“From there, things went downhill fast.” - sounds like the 2008 election.
I live on the border of Kent, though on the East Hill which is more affluent and less gang infested that the West Hill. Yet we are starting to see grafitti sprayed around here with (PBS) = Playboy Surenos, which comes with the growing Hispanic population. Forever Asians were East Kent’s largest group of minority. That is changing.
HISPANIC GANGS - King County
-Playboy Surenos (PBS)
* Brown Pride Locos 13
* Callejones Escondidos 13
* Crossroads Eastside Locos 13 (Bellevue/Kirkland)
* El Monte Flores 13 (Burien/Federal Way)
* Florencia 13
* Gangster Surenos Cliqua 13
* King Underground Surenos 13
* La Raza 14 (Nortenos)
* Little Valley Lokotes 13
* Mara Salvatrucha 13
* Puro Mexican Locos 13 (Bellevue)
* Rancho San Pedro 3rd Street
-Peewees
* South Park Locos 13
* South Side Gangsters 13
* South Side Locos 13
* South Side Playboys 13
-Conejos
-Rascals
-Wicked Bunnies
* Surenos Villains 13
* United Latinos
* Varrio Surenos Lokotes 13
* Varrio Locos 13
* Vatos Locos 13
* West Side 18th Street
MY hometown, spent my first 33 years there....how things have changed....course I grew up out in the “country” about 5 miles from downtown, but....believe me...it used to be a bucolic, quiet, little place.
Why would anyone concerned for their own safety attend a low-rider event?
I have no problem if gang members or solitary criminals want to kill each other, but what possesses others to show up where the gangs are likely to be?
“Gang problems,” inside and outside of prisons, manifest as primarily ethnic/racial/cultural phenomena, like terrorism is primarily religious.
The causes are not primarily economic or educational - that they seem to be so to some people, is to mistake correlation with causation.
Avoiding subcultural events and hangouts where gangs are more likley within a culture would go a long way towards enhancing personal safety. Working within one’s culture to create values and mores antithetical to gangs would probably go a long way towards minimizing the problem, but is an almost quixotic quest.
Short of that, a rigorous police state is the usual response of a society intent on controlling such gangs, but the police are often corrupted in the process, or undermined by the culture, or become too oppressive against non-gang citizens.
If I am White and I want to avoid gang violence, I may not want to go to motorcyle rally’s of certain types. If I am Black, I may try to avoid the ghetto, sites known for drug dealing, certain rap concerts and such. If Hispanic, perhaps avoid low-rider rally’s.
In any culture, I would fight the glorification of criminals and moral degradation in general, and I would try to vote in politicians who are tough on crime and gangs, while friendly towards the law-abiding, and I would be vigilant that the politicians and police do not become gang-like themselves. Three-strikes, death penalty, zero-tolerance, reform of our unwieldy judicial system and such would get my full support at the voting booth if the candidates also understood the true nature and distinctions of those with criminal minds. I would oppose money wasted on education, welfare, and all the other liberal nonsense which we have been told will address the “root causes.”