Posted on 11/07/2013 11:18:50 AM PST by reaganaut1
FRESNO, Calif. — Bulldogs can be seen snarling from flagpoles, from baseball caps, from T-shirts and from tattoos — one man has the dog’s face inked across his torso, its behind across his back. Young men on street corners bark at passing patrol officers. They call their children “little dogs” or “bull puppies.” Police raids find their targets asleep beneath red blankets emblazoned with the dog.
Fresno and the surrounding region have long been overrun by Bulldogs. And where the violent pack goes, trouble follows.
The Fresno State Bulldogs college football team is exceedingly popular here in the country’s fruit and vegetable epicenter, where more than a million acres of cropland stretch to the horizon. “From Sacramento to L.A., there is nothing except agriculture and Fresno State football,” said Kenny Wiggins, a former Fresno State lineman who plays in the N.F.L. for the San Diego Chargers. “We were the only show in town; everyone, and I mean everyone, goes to the games.”
The team’s logo is a cartoon bulldog, a muscled beast with sharp teeth, a spiked collar and floppy ears. But the bulldog is no longer just a college sports mascot. It has been appropriated by members of a savage street gang who call themselves the Bulldogs.
The gang started in a prison and quickly earned a reputation as unusually vicious, even in the bloody world of California gangs. At their height, in 2006, the Bulldogs were responsible for 70 percent of the city’s shootings, the police said. Three of four inmates in the county jail are Bulldogs.
“They grew and grew and grew until there were Bulldogs everywhere you looked,” Jerry Dyer, Fresno’s police chief, said.
[...]
Nearly every Latino gang of note in the state is affiliated with either the Sureños or the Norteños. Except the Bulldogs.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The originally suggested name for the gang, Banana Slugs, sounded stupid...
So why isn’t the college suing the gang for copyright violations?
Obviously the college needs to change their team name. Yep, that’s the answer.
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