Kevin Deutsch - The Triangle. A Year on the Ground with New Yorks Bloods and Crips

Lyons Press is an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield

Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Copyright 2014 by Kevin Deutsch

Map by Amy McDevitt

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Information available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Deutsch, Kevin.

The triangle : a year on the ground with New Yorks Bloods and Crips / Kevin Deutsch.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-4930-0760-8 (pbk.)

1. Gangs--New York (State)--New York. 2. African American criminals--New York (State)--New York. 3. Bloods (Gang) 4. Crips (Gang) I. Title.

HV6439.U7N437 2014

364.106609747245--dc23

2014030906

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

For my mother and father

The following is a work of nonfiction. All the events chronicled in these pages were either witnessed firsthand by the author or alleged during interviews with his subjects. In order to protect the identities of gang members, crime victims, law enforcement officials, and other interviewees, most of their names have been changed. For that same reason, some locations and other identifying details have been obscured.

Contents

Authors Note

This is the story of a gang war fought in 2012 between the Bloods and Crips in Hempstead, Long Island, New York. It is about the men, women, and children caught up in that conflict, and the struggles they faced while living and fighting in a suburban war zone.

All the events chronicled in these pages were either witnessed by me or alleged during interviews with my subjects. In order to protect the identities of gang members, crime victims, law enforcement officials, and other interviewees, most of their names have been changed. For that same reason, some locations and other identifying details have been obscured.

I risked my life on multiple occasions to gather the information in this book, but those I wrote about risked their lives every daysome in an effort to kill their enemies, some in an effort to stop the killing, and others, simply to get to work, raise their children, and make it through the day. In every war, there are heroes. Hempsteads good citizensthe ones who refuse to give up on their community despite the daily horrors witnessed thereare the heroes of this one.

Kevin Deutsch

Hempstead, Long Island

June 2014

List of Key Players

Bloods

Michael Ice WilliamsSet Leader

Joe Steed WallaceLieutenant

Arthur Doc ReedSecond Lieutenant

Jerome Big Mac McDanielEnforcer

Lamar CrawfordRackets Supervisor

Devon D-Bo LaFleurCorner Supervisor

James J-Roc PendletonCorner Boy

Derek Big Boy OwensCorner Boy

Super Curt EllisCorner Boy

Crips

Tyrek SingletonSet Leader

Anthony Big Tony ShermanLieutenant

Gary Flex ButlerSecond Lieutenant

Joey Rock JamesEnforcer

Bolo Jay WoodsonCorner Boy/Enforcer

Tevin Dice BecklesCorner Supervisor

Savant SharpeCorner Boy

Skinny PeteCorner Boy

Glossary of Terms

Big Homie A high-ranking Crips member

Burner A disposable cell phone used by gang members to discuss business

Cookhouse Location where powder cocaine is cooked into crack

Corner Boy A low-ranking gang member who sells drugs. Touts, runners, and lookouts are all corner boys.

Death Day A party held in honor of a deceased gang member

Hitter A trained killer who carries out assassinations and enforcement for his gang

Iron A handgun

Lookout A gang member who stands guard on drug corners, looking for police and enemy crews

Mission A task assigned to a gang member, often requiring violence

Pipehead A crack addict

Rock Crack cocaine

Runner A gang member who retrieves drugs from a crews hidden stash whenever an order is made. Some runners also transport drugs between cookhouses and stash houses.

Slob Derogatory term for a Blood, often used by Crips in conversation

Soldier A participant in the gang war

Stash House/Spot Location where cocaine or marijuana is stored by gang members

Top Homie A Crips set leader

Tout A gang member who promotes his crews daily drug selections and steers customers toward dealers

Chapter One

Opening Salvo

January 2012

Hempstead, Long Island

New York

Somebody going to come out on top. Aint no ties in this here game.

Flex

As he watches a car full of rival drug dealers drive down Linden Avenue, Gary Flex Butler adjusts the Glock nine-millimeter in his waistband, exhales a long stream of marijuana smoke, and shakes his head in disgust.

Those boys dont learn, Butler, eighteen, says of the baby-faced men in the beige, late-model Lincoln Town Car, which turns slowly down Linden Place before disappearing into the night. They hit us, we hit them. They dont stop coming.

The boys he speaks of are rival drug dealersBloods gang members who had ventured off their turf on nearby Martin Luther King Jr. Drive to send a message to Butler and his friends in the local Crips crew. They want it known that an ongoing war between their groups would continue, Butler says, despite the recent rumors that a truce had been called.

Aint no peace, he says. Nothing of the sort.

Four young men in Butlers crew pile into a cranberry-colored Cadillac and drive east, past their rival sets hangout half a mile way. He watches them go, declaring that another shooting could happen anytime.

Thats how it is, says Butler. Almost every night now.

An hour later, on MLK Drive, a Bloods dealing crew is huddled in a doorway of the project building that serves as their unofficial headquarters. There are seven in the crew and another six patrolling their territory in a black SUV. The gangsters in the doorway pass blunts of weed laced with coke to one another, nodding their heads to the Lil Wayne songEnemy Turfblasting from the radio at their feet.

One of the Bloods, Arthur Doc Reed, twenty-five, runs his hand along the bandage wrapped around his stomach. Hed been shot in his right abdomen a week earlier; the nine-millimeter bullet narrowly missed an artery. Released from the hospital just a few hours ago, Docs still wearing the blue intensive-care bracelet on his thin, tattooed wrist.

Niggas need to pay, you feel me? Doc says.

Hes addressing one of the crews top-ranking members, a twenty-six-year-old Los Angeles native named Joe Steed Wallace. Steed, a longtime West Coast Blood, is credited with helping turn the Hempstead set into a regional force. He nods his head and spits into the street, fingering the scar on his chin the way he does sometimes when hes angry. Hed been touching it as a reminder to himself ever since a car full of Crips drove by an hour earlier, slowing to a crawl as they passed while eyeballing Steed and his crew.