Gang Mayhem Grips LA
You'd think Americans would be more concerned about the mobs of genocidal light infantry roaming their own streets than they are about the ones on the other side of the ocean. You'd think we wouldn't devote a lot of energy to deciding whether certain utterances made by shock-jocks are racist when there are people literally fighting to the death over skin color. Is this problem just too difficult to address? You can't very well bomb your own cities, and there's no one who can simply be forced off the air...
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A bloody conflict between Hispanic and black gangs is spreading across Los Angeles. Hundreds are dying as whole districts face the threat of ethnic cleansing. Paul Harris reports from the epicentre of America's new urban warfare
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Boyle's Los Angeles is where an estimated 120,000 gang members across five counties battle over turf, pride and drugs. It is a city of violence as a new race war escalates between new Hispanic gangs and older black groups, each trying to ethnically cleanse the other. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has referred to his city as 'the gang capital of America', has launched a crackdown on the new threat.
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Last year there were 269 gang-related killings in LA. Gang-related crime leaped 15.7 per cent last year, as most other types of crime fell. Hate crimes against black people have surged. With a rapidly growing Hispanic population, LA's gang culture is shifting. It means that being black in the wrong neighbourhood can get you killed.
Green's murder was the latest in a line of killings by the 204th Street gang. In 1997, 11-year-old Marquis Wilbert was killed on his bike. In 2001, Robert Hightower, 19, was killed. In 2003, Eric Butler, 39, was shot dead trying to protect his daughter from being harassed. There are streets that blacks have been forbidden to cross.
*Although... isn't seizing "turf" by force and claiming the right to control trade and citizenship within it a pretty political thing to do? Isn't it a usurpation of powers and rights that legitimately belong to the city, state, and federal governments? A bit of light insurgency even? Everything to date has been too small-scale and unambitious to really warrant these terms, but the gangs are getting bigger and more organized and the legitimate authorities are getting stretched thinner and thinner. Who knows where it all could lead? All a gang needs is a religious mission and an ambitious leader and we could have our very own embryonic American Hamas (or IRA, or whatever floats your boat). Am I overreacting?