, an attorney and director of Cal State San Bernardino's Center for the Study of Hate...

A lineup of team logo baseball caps denounced as tailor-made for gang members was ordered removed from store shelves by its manufacturer Friday after complaints from baseball officials. "It has been brought to our attention that some combinations of icons and colors on a select number of our caps could be too closely perceived to be in association with gangs,"... The three styles in question used colors and symbols linked to three gangs: an all-white cap with a blue bandanna, the trademark of the notorious Crips; an all-white cap with a red bandanna worn by the rival Bloods; and a...

NEWARK, N.J. (Aug. 6) - In a city where gun violence has become an all too common part of daily life, these shootings were enough to chill even the most hardened residents: Four young friends shot execution-style in a schoolyard just days before they were to head to college Three were killed after being forced to kneel against a wall and then shot in the head at close range Saturday night, police said. A girl was found slumped near some bleachers 30 feet away, a gunshot wound to the head but still alive. The four Newark residents were to attend...

Launching a counteroffensive against organized street thugs, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and police officials took the unusual step Wednesday of identifying the city's 11 worst gangs, then promising to go after them with teams of police, federal agents, probation officers and prosecutors. Facing 720 identifiable gangs with 39,000 members, the city's plan would target the most dangerous groups, which total at least 800 members. Those gangs are thought to be responsible for a disproportionate amount of mayhem........ But Wes McBride, executive director of the California Gang Investigators Assn. and a retired Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, said he was...

My regular readers know that I patrol South-Central Los Angeles. Recently I saw this flyer which, as you can imagine, piqued my curiosity: (click pictures for larger versions) This document was distributed by a group called the Black Riders Liberation Party, an offshoot of the Black Panther Party started by this man: Whom they call Taco: The Black Riders Liberation Party was formed in 1996 by Bloods and Crips in the California Youth Authority college class. As their political understanding grew, especially being inside the belly of the beast, they were able to see up close how oppressive and dehumanizing...

Hicks identified as longtime member of metro-area Crips. People who know Brian Kenneth Hicks might not be hard to find. But those willing to talk about him could be more difficult to come by. That's according to one of Denver's top non-police authorities on gang activity, the Rev. Leon Kelly, executive director of Denver's Open Door Youth Gang Alternatives. "He's a Crip," said Kelly, who has been working to combat metro-area gang violence for more than 20 years. "I know him from past experiences. In 21 years, you run into a lot of people. Brian and his crew, I've known...

Too many define manhood through violence What makes someone spray a limousine with bullets even though he has no idea who might die? A "gun culture," answers The Denver Post, under the headline "Williams' murder a cowardly gun crime." Suffice it to say that the murder of Darrent Williams would not have occurred, at least in the fashion it did, without a gun. But that fact in itself explains little. What is most horrifying about this crime was the killer's casual targeting of people he hardly knew or didn't know at all over what perhaps was a disagreement or a...

Broncos right cornerback Darrent Williams was shot and killed this morning. After leaving a nightclub in a limousine, Williams was shot and killed near 11th and Grant in Denver. The team confirmed the death of Williams. A female passenger also was shot, according to a source familiar with Williams. Williams was 24. "I learned from the Denver Police Deprtment that this incident has occured," Williams' agent, Jeff Griffin said early Monday morning. "No other details have been released. I sincerely offer my condolences and feelings to his family." Williams was the Broncos' starting right cornerback and played his final game...

NEW YORK -- About a minute or two before the Knicks-Nuggets brawl erupted Saturday night in Madison Square Garden, New York coach Isiah Thomas mentioned to Denver star Carmelo Anthony that it wouldn't be a good idea to go anywhere near the paint, according to a member of the Denver Nuggets organization. The message was unmistakable: A hard foul was coming. And when it came, the NBA had its first full-scale fight of the 2006-07 season. As it tries to stay in the race in the Western Conference, Denver now has a huge question to ponder: How long will Anthony...

DENVER -- Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony is featured in an underground DVD that is circulating in his home town of Baltimore, Md. The DVD is called "Stop Snitching" and shows alleged drug dealers talking about what happens to people who cooperate with the police, and Anthony is standing next to one of them. He is also seen on the DVD talking about his Olympic bronze medal and saying that he threw it in a lake. The man he stands next to later goes on to tell how he would take care of snitches by "putting a hole in their...

Three students at Pine Ridge High beat up a 16-year-old-freshman on campus Monday as part of an initiation into the notorious Crips street gang, officials said. The boy lost a tooth and suffered cuts and bruises while willingly accepting the "beatdown" from fellow students when they were hanging out at the racquetball courts before classes began. Officials say all three are members of the Crips, a well-known street gang whose rivals are the Bloods. Daquan told investigators he found the knife on the ground, officials said. Brian Soto, a 15-year-old student who claims to be with the Crips, was brought...

Bottles, rocks and fists flew during lunchtime Friday at Fontana High School. Students poured out of classrooms when they said a fire alarm rang around noon. They then saw what they described as a racial or gang-related riot erupting among about 500 students on the quad of the campus near Citrus Avenue. Some flocked to the chaotic melee with their cell phones taking pictures and recording video while others fled to get out of the way. Helicopters circled over the school. "There were fights everywhere - girls and guys," said Dalila Lizarraga, 16. Campus police officers sprinted across four lanes...

Lawyers for another condemned inmate say Stanley Tookie Williams may have felt horrible pain. Prison officials allowed the execution of convicted murderer Stanley Tookie Williams to proceed, even though a nurse had failed to hook up a backup intravenous line minutes before authorities delivered the lethal injection drugs, according to court filings made public Tuesday. Defense attorneys for a man on death row at San Quentin cited the problem as part of a legal challenge to California's lethal injection procedure. Later this month, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose will hear the challenge, which asserts that condemned prisoners...

(Richland) August 16, 2006 - Four Marines were arrested along with 14 other young men and boys after law enforcement got a tip about a gang meeting at Pine Grove Park Sunday night. "They were probably the major focal point of this meeting," says gang investigator David Soto. Soto thinks they wanted to put their military experience to use in the plot, "You learn how to shoot, come in and move out. And those are things you also bring back to the general public. And these are things they'll also give the same training to their fellow gang members." Officers...

COLUMBIA, Md. -- Federal, state and local officials who participated in the Maryland Gang Summit yesterday agreed that cooperation is key for fighting the increasing number of criminal gangs in the state. Gaithersburg Police Detective Patrick Word said yesterday that there are currently about 10,000 gang members in Maryland. The gangs that exist in Maryland include the Bloods/United Blood Nation, Black Guerilla Family, Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, Tiny Rascal Gangsters, Street Thug Criminals, Hells Angels, Vatos Loco, Pagans and South Side Locos, he said. "We knew the gang problem was in every single county of Maryland," U.S. Sen. Barbara A....

It was inevitable that someone would describe the 21-year-old suspect in last weekend's street killing in the Warehouse District as "a good kid." But good kids don't bring guns to movies. And groups of good kids don't storm into cinemas shouting, cursing, flashing gang signs and picking fights with rivals, all of which apparently led to a melee, then gunfire, outside of Block E and the shocking death of an innocent pedestrian. Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and police officials insist that the tragedy was an aberration and that the district is safe.

After learning that New York City police officers have been receiving Islamic-culture training, the Big Apple's largest street communities, the Bloods and the Crips, criticized the NYPD and Mayor Bloomberg for discriminating against gangsta people. Furious gangsta community leaders demanded that a similar sensitivity training program be created to educate law enforcement members about the intricacies of "gangsta-culture," with its vibrant rituals, traditions, and etiquette. "The Crips community has been here since the seventies and we don't get no sensitivity program," said a concerned Crips activist who happens to be a minority. "The Muslims just showed up and they get...