- The original name for the crips was “Cribs” because of the average aged members being mostly youths
- By 1978, there were 45 Crips gangs (called sets) and they were operating in Los Angeles.
- Crips has over 800 sets with 30,000 – 35,000 members and associates (more than 13,000 of these members are still in Los Angeles)
- By 1971, a gang on Piru Street in Compton known as the Piru Street Boys was formed and associated themselves with the Crips as a set.
- After two years of peace, a feud began between the Piru Street Boys and the other Crip sets. It turned ugly as gang warfare started happening between former allies.
- This battle continued and by 1973, the Piru Street Boys wanted to end the violence and called a meeting with other gangs that were targeted by the Crips
- After a long discussion, the Pirus broke all connections to the Crips and started an organization which is now the Bloods
- Crips and Bloods have different alphabet rules due to their dislike of the opposite gang
- So for the Crips, the words “kick back” will instead be written as “kicc bkacc” due to their rules of the alphabet.
- This occurs because the Crips don’t like the letter B because of the Bloods, so they “disrespect” it by putting a cross through the letter. Another thing is the letters CK put together in a word; they don’t like this because CK stands for Crip Killers so instead, they double the C in a word that would normally have CK (back = bkacc)
Now these were the things I found that I never knew about prior to the research. What really interested me, was the alphabetical rules these gangs have. They take the “ck” in words and change them in to “cc”, that’s kinda cool. I see now that these groups are really about respect, and the letter pairing of “C” and “K” is looked upon as disrespect. Another thing I never knew was that, the bloods were originally part of their enemies’ sets…wow. I would have NEVER guessed that, and that really shows how if pushed far enough, these sets would go against each other due to disrespect. Yes, we all have watched these groups show up on T.V, and we all have our different opinions on these people, but I see now that overall, it’s all about what they feel is “theirs” and these people are fighting for it. A lot of the violence is unnecessary, but these groups feel that it is indeed necessary, so the battles brew on. I feel that by investigating this topic further, I’ve learned new things that changes some of my views on this topic. It’s interesting to see how each gang progressed, and got to where they are today.
