Crips

Stanley Tookie Williams met Raymond Lee Washington in 1969, and the two decided to unite their local gang members from the west and east sides of South Central Los Angeles in order to battle neighboring street gangs. Most of the members were 17 years old.[20] Williams discounted the sometimes cited founding date of 1969 in his memoir, Blue Rage, Black Redemption.[20] Gang activity in South Central Los Angeles has its roots in a variety of factors dating to the 1950s, including post-World War II economic decline leading to joblessness and poverty, with racial segregation leading to the formation of black "street clubs" by young African American men who were excluded from organizations such as the Boy Scouts, and the waning of black nationalist organizations such as the Black Panther Party and the Black Power Movement.[21][22][23][24]

By 1978, there were 45 Crips gangs, called sets, in Los Angeles. They were heavily involved in the production of PCP, marijuana and amphetamines. On March 11, 1979, Williams, a member of the Westside Crips, was arrested for four murders and on August 9, 1979, Washington was gunned down. Washington had been against Crip infighting and after his death several Crip sets started fighting against each other. The Crips' leadership was dismantled, prompting a deadly gang war between the Rollin' 60 Neighborhood Crips and Eight Tray Gangster Crips that led nearby Crip sets to choose sides and align themselves with either the Gangster Crips or Neighborhood Crips, waging large-scale war in South Central and other cities. The East Coast Crips and the Hoover Crips directly severed their alliance after Washington's death. By 1980, the Crips were in turmoil, warring with the Bloods and against each other. The gang's growth and influence increased significantly in the early 1980s when crack cocaine hit the streets and Crip sets began distributing the drug. Large profits induced many Crips to establish new markets in other cities and states. As a result, Crip membership grew steadily and the street gang was one of the nation's largest by the late 1980s.[25][26] In 1999, there were at least 600 Crips sets with more than 30,000 members transporting drugs in the United States.[19]

Some sources suggest that the original name for the alliance, "Cribs", was narrowed down from a list of many options and chosen unanimously from three final choices, over the Black Overlords and the Assassins. Cribs was chosen to reflect the young age of the majority of the gang members. The name evolved into "Crips" when gang members began carrying around canes to display their "pimp" status. People in the neighborhood then began calling them cripples, or "Crips" for short.[27] In February 1972 the Los Angeles Times used the term.[19] Another source suggests "Crips" may have evolved from "Cripplers", a 1970s street gang in Watts, of which Washington was a member.[28] The name had no political, organizational, cryptic, or acronymic meaning, though some have suggested it stands for "Common Revolution In Progress", a backronym. According to the film Bastards of the Party, directed by a member of the Bloods, the name represented "Community Revolutionary Interparty Service" or "Community Reform Interparty Service". In his memoir, Williams refuted claims that the group was a spin-off of the Black Panther Party or formed for a community agenda, writing that it "depicted a fighting alliance against street gangs—nothing more, nothing less."[20] Washington, who attended Fremont High School, was the leader of the East Side Crips, and Williams, who attended Washington High School, led the West Side Crips.

A Crip gang signal

Williams recalled that a blue bandana was first worn by Crips founding member Buddha, as a part of his color-coordinated clothing of blue Levi's, a blue shirt, and dark blue suspenders. A blue bandana was worn in tribute to Buddha after he was shot and killed on February 23, 1973, and the color became associated with Crips.[20]

The Crips gang consists of between approximately 30,000 and 35,000 members and 800 sets, active in 221 cities and 41 U.S. states.[1] The states with the highest estimated number of "Crips sets" are California, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. Members typically consist of young African American men, with some being white, Hispanic, Asian, and Pacific Islander.[19] Crip sets are also active in the Canadian cities of Montreal and Toronto.[29][30]

In 1992 the LAPD estimated 15,742 Crips in 108 sets; other source estimates were 30,000 to 35,000 in 600 sets in California.[31]

Crips have served in the United States armed forces and on bases in the United States and abroad.[32]

The Crips became popular throughout southern Los Angeles as more youth gangs joined; at one point they outnumbered non-Crip gangs by 3 to 1, sparking disputes with non-Crip gangs, including the L.A. Brims, Athens Park Boys, the Bishops, The Drill Company, and the Denver Lanes. By 1971 the gang's notoriety had spread across Los Angeles.

By 1971, a gang on Piru Street in Compton, California, known as the Piru Street Boys, formed and associated itself with the Crips as a set. After two years of peace, a feud began between the Pirus and the other Crip sets. It later turned violent as gang warfare ensued between former allies. This battle continued and by 1973, the Pirus wanted to end the violence and called a meeting with other gangs targeted by the Crips. After a long discussion, the Pirus broke all connections to the Crips and started an organization that would later be called the Bloods,[33] a street gang infamous for its rivalry with the Crips.

Since then, other conflicts and feuds were started between many of the remaining Crips sets. It is a common misconception that Crips sets feud only with Bloods. In reality, they also fight each other—for example, the Rolling 60s Neighborhood Crips and 83 Gangster Crips have been rivals since 1979. In Watts, the Grape Street Crips and the PJ Watts Crips have feuded so much that the PJ Watts Crips even teamed up with a local Blood set, the Bounty Hunter Bloods, to fight the Grape Street Crips.[34] In the mid-1990s, the Hoover Crips rivalries and wars with other Crip sets caused them to become independent and drop the Crip name, calling themselves the Hoover Criminals.

"BK" ("blood killer") graffiti, Alexandria, Virginia

Some practices of Crip gang life include graffiti and substitutions and deletions of particular letters of the alphabet. The letter "b" in the word "blood" is "disrespected" among certain sets and written with a cross inside it because of its association with the enemy. The letters "CK", which stand for "Crip killer", are avoided and replaced by "cc". For example, the words "kick back" are written "kicc bacc". Many other letters are also altered due to symbolic associations.[37] Crips traditionally refer to each other as "Cuzz", which itself is sometimes used as a moniker for Crip. "Crab" is the most disrespectful epithet to call a Crip, and can warrant fatal retaliation.[38] Crips in prison modules in the 1970s and 1980s sometimes spoke Swahili to maintain privacy from guards and rival gangs.[39]

• African-American organized crime
• Crip Walk
• Crime in Los Angeles
  • Gangs in Los Angeles
• Crips and Bloods: Made in America

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Crips.

• PBS Independent Lens program on South Los Angeles gangs
• Snopes Urban Legend – The origin of the name Crips