The History of Blood Gangs in Los Angeles - Essay Example

The locals often feel that the immigrants and the minorities are looting their job opportunities and destroying the White dominated American culture and their national identity. In short, both the minorities and the majorities in America are looking suspiciously at each other which resulted in the formation of violent gangs for fighting against the opposite groups. The Bloods are one such African American gang formed in Los Angeles in 1972 mainly to fight against another African American Gang; The Crips.

This paper analyses the history of Blood gangs in Los Angeles. As mentioned earlier, The Bloods gang was formed in 1972 Los Angeles, California in 1972 and it is active even now. Even though, it was founded in Los Angeles, currently it is operating across America. Murder, drug trafficking, robbery etc are the major criminal activities of this gang. Even though, Crips was the major enemy group of Bloods, they also fight against other criminal groups such as Folk Nation, Surinos etc. The formation of Bloods can be attributed to some severe conflicts and differences occurred in the Crips gang about the nature of their attack.

Majority of the Crips gang members made no segregation while attacking others whereas some of the Crips members were against the attacking of innocent people. The Crips gang was the prominent violent gang in America before the formation of The Bloods. Crips was formed in the 1960’s for conducting robbery and drug trafficking. In 1972, a group of Crips gang consisting of around 20 members attacked a small group of innocent young men for robbing their wallets and leather jackets. An innocent young man called Robert Ballou was killed in this attack, even though he was not a member of any other gangs.

The killing of Robert Ballou has created lot of conflicts in the Crips gang about the objectives of the Gang. Some of the gang members (Piru Street Crisps) argued that killing of innocent people cannot be justified while others argued that no segregation is necessary while conducting their missions. Piru Street Crips with the help of Leuders Park Hustlers and some of the other enemy groups of Crips such as The Brims called a meeting and discussed the strategies to counter the threats of The Crips and the necessities of forming another gang to counter the threats from common enemy; The Crips.

The meeting decided to select a new flag in red color for the new gang formed and named the new gang as The Bloods (Bloods Gang Knowledge, n. d, p.1). “Investigative reports in 1991 placed Crips or Bloods in 32 States and 113 cities” (Walker, 2011). As per the current statistics, no American state is free from the activities of the Blood gang. In different states in America, the Blood gang operates in different sets and names; however, the word, Blood is a part of their gang name everywhere.

Some of the Blood sets have members from even female community. The Blood do not have a common or national leader even though different sets of Blood have regional leadership. The regional leadership or the set leadership is often appointed based on the experience and the severity of the crime committed by the set members. Set members are often referred as soldiers. “By 1980, there were 30,000 gangs members in Los Angeles County,