Monday, August 18, 2008

Examiner: Bloods Rising?

The Examiner has a story on the possibility that the Bloods may be attempting to establish themselves in DC. This was something mentioned as a possibility by an officer after the night of shootings that resulted in the murder of a 13 year old. I don't know how much there is to this story, but I can say that the Bloods do have a presence in Baltimore. At any rate, any activity is cause for concern. Let's hope the story overplays things. A related concern that has been raised is the fact that criminals from DC might end up imprisoned in distant prisons and bring this kind of crap with them when they return home. When people are incarcerated far from home they lose the family ties, and that may make them more prone to get into trouble. Maybe we need to rethink that strategy.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

With all due respect, I doubt that family ties are much of a help in keeping incarcerated criminals from falling back into criminal activity once they are out. Most of these folks are repeat offenders and whether or not they are incarcerated near or far, they are highly likely to get into trouble again.

Still, I hope this is overblown - I've long thought that the police are too quick to attribute criminal activity to organized gangs. I suspect that more often than not these are people that decide to claim affiliation without actually being in communication with the bigger fish.

Anyway you cut it, the problems Trinidad has had lately are bad news for both that neighborhood and those of us that live south of Florida.

7th Street

Anonymous said...

Maybe the kids are just Dunbar students that wear red out of school pride.

-A

Anonymous said...

Maybe we should just pay them off. Seems to be working in Iraq.

poppopbang said...

I'm not sure that it would really change anything if a formal "gang" like the Bloods crept in. DC's "crews" are just as bloody and dangerous as any large gang.

Alan Page said...

i gotta disagree there, poop. dc crews have localized beefs that usually stay in one neighborhood. blood sets tend to operate citywide...and they also have visible 'flags', making conflicts more likely to erupt between them and anyone they have beef with anywhere in the city where they might be. dc crews, near as i can tell, have no visible signifiers (unlike chicago gangs who cock their hats in certain directions, bloods who wear red, etc). does anyone have information to the contrary?

the bloods in new york have caused more trouble than any recent pre-exisiting street organizations (like, say, the bravehearts in queensbridge).

i've seen a few kids rocking red bandannas, some hanging on the wrong side, so i assumed it was just a bad fashion trend brought about by the popularity of lil wayne. sadly, sometimes that's how it starts...a well armed wannabe is just as dangerous as an authentic blood IMHO....

Anonymous said...

Wow,I didn't know Jungle and Wiz qualify as a "pre-existing street organization."