Gangland Britain, From tea and crumpets to guns and grenades…

[alexalonso]

This topic correspond to the post that can be found at http://www.streetgangs.com/features/110 ... n_gangs:By Steve Hackman
Streetgangs.com Staff Writer
November 2, 2010 | 4:32 p.m.

Ten years ago, the idea that the likes of the Bloods, the Crips and the Latin Kings would one day extend their tentacles overseas to the United Kingdom would have been met with scorn and disbelief. Whereas Britain has always had its fair share of criminal activity, there is a clear distinction between organised crime groups and American-style territorial street gangs. The notion that gangsters in the UK would ever identify themselves by wearing a certain colour of clothing would have been laughable prior to the start of the twenty-first century. Fast forward a decade and the streets of London and Manchester are slowly becoming akin to those of Los Angeles and Chicago…

There are now an estimated twenty-five Blood sets and seven Crip sets in the city of London alone and although it would be easy to pass their activities off as a posturing attempt to emulate their transatlantic cousins, they have been responsible for countless murders, robberies and shootings over the last few years. In January 2010, a man was shot in the chest after foolishly attempting to engage in a snowball fight with a member of the E7 Crips in Newham, East London. Later that month, an eighteen-year-old with alleged connections to the Isle of Dogs Gang was stabbed to death by a member of East London’s E3 Bloods. In February, a member of the 031 Bloods was arrested in connection with the murder of sixteen-year-old Oluwaseyi Ogunyemi in Stockwell, South London. These are three of many gang-related killings at the hands of replica Bloods and Crips in England’s capital city.

London’s black residents comprise roughly ten percent of the population but yet they are thought to be responsible for sixty-five percent of the city’s gun crime. Poverty, lack of opportunities and racism have created a ghetto-like environment where crime is often seen to be the only available option. The Latino population are hardly better off. In recent years, three groups associated with the Latin Kings have sprung up in South and East London, the two poorest parts of the capital. A gang that bares striking similarities to the Nortenos has also come into existence. Whereas the Nortenos associate themselves with the Roman numbers XIV as N is the fourteenth letter of the alphabet, the Money Family Gangstaz use the numerals XIII to represent the letter M. They use the Huelga Bird as their symbol in much the same way that the Nortenos do and they hail from a similarly impoverished setting- Brixton in South London, a centre for gun crime, drug dealing and prostitution.

In addition to its black and Latino gangsters, Britain is also home to a number of white gangbangers. In the predominantly Caucasian area of Huyton in Liverpool (former home of the Beatles and England’s poorest city with an epidemic of gun crime), children as young as nine have been known to roam the streets with 9mm pistols and SA80 assault rifles. The region is in the midst of a long running rivalry between the Dovey Edz from the Dovecote area and the Moss Edz from the Page Moss housing projects, whose leader is a fourteen-year-old schoolboy. Elsewhere in the city, the Croccy Crew and the Nogga Dogs are locked in a chillingly violent battle for supremacy.

Guns and knives aren’t the only weapons used by Britain’s street gangs- several members claim to have access to hand grenades and there is even talk of rocket launchers being used. In August 2009, a rocket launcher was uncovered by the Greater Manchester Police Force. A month later, a hand grenade was handed in at a local police station in the Wythenshawe area. Britain has more than twice the rate of violent crime that America has and although it still has a far lower murder rate, the situation is rapidly deteriorating. Wars are being waged, lives are being lost and the ghettoes of the U.K. are slowly transforming into the ghettoes of the U.S.A.

You can read about street gangs in twenty different towns and cities within the UK in my new book entitled “Young Guns: Inside the Violent World of Britain’s Street Gangs”, available from www.milobooks.co.uk. My research was conducted in two different British prisons, whilst serving a sentence for supplying drugs.