Les Gangs A Los Angeles crips vs bloods
Les Gangs A Los Angeles crips vs bloods
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00:00 South Central Los Angeles,
00:02 home to the two most famous gangs in the United States,
00:05 the Bloods and the Creeps.
00:07 Born in the high school playground,
00:10 the two gangs spread like a plague.
00:12 Are you ready to rob?
00:15 You know, to plunder, to kill it?
00:19 The rival gangs fight like bloody vendettas.
00:22 The goal is to create as many burials as possible.
00:26 While brutality invades the dusty streets,
00:30 its explosion will put Los Angeles on its knees.
00:33 Hollywood, March 21, 1972.
00:50 After a concert at the Palladium, the crowd scatters in the street.
00:55 In the crowd, teenagers belonging to gangs.
00:59 Even if he has never been to the Palladium,
01:01 Angelo White knows them well.
01:03 On the weekend, we would choose parties all over town,
01:08 and we would fight the gang revolts.
01:11 In front of the Palladium is Robert Ballou Jr.,
01:14 son of a famous lawyer and footballer
01:16 in the best team in Los Angeles High School.
01:19 Ballou is surrounded by a group of young people
01:22 who ask for his leather jacket and wallet.
01:25 At the time, we liked to steal leather.
01:29 As they do not give in, the gang attacks.
01:35 Unable to defend themselves,
01:39 the 16-year-old receives a volley of punches and kicks.
01:43 The attackers steal his jacket and flee.
01:49 We were young, what interested us was to own things,
01:52 steal and fight.
01:54 But the young man succumbs to his injuries.
01:58 I was absolutely terrified that a boy would be beaten to death
02:04 for a leather jacket.
02:06 Nine young people are arrested and put on trial.
02:09 It is the first death attributed to the gangs called the Crips.
02:17 This absurd murder marks the beginning of a new culture of gangs
02:20 devoid of any consideration for human life.
02:23 The police officers said to themselves,
02:27 "Oh, we have a very big problem."
02:30 The Crips were born in South Central,
02:39 an area where the freeway Arbor West
02:41 separates the West Side from the East Side.
02:45 We are far from the hilly populations of Beverly Hills.
02:48 The African-American community suffers from problems related to education,
02:52 housing and unemployment,
02:54 which is three times higher than the national average.
02:57 Raymond Lee Washington, a 15-year-old teenager,
03:01 created a gang with 10 of his comrades.
03:04 Because of their young age, they are called the Crips, the Bersos.
03:08 His name was Washington and he carried his name well.
03:14 It was like an alcohol bomb.
03:16 He had a scar on his arm.
03:19 For the young Crips of Washington,
03:22 the 1965 Watts murders are a vivid memory.
03:26 At the time, the black community,
03:30 driven by precariousness and police brutality,
03:32 had shown its anger in the streets.
03:35 After six days of fighting,
03:38 the toll was 34 dead and more than 1,000 injured.
03:42 Rioting in the North East was in the black neighborhood of Los Angeles,
03:45 which today looks like a city ravaged by war.
03:48 It took no less than 14,000 national guards
03:51 to bring down what black and white leaders called
03:54 the insurrection of the thugs.
03:57 After the riots,
04:04 the Afro-Americans of the 1960s adopted the idea of Black Power.
04:08 The Black Panthers challenged the revolution
04:11 and the armed resistance against what they called the Conde, the police.
04:15 Their message particularly appealed to the Crips.
04:18 At 13 or 14, we didn't really understand what they were saying.
04:25 But we knew they were against the Conde.
04:28 Washington and his acolytes decided to create their own movement.
04:34 They even adopted the famous leather jacket of the Black Panthers.
04:38 Small gangs like the Crips
04:42 are common in the modest East Side neighborhood.
04:45 Gangs in East Side, it was normal.
04:48 Every street had its own.
04:50 For young people like Raymond Danny Foucault,
04:53 going to another neighborhood is particularly dangerous.
04:56 People would steal stuff from us if we crossed a certain border.
05:03 If you came across Compton Boulevard,
05:06 even if you were walking,
05:08 someone would come and check you,
05:10 "Where are you from?"
05:12 In the feudal system of South Central,
05:15 the young members of the gangs were their punching bag.
05:18 In combat, Raymond Washington was the master.
05:22 He challenged anyone, anywhere, anytime, all the time.
05:32 He could have knocked Tyson out any way he wanted.
05:35 This reputation of being tough on the skin
05:38 inspired respect and attracted new recruits.
05:41 If you were with Raymond,
05:46 you were with the one who was capable of protecting everybody.
05:52 He took care of people.
05:55 He had what we call today the "principles".
05:58 Even if we didn't know what they were at the time,
06:00 he had that.
06:02 Despite his young age,
06:06 Washington was a born leader.
06:08 His dream was to form the most powerful gang in the city.
06:11 It really didn't matter what gang you were in,
06:16 if you were with Raymond,
06:18 at the time he was 16 or 17,
06:21 you were with the president.
06:23 You were with him.
06:26 You were in.
06:27 That was the power, the energy.
06:29 He had that.
06:31 In the spring of 1971,
06:36 Washington was getting closer to his dream.
06:38 He managed to convince rival gangs in West Side
06:43 to form an alliance with the Cribs.
06:45 People came from everywhere to be initiated.
06:51 Practicing violence and shooting,
06:54 Washington presented himself as a modern day Robin Hood.
06:59 Like bandits coming from the poor sections
07:04 to pillage the rich sections,
07:06 to requisition their property
07:09 and bring it back to the neighborhood.
07:12 That's how Raymond was doing it
07:15 when I knew him.
07:17 The Cribs were moving with proxenet cans
07:21 in homage to the heroes of the early 70's Blacksportation.
07:26 So their victims described them as "Cripples".
07:31 Little by little, the Cribs became the Crips.
07:35 And gang members adopted a way of life
07:38 they called "The Crippin".
07:40 The Crippin, it meant "Are you ready to rob,
07:44 to pillage and to pillage?"
07:47 In 1972, the Crips had 6 factions scattered all over Los Angeles.
07:54 They fought anyone who stepped on their turf.
07:57 "Arm in arm, the Crips don't die.
08:02 Crips or die.
08:03 You were with the Crips or you were against us."
08:06 Many gangs fell under the Crips' yoke.
08:09 But some were brave enough to resist.
08:13 From Stalker to Wilshire, from Fairfax to Figueroa,
08:20 it was the Blackstones who ruled.
08:23 T. Rogers is the founder of a gang from Westside
08:26 called the Black Pistones.
08:28 He is irritated by the arrival of the Crips on his territory.
08:32 The guys from the other side of the highway
08:35 arrived in our neighborhood to commit rapes,
08:38 robberies and pillaging.
08:41 So we told them, "Guys, if you want to do stupid things,
08:47 do it in your neighborhood."
08:51 And that was really the start of the big fighting.
08:58 To fight against the expansion of the Crips,
09:01 the Black Pistones allied themselves with other gangs.
09:04 We called a meeting at the Emmanuel Arts High School.
09:09 And there were four groups.
09:12 And we all agreed to work together.
09:16 And we said that if one of us had the slightest problem
09:20 or needed help, the others would be there to support him in their endeavors.
09:25 There's a force behind numbers.
09:28 To stand out during the fights, the two gangs wore colors.
09:33 The Crips wore blue.
09:35 And the Anti-Crips Alliance chose red
09:38 and was called the Bloods.
09:42 The young gang members became real armies
09:46 operating throughout the city.
09:49 The Bloods and the Crips spread throughout Los Angeles.
09:55 Borders are drawn,
09:57 and a real territorial war begins.
10:00 The Crips attack rival neighborhoods.
10:08 We'd go to parties and we'd start fighting.
10:12 We were just fighting.
10:14 They called it "fighting."
10:17 The scariest thing was to come across a guy
10:21 with a bike chain, a crick, an iron bar, or a baseball bat.
10:26 But the Crips are three times more numerous than the Bloods.
10:30 The Bloods need more than their fist to fight.
10:35 They needed weapons to try to compensate
10:38 because we were more numerous.
10:41 The era of fighting is coming to an end.
10:45 The police see the number of burglaries increasing
10:48 and the gangs engage in a real arms race.
10:51 They stole hunting rifles and sawed off the barrel to make them more dangerous.
10:55 The .22 and .32 calibers were in fashion.
10:59 The Bloods and the Crips are now daily armed.
11:05 The founder of the Crips, Raymond Lee Washington,
11:08 is against the use of weapons.
11:11 For him, the value of a man is measured by the strength of his fists.
11:15 But in 1974, Washington was incarcerated for theft.
11:20 Behind the bars, this old-school fighter
11:24 sometimes loses faith in the gang he created.
11:31 In the city, the war between the Crips and the Bloods
11:34 takes on a new dimension.
11:36 The exchange of gunshots is now done in the car.
11:39 1974, Baldwin Village.
11:43 T. Rogers, then 16 years old, and his gang, the Black Pistone Bloods,
11:47 are gathered in front of his mother's house.
11:50 Everybody would come to my mother's house.
11:53 My mom's house was in the village.
11:55 And everybody would come over there and do their homework and dance.
11:58 And the girls would tell their problems to my mom,
12:02 and the boys would come over and spend time together.
12:05 We'd lift weights, we'd play soccer, we'd do all the things kids do.
12:11 Suddenly, a car slowly approaches the house.
12:25 [Gunshots]
12:27 The famous car shootings are born.
12:32 After the shooting, we called out their names.
12:39 One name didn't get called out, and there was a murmur.
12:44 A 14-year-old Black Pistone got a bullet in his head.
12:48 He was lying on the ground between the car and the caravan.
12:52 I came down and I put his head on my lap.
12:55 The brain fell between my fingers.
13:04 And I had to go see his sister, and his little brother, and his sister.
13:13 And I got to go see them to tell them he got killed while he was with me.
13:21 I felt like a fag.
13:23 We have a murder in town on Playmousse Boulevard.
13:31 Between 1972 and 1974, the number of family murders
13:37 linked to gang conflicts goes from 32 to 70.
13:41 To deal with this situation, the police set up specialized brigades.
13:48 I was amazed at the cruel criminal acts that seemed to come without discontinuing.
13:56 No matter how many people you put in jail, there was always a new incident.
14:01 And I got to the place where I was wondering, "What's the point of what I'm doing?"
14:05 Because the problem became so big.
14:09 In the South Central neighborhood in Los Angeles, the gang benefits from a constant arrival of new recruits.
14:17 At the age of 12, Kershaw Scott joins the 8 Trey Gangster Crips.
14:22 He then takes the nickname "Little Monster".
14:26 For Scott and his comrades, firearms and gang warfare are part of the transition to adulthood.
14:34 Initially, I didn't feel different.
14:38 The people around me didn't change.
14:42 They were the same people I grew up with in the playground, with whom I played with bullets and flying saucers.
14:48 But we weren't playing with bullets anymore, we were shooting at people.
14:54 This new generation of child soldiers must be initiated.
14:59 That's what the gang calls "work".
15:02 Work could consist of tagging your name on the walls with sprays,
15:07 stealing, beating people, committing murders.
15:12 What makes you climb the ladder are your actions.
15:19 Obviously, the more you work, the more you are appreciated and respected, the faster you will rise.
15:27 I took my position in the gang very seriously.
15:35 I put on my uniform every morning and I went to work.
15:39 At his release from prison, Raymond Washington, the founder of the Crips, returns to South Central.
15:55 Sheriff Ken Bell sees him for the first time at a funeral.
16:01 [Gunshots]
16:03 My eyes were this big.
16:07 I saw all these gang members who were part of gangs gathered for this funeral.
16:11 And when I see Raymond, everybody turned their heads and rushed to him as if he was the godfather who was arriving.
16:19 When he meets Washington, Ken Bell is very surprised.
16:24 I was kind of impressed.
16:27 He had that real branch of his character. He was very polite.
16:31 Again, he might have acted like that because I was a police officer,
16:34 but I was impressed by that kind of demeanor.
16:39 Sheriff Bell thinks that Washington can use his influence to stop the massacre.
16:45 I was hoping that at some point we would be able to communicate with him and help him do something positive.
16:54 I think that's what he wanted.
16:57 But when he was released from prison, the Crips had grown too big.
17:01 During his absence, Washington lost all control over the Crips.
17:06 45 factions are now scattered throughout Los Angeles.
17:11 And they don't just fight the Bloods. They also fight each other.
17:16 There were so many different neighborhoods where the Crips had taken the place of other gangs
17:22 that sometimes you would go to a shootout against enemies and you'd shoot Crips.
17:28 And if you shot a Crip, you could be sure that they would shoot you back.
17:34 Very disappointed by all these intestinal battles, the father who founded the Crips decides to stop everything.
17:48 I told him that we could try to patch things up, but he didn't want to be involved in all that.
17:55 I guess he thought he fell in love with a woman and he wanted to be responsible, have a job, do his thing.
18:03 August 9, 1979.
18:14 Raymond Lee Washington is hanging around the corner of 64th and San Pedro streets.
18:19 A car is slowly approaching.
18:27 Passengers call out his name.
18:30 Raymond always told us, "Never approach a car. Never."
18:37 But Washington certainly recognizes one of the occupants.
18:42 Because, ignoring his own advice, he moves towards the car.
18:45 Suddenly, the passengers see him with a rifle.
18:50 Shot to the point of the bearing, the bullet pierces his stomach.
18:56 The founder of the Crips, then 26 years old, is taken to the hospital.
19:02 He succumbs to his injuries.
19:04 When he got killed, we knew he was someone he knew.
19:12 Rumor has it that Washington was negotiating peace with the Brims, a faction of the Bloods.
19:18 But according to Ken Bell, the murder was not committed by a rival gang.
19:24 It's almost certain that it was the Crips.
19:27 If they were the Bloods, it would be less mysterious. Someone would have admitted it a long time ago.
19:34 Washington's killer will never be found.
19:40 After his death, the fragile alliance of the Crips is in shambles.
19:44 Without a leader or a leader, the Crips turn against each other.
19:49 In Westside, two of the most important Crips factions, the 8 Tray Gangsters and their neighbor, the Rolling Sixties, begin to confront each other.
19:58 The conflict begins with a dispute over a girl at a party, then quickly degenerates into gunfights.
20:06 We, the 8 Trays, got angry quickly because we wanted to fight.
20:11 We were eager to show what we had in our bellies.
20:15 And to go to war with the Rolling Sixties, it gave us the opportunity to do so. So we went for it.
20:22 But to go to war, the 8 Tray Gangsters have to get weapons.
20:28 December 31, 1980, South Central.
20:34 We had formulated a plan with a few friends. We had to break the surplus showcase at midnight to steal guns.
20:43 While he mounts the guard in front of the surplus armory on Osurn Boulevard,
20:48 Kershaw Scott's brother, Monster Cody, is ambushed by the Rolling Sixties.
20:54 My brother was not armed.
20:58 He received 5 bullets.
21:03 The first thing I thought was that whoever did this should pay.
21:09 This was a revenge. I said, "You killed my brother. I'm going to lay down 10. You're going to pay."
21:20 I planned a revenge.
21:26 And we did it without making a neighborhood.
21:29 The next evening, Scott and his men cross Western Avenue in a stolen truck.
21:34 Passing the streets of the enemy neighborhood, they track down the murderers.
21:39 But not finding their target, the 8 Trays decide to stop in front of a party organized by the Rolling Sixties.
21:47 They leap out of the car and open fire.
21:55 Scott kills one member of the gang and injures four others.
22:01 A month later, I was in prison for murder.
22:06 I was in the hospital for a week.
22:09 I was in the hospital for a week.
22:13 A month later, I was in prison for murder.
22:17 With those who had followed me.
22:21 Gershon Scott will spend almost 6 years in my custody.
22:28 He just turned 15.
22:31 If I had one more year, I would still be in prison today.
22:37 And I've been out for 21 years.
22:40 I've been out for 21 years.
22:42 In less than a decade, the conflicts between gangs have gone from high school fights to nightmarish car shootings.
22:52 Gang members are now trapped by this culture of revenge.
22:58 In 1980, there were 355 homicides linked to intergang conflicts.
23:08 The reason for these conflicts will soon change.
23:10 Because of a powerful and dangerously seductive powder.
23:15 Cocaine.
23:17 In 1982, the government's repression measures move drug trade to the West.
23:24 The smugglers make huge quantities of the precious powder pass through the Mexican border.
23:29 And Los Angeles becomes the American capital of cocaine.
23:36 But at $100 a gram, the substance remains the panache of the high-end Hollywood spheres.
23:41 To widen the market, dealers start to make a new, much more dangerous drug,
23:49 and accessible to all money carriers, crack.
23:52 In 1986, at the age of 21, Gershon Scott is released from prison.
24:03 He has served a 6-year sentence for murder.
24:06 A murder committed to avenge his brother.
24:09 I learned to become a better criminal.
24:13 Gershon is warmly welcomed in the neighborhood.
24:19 His friends come to see him to give him money and drugs.
24:23 I had never seen crack or cocaine in my life.
24:30 This "smokable" version of cocaine is a golden egg for the drug dealers.
24:34 It is inexpensive and easy to make.
24:37 I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know how to cut it, sell it, or even crystallize the powder.
24:45 But I quickly learned.
24:48 It's as easy as making an omelette.
24:51 Really.
24:52 A little boiling water, a container, bicarbonate.
24:58 It solidifies in the glass.
25:00 It's ultra simple.
25:02 A child could do it.
25:05 In response to a growing demand,
25:09 gangs raid the South Central neighborhood by car to sell the drugs.
25:13 In the name of the small crackings they make while consuming,
25:19 crack has a dazzling and intense effect,
25:21 which gives its victims an irrepressible desire to take it back immediately.
25:26 While crack invaded Los Angeles,
25:28 police officer Wayne Caffey noticed a rise in crime.
25:32 Robbery, robbery, car theft, car theft.
25:36 People hooked on crack would do anything to get their share.
25:40 They sold everything they had.
25:43 While crack was wreaking havoc in the neighborhood,
25:47 Bloody Rogers saw the community imploded.
25:53 He'd stand out on the corner and say, "What do you need? Rock sex or weed?"
25:57 And all of a sudden, you know, a 13-year-old kid could make more in a week
26:01 than his mother made in a year, in a week.
26:04 And he became the head of the house.
26:08 Then his mother became his best client.
26:12 You see, something's wrong with this.
26:15 When a mother drops her baby off and says,
26:18 "I'm going down to get the rest of the money, I'll be right back,"
26:22 and ends up leaving her baby for 10 days
26:25 to pay herself a dose for $25,
26:29 something's wrong with this.
26:31 According to police officer Tony Moreno,
26:35 crack changed the way gangs worked.
26:38 Gang members who became good businessmen, good drug dealers,
26:44 were drifting away from gang life little by little.
26:49 Because the misdeeds of the gangs became a handicap for them.
26:52 When you make $10,000 a week,
26:55 why do you want to shoot a guy in a party or in a park?
26:59 It doesn't make sense.
27:01 Because making money was what became their priority.
27:05 Priorities change and the structure of the gang changes.
27:09 Gang members take advantage of this unexpected opulence
27:12 to adopt a new lifestyle.
27:16 All of a sudden, we started seeing very rich crips and bloods.
27:20 They had cars.
27:22 We saw them popping up everywhere.
27:24 And we'd seen that in the law, too,
27:26 by the search warrants and the pictures.
27:28 You'd go to Hawaii, you'd go skiing in Colorado,
27:31 and you're like, "What's going on here?"
27:33 Street gangs become real private armies
27:37 and the violence intensifies.
27:39 It rose above street violence
27:42 to what some people would call organized crime.
27:45 They were in some kind of a gang,
27:47 they were trying to do no good.
27:49 They were doing robberies,
27:51 they were doing dealership robberies,
27:53 they were kidnapping people.
27:55 It wasn't unusual to have a kidnapping.
27:58 They kidnapped somebody's kid,
28:01 and the ransom was 2 kilos of cocaine.
28:03 To defend this lucrative business,
28:07 the gangs invest in abandoned houses
28:09 that they block by barricading windows and installing armored doors.
28:13 Called crack houses,
28:15 they're real automatic distributors.
28:17 5-dollar doses, 10-dollar, 20-dollar.
28:21 You just have to slip a note in the slot
28:24 for the dose to come out automatically.
28:26 Inside, the dealers produce crack
28:32 with 1-kilo cocaine bars.
28:34 In the streets, a cocaine bar is called "bird."
28:41 When you heat up a cocaine bar to make crack,
28:44 it releases a very strong smell.
28:47 And when you breathe it, you're fucked.
28:50 And then you got cocaine powder on the table,
28:54 and everybody's making a different powder cocaine.
28:57 Thanks to the money from the drugs,
29:01 the gangs can now offer themselves the most ultra-neck of firearms.
29:04 You better watch out with that.
29:09 It's a M1 carbine, 32 rounds.
29:12 I can go tear up Louis Sparks with that.
29:16 I can take out 32 people if I do them all.
29:20 Yes, indeed. It's the same thing.
29:23 I own two of these.
29:25 Because instead of having a five-shot rifle
29:29 to have fun on Saturday night,
29:31 they had weapons that could fire 20 shots
29:34 and it would fuse in all directions.
29:36 So you have a lot more victims.
29:39 The South Central neighborhood becomes so dangerous
29:42 that the inhabitants sleep in their baths
29:44 to escape the lost bullets.
29:46 In 1987, the Los Angeles gangs commit a murder every 24 hours.
29:52 But until now, this bloody conflict
29:58 has not crossed the borders of the South Central neighborhood.
30:06 January 30, 1988.
30:08 The UP neighborhood of Westwood Village
30:12 is in the middle of the Saturday night.
30:15 Karen Toshima, a graphic artist from Long Beach,
30:18 is in town to celebrate a professional promotion.
30:21 Leaving a dinner with a friend,
30:24 she passes by without knowing it between two members of the rival gang.
30:27 In the shooting, Karen is hit in the head.
30:34 She dies on the sidewalk.
30:36 The drama deeply shocks the middle class of Los Angeles
30:47 who realize that the violence of the gangs can hit anywhere.
30:51 The population demands that the police take action.
30:56 April 9, 1988.
31:02 The head of the Los Angeles police, Darryl Gates,
31:05 launches a gigantic offensive against the gangs.
31:08 He calls it "a cultural development project".
31:11 I told my officers, "You need to tell them
31:16 we want the neighborhood to develop.
31:18 So either get the hell out of the city
31:21 or we'll put you in jail.
31:23 That's the way it's going to be,
31:25 is to get the hell out of the city."
31:27 And I said, "You know what?
31:29 The hammer's coming. We're going to hit hard."
31:32 A thousand police officers soon invade the streets of South Central.
31:40 We were given specific assignments to occupy the area
31:45 and apply a systematic intervention plan
31:47 by controlling and arresting as many gang members as possible
31:50 to clean the street.
31:52 During the first weekend,
31:56 the zero tolerance policy taken by Gates
31:59 leads to about 1,500 arrests.
32:02 Indiscipline of pedestrians, driving without a license,
32:07 night robberies.
32:09 We were sweeping the streets to track down
32:11 all those who broke the law and deal with them.
32:14 Feeling the wind turn,
32:19 many gang members leave the city to escape the arrests.
32:23 In the first instance, Gates' muscular operation is crowned with success.
32:27 We put a lot of gangs in jail
32:33 for those who didn't understand our cultural development project.
32:36 No more shooting,
32:38 no more gang-related crimes.
32:40 You could walk up the street without any danger.
32:42 People loved it.
32:44 Some residents of the neighborhood are happy to be rid of the gangs.
32:50 But many see this operation as racist repression
32:53 which reminds them of the painful episode of the Watts riots.
32:56 They were, they were rounding people up.
33:04 Whether you were a gang member or not.
33:09 If you got caught on Saturday or Sunday,
33:12 you were in the gang member category.
33:17 This anger felt by the community complicates the task of the police officers working in the street.
33:22 Unfortunately, innocent people were treated like thugs.
33:27 They got jacked up by the cops, they were furious.
33:31 Until a huge gap was created between the law enforcement,
33:37 us, who were supposed to protect these folks,
33:40 and the people of the neighborhood who should have trusted us.
33:43 We lost that trust.
33:45 [Music]
33:47 Gates becomes the prey of many critics.
33:50 I'm being bombarded by my district council, by the mayor.
33:56 Everyone has fallen on me while I was trying to do my best to solve the problem.
34:03 I'm not going to take the media's criticism, nor the politicians'
34:08 but I'm tired of all of that.
34:11 All I wanted to do was fix things.
34:15 So I decided to stop my operation "punch".
34:19 And the gangs came back.
34:21 And those good people were destroyed by my decision.
34:25 After having given rise to almost 25,000 arrests,
34:34 Gates' anti-gang war ends.
34:39 The police withdraw and the bullets start to shoot again from all sides.
34:43 The City of Angels is on the verge of hell.
34:50 The number of murders has reached records in July and August.
34:53 Akila Sherrills is 12 when he joins the Grape Street Creeps from the Watts neighborhood.
35:05 But he leaves his apartment in the city of Jordan Downs and abandons the life of the streets to go to university.
35:11 I had a revelation and I escaped to the neighborhood.
35:17 I didn't want to go home.
35:20 During the Easter holidays, I didn't go home.
35:23 I stayed on campus.
35:25 Everyone went home but I stayed.
35:27 Because every time I called home, I learned that someone had been killed.
35:31 And then I saw my brother who worked for the gang,
35:35 who was selling drugs and all that kind of stuff.
35:39 And he was killed.
35:41 Akila reacts by advocating for peace in his community.
35:46 He returns to the cities of the Watts neighborhood and tries to establish a truce between rival gangs.
35:51 We had this vision.
35:54 We thought that if we established a peace treaty between the city of Jordan Downs and the city of Nickerson Gardens,
36:01 it would create a snowball effect in the other neighborhoods.
36:04 For Akila, the challenge is huge.
36:09 After almost 20 years of murders and chaos, it is bitterness and anger that predominates in the population.
36:18 Even if everyone agreed to calm the game and participate in the establishment of this truce,
36:25 no one had actually made the first move and stepped out.
36:29 The community finally sees a glimmer of hope when the talks begin between the Crips and the Bloods.
36:37 But on April 29, 1992, this hope flies in a flash.
36:45 A stunning verdict.
36:48 The jury in the Los Angeles court of brutality has pronounced itself.
36:52 The jury has declared the accused innocent of all charges, except one that was annulled.
36:59 Kershawn Scott remains speechless in front of his television.
37:03 The four police officers accused of the Rodney King murder have just been acquitted.
37:07 My reaction was, "We're going to smash their faces. We're going to Beverly Hills and we're going to smash them."
37:14 That was the push for the vases.
37:18 And it got us down the street.
37:23 Hostilities break out on Normandy Avenue with the looting of a wine and spirits shop by Scott's gang.
37:33 When the police arrive, the anger of the young people turns against them.
37:41 What started as a shout on both sides has degenerated.
37:45 And we threw rocks, bottles and bricks at them.
37:50 Faced with this hostile crowd, the police are ordered to retreat.
37:58 And there we stood at the corner of the two avenues as if we had beaten the police.
38:06 And then basically if you passed by and you weren't black, you were in trouble.
38:12 Gang members stop the motorists to beat them up and steal their money.
38:30 At about 6.45pm, the driver of a Palo Reginald Denny approaches the intersection.
38:36 He is not aware of what is happening.
38:39 He came to it with a huge truck, the biggest in the intersection.
38:45 And he stopped.
38:47 He was smashed out of his truck and he was whacked.
38:54 Unnecessarily. By cruelty.
38:59 A friend of Scott's, Damian "Football" Williams, hits Denny with a brick.
39:04 It was when I heard the sound of the brick hitting his head that I got away.
39:14 It was just too cruel.
39:22 Stunned by this free violence, Scott no longer wants to participate in the riots. He leaves the place and returns home.
39:29 At nightfall, the South Central neighborhood in Los Angeles was set on fire.
39:37 We have not seen such chaos since the Watts riots in 1965.
39:49 Drowned in a real hell for 6 days, South Central is consumed by flames.
39:55 The order will only be restored after the intervention of the National Guard.
40:00 The riots killed 53 and injured more than 2,000.
40:05 More than 100 buildings were destroyed.
40:08 The cost of the damage is $1 billion.
40:11 Miraculously, Reginald Denny survives the attack he was a victim of.
40:17 A friend of Scott's, Damian "Football" Williams, is sentenced to death and voluntary injuries.
40:22 He is sentenced to 10 years in prison.
40:25 On the ashes of the victims, the Bloods and the Crips finally come together.
40:32 United by their revolt against the police, they declare a provisional truce.
40:38 We, the Bloods and the Crips, have joined forces with the police and the media.
40:47 It is therefore decided that we will return together to the parks and leisure areas.
40:53 And we will give our community the certainty of not having anything to fear.
40:58 The inhabitants of the South Central neighborhood can go out into the streets again.
41:08 The peace treaty has changed people's lives.
41:12 Grandmothers could go out again, kids played in the parks.
41:16 Many men finally became real fathers.
41:19 There have been many positive outbursts.
41:22 But while the gangsters of South Central are aware of the absurdity of their way of life,
41:29 America glorifies their culture through films, fashion, or music.
41:34 Before, it was shameful to come from Compton or Watts.
41:39 But today, white teenagers put their caps on the side,
41:42 and the hot neighborhoods have become glamorous.
41:45 As if it were a sign of freedom.
41:47 But it's a lie.
41:49 The Crips and the Bloods export violence and drugs to all of the United States.
41:53 Suddenly, everyone wants to belong to this myth, this mentality, this culture.
41:59 There are Crips and Bloods, white, Asian, Hispanic.
42:03 It's crazy.
42:05 It's unfortunate.
42:07 American society hasn't seen it coming, but we're in the middle of it.
42:10 And we have to do something.
42:12 In Los Angeles, many former gangsters have changed their lives.
42:19 Kershawn Scott has become the spokesperson of the gangs and fights for peace.
42:27 He left his gang to take care of his son.
42:30 I wanted to do better for my son.
42:33 I wanted him to be different from Los Angeles.
42:36 To see something else than this suicidal lifestyle.
42:39 But the gang culture exerts a morbid attraction.
42:45 Scott failed to prevent his own son from ending up in prison.
42:50 He got involved with the wrong people, and he went around badly.
42:57 And I felt helpless.
43:03 I have been out in the country and even outside to try to help other kids and help other people.
43:12 Trying to save lives.
43:16 But I couldn't save my son.
43:19 It's something that hurts me every day.
43:24 Every day.
43:27 [Bloody Rogers, New York]
43:30 Bloody Rogers now works as an educator for the Bloods and the Crips.
43:38 He's in charge of a basketball team where the Crips and the Bloods have to play with each other.
43:44 I have one regret in my life.
43:48 The gang that I created was a machine to kill.
43:54 And the people that died believing what I believed in, that is my only regret.
44:00 Because with the power of life and death in my hands, I don't have the power to bring them back.
44:08 Today, thanks to the work of former gang members with young people,
44:14 and the easing of relations between the residents of the neighborhood and the police,
44:17 the number of murders per year in Los Angeles has never been so low since 1970.
44:23 [Bloody Rogers, New York]
44:52 I went from just a couple of