1970s The Crip and Bloods went to war with each other to defend their territory. They fought each other with cheap "
Saturday night special" handguns,
switchblades,
Molotov cocktails, as well as through hand-to-hand combat. They also participated in theft, facilitated by the establishment of
protection rackets to
extort money from local businesses.
1980s In the early 1980s,
drug trafficker Freeway Rick Ross introduced
crack cocaine to South Los Angeles Bloods and Crips gangs, and both gangs became distributors. Watts housing projects became "open-air drug markets". In 2014,
Business Insider wrote that gang colors and tattoos had stopped being used, so members could avoid scrutiny from law enforcement, witnesses to their crimes, or potential employers. Instead, the colors started being worn only at gang meetups, and gang identification was done online instead.
Belize theater In the 1980s, many African-descending gang members from
Belize living in California (who were immigrants to the U.S. after a
1961 hurricane in Belize) were deported back to their original country. This Crips–Bloods war was brought
back to Belize City. The war in the city grew after the release of the 1988 film
Colors, whose plot involves the two gangs in Los Angeles. By 2012, there were
20 to 25 different gangs in the city with some affiliation to either the Crips or Bloods. The war has continued due to conflicts in drug distribution; cocaine left in the ocean by
drug cartels has washed up on the shores of Belize for years.
Prelude to 1992 Los Angeles truce In the summer of 1987, as a response to the
crack epidemic, LAPD officers started
Operation Hammer in Los Angeles, which had a goal of "[making] life miserable" for gang members by arresting them for misdemeanors like
traffic citations. Large numbers of arrests were made daily. They also performed
raids which vandalized local homes; this and similar "gang-like" behavior lead to mass violence and
arson. In 1990, the
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) identified 22,594 Crips and 8,251 Bloods in their jurisdiction. By this time, both gangs started fighting for territory from the growing, majority-
Hispanic 18th Street gang, which the LASD found to have 6,000 members.
1990s 1992 Los Angeles truce and riots housing project|250x250px In the early 1990s, the Amer-I-Can program (led by former
NFL player
Jim Brown) had been holding discreet meetings on "the principles of responsibility and
self-determination". Many of the men in these meetings went on to organize
a truce that happened between the Grape Street Crips and their rivals, the PJ Watts Crips, as well as both of their rivals, the Hunter and Hacienda Bloods sets, at the Imperial Courts housing project (home of the PJ Watts Crips) on April 28, 1992. The
1992 Los Angeles riots on April 29 were over the acquittal of the LAPD officers who beat
Rodney King. They involved mass looting and
arson, and were ended by a massive law enforcement presence on May 4. Meanwhile, starting the night of the truce and continuing through the riots, the Crips and Bloods partied together at the
Imperial Courts and
Nickerson Gardens projects. The Crips and Bloods decided the riots were "an opportunity to transform themselves and their community". During the riots, graffiti was made across the city advertising the truce. On May 3, the Pirus joined the truce. On May 16 and 17, as the National Guard was being withdrawn from Los Angeles, the Crips and Bloods sponsored a Saturday "unity picnic" and a Sunday family event which welcomed members of the community. More than 5,000 people (including Congresswoman
Maxine Waters) showed up to these events, including members of both gangs. A final treaty between gangs featured a
code of ethics that included the phrase: "I accept the duty to honor, uphold and defend the spirit of the red, blue and purple [the colors of the Watts gangs], to teach the black
[sic] family its legacy and protracted struggle for freedom and justice." It also prohibited the throwing up of
gang signs. His music was released under the
Death Row Records label headed by
Suge Knight; Shakur was killed while being driven by Knight through the city. In 2021, a report by the
Los Angeles Times claimed the murder was committed by Crips as part of the Crips–Bloods war. Shakur, Knight, and Death Row Records were associated with the
Mob Piru set of the Bloods from Compton. Allegedly, before the murder, a Southside Crip, whom are a rival gang to the Mob Piru gang in Compton, named
Orlando Anderson was involved in the beating and robbing of one of Shakur's bodyguards, Trayvon Lane, by Crips in
Lakewood, California. Afterwards, Anderson threatened to rip the Death Row Records medallion off of the bodyguard's neck, which was seen as an insult to the Pirus. Before Shakur's murder on September 7, Shakur attended a boxing match at the
MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. On his way out with his bodyguards, one of them noticed Anderson, and Shakur came over to Anderson. Shakur asked Anderson, "You from the South?", and then beat him with help from Knight and their affiliates. According to Keefe D, uncle of Orlando Anderson, the South Side Crips then decided to kill Shakur later that day. In 2012, there was a major conflict in and around the
village of Hempstead, New York (mostly in the village's Linden Triangle neighborhood), which led to 56 people being shot by the end of the year (40 of them within Hempstead). 10 of them died, and three became fully or partially
paralyzed. The war ended when the Crips lured two of the Bloods' leaders into an ambush under the guise of negotiating a truce. Those Bloods then associated with a gang called the Very Crispy Gangsters. By 2014, an estimated 20,000 people had died from the wider war. In June 2015, there was a large fight between Crips and Bloods inside the
Otis Bantum Correctional Center in New York, which prison officials broke up; rapper
Bobby Shmurda, a Crip, was involved. In 2016, police in
Edmonton, Canada, said that fighting between Crips and Bloods over the local drug trade had started. Also that year, Bloods and Crips in Atlanta cooperated during
Black Lives Matter protests over the deaths of
Alton Sterling and
Philando Castile. In December 2017, a leader of the Bloods in
Franklin, Virginia, Brandon Lee Leonard, was shot and left in a ditch behind his girlfriend's house some time after getting into a confrontation with a member of a rival gang affiliated with the Crips. Hours after Leonard was found dead, a drive-by shooting happened at the house of the gang member who had fought with Leonard. Nobody was injured, but "a bullet narrowly missed the gang member's mother, who was asleep". Two Crips were shot the next day, one seriously injured. The conflict paused until 2019, when a Crip posted on
social media a scoreboard "showing the Crips leading the Bloods 1-0". A few days later, on Leonard's birthday, a Crip posted a video in which he sang "
Happy Birthday" to Leonard, and then mimicked gunshot sounds. Later that day, he was seriously injured in a shooting by Bloods. Five local Bloods had been sent to prison for the Franklin gang war by 2024. On March 31, 2019, popular rapper
Nipsey Hussle, a member of the
Rollin' 60s Crip gang, was murdered in
Crenshaw, Los Angeles by Eric Holder, Jr., another member of the Rollin' 60s. Nipsey Hussle was well-liked among both Crips and Bloods for his peaceful relations with the Bloods, which included bringing them on stage to perform with him. His death led to the most peace negotiations between the gangs since the 1992 truce. This started with a public meeting between the Swamp Crips and Campanella Park Pirus at Van Ness Park, and continued for multiple meetings at a location east of the
110 Freeway.
2020s In 2020, an up-and-coming Blood rapper from
Fort Worth, Texas, named Javien Calvin Wright ("J-Dub"), was fatally shot outside of his residence. "Arguing and posturing" regarding his death began on social media; notably, a YouTube vlogger uploaded a video titled "Why Channel-5 J-Dub is dead.", which featured clips of people celebrating while holding guns and wads of money. This conflict over Wright, which began to involve members of gangs on the east and south sides of Fort Worth, led to a gathering of over 400 people at the city's Village Creek Park on May 10. At the park, there was a shooting which wounded five people. |308x308px In February 2022, in Los Angeles, Skipp Townsend held a peace meeting over brunch with the rivaling Rollin' 60s Crips and Inglewood Family Bloods at a restaurant in
Manhattan Beach. This meeting was successful, and as of June 2024, there has not been a homicide caused by warring between the sets since then. On April 3, 2022, multiple gunmen killed six people and injured 12 in
a mass shooting at the intersection of 10th Street and
K Street in
Sacramento, California. In 2024,
Sacramento Police detective Shaun McGovern gave more details on the case while testifying in a trial of three men accused of the shooting, saying that the shooting was related to a conflict between the local Garden Blocc Crips and Del Paso Heights Bloods gangs, among other gangs. == Belligerent sets ==