Washington had been against Crip infighting and after his death several Crip sets started fighting against each other. 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. They were heavily involved in the production of PCP, marijuana and amphetamines. īy 1978, there were 45 Crip gangs, called sets, in Los Angeles. The color then became associated with Crips. A blue bandana was worn in tribute to Morrow after he was shot and killed on February 23, 1973. Williams recalled that a blue bandana was first worn by Crips founding member Curtis "Buddha" Morrow, as a part of his color-coordinated clothing of blue Levis, a blue shirt, and dark blue suspenders. In his memoir, Williams also 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." 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. Williams however appears to discount the sometimes-cited founding date of 1969 in his memoir, Blue Rage, Black Redemption. 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. 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 racial segregation of young African American men, who were excluded from organizations such as the Boy Scouts, leading to the formation of black "street clubs" and the waning of black nationalist organizations such as the Black Panther Party and the Black Power Movement. Main article: Debate over the origins of the Crips gang Richard Valdemar has heard allegations that "Crip" was an acronym for " Communist Revolution In Progress", though he considers this unlikely to be true. 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". The name had no political, organizational, cryptic, or acronymic meaning, though some have suggested it stands for "Common Revolution In Progress", a backronym. Īnother source suggests "Crips" may have evolved from "Cripplers", a 1970s street gang in Watts, of which Washington was a member. In February 1972 the Los Angeles Times used the term. People in the neighborhood then began calling them cripples, or "Crips" for short. The name evolved into "Crips" when gang members began carrying around canes to display their " pimp" status. Cribs was chosen to reflect the young age of the majority of the gang members. 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. Some self-identified Crips have been convicted of federal racketeering. They have a long and bitter rivalry with the Bloods. With an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 members in 2008, the gangs' members have been involved in murders, robberies and drug dealing, among other crimes. The Crips are one of the largest and most violent associations of street gangs in the United States. Traditionally, since around 1973, its members have worn blue clothing. Founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1969, mainly by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams, the Crips were initially a single alliance between two autonomous gangs it is now a loosely-connected network of individual "sets", often engaged in open warfare with one another. The Crips are an alliance of street gangs that is based in the coastal regions of Southern California.
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