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Gangs (The following paper is a synopsis of the speaker's presentation at the June 4, 1994 SCAFO meeting)
Speaker DAVID JONES Long Beach is unique as far as gangs go. The city has gangs of every race and ethnicity. The Asian gangs are probably the most structured and organized of all of the gangs in Long Beach. They are relatively young, with no known Long Beach Asian gang members currently over 30 years of age. The principal criminal activities for the Asian gangs have been car thefts and auto burglaries. Long Beach has a large Cambodian population, (one of the largest Cambodian populations outside of Cambodia). Long Beach Police Officers were having difficulty tracking Cambodian gang members because the gang members normally carry no identification and use different names each time they are questioned by the police, so Long Beach Police Department began using fingerprints in the field to help with identification problems. The obtaining of a fingerprint on the standard field interview “F.I.” form has somewhat eliminated the problem of people using multiple identities. The hispanic gangs in Long Beach go back many years. One particular family has had gang members in it since the 1940's. The black gangs are mostly Crips, and deal almost exclusively with narcotics. They are a relatively structured group. Leadership is determined mainly by seniority. Because of growing community awareness and concern, the department has been making a more concerted effort in curbing gang related crime and in allocation of manpower. In the past several weeks the department has had a high profile police presence which has reduced the number of gang related shootings.
This article was originally published in “THE PRINT” |