Some hoods might affiliate themseleves with Crip or Blood sets, but niggaz ain't dying over colors in either KCMO or KCK. I've known of some rare catz that claim Blood in KCK and Crip in KCMO. (Only a ignorant KC individual trying to fit in wherever) We used to call them guys Transformers. In the late 80's and early 90's, Folks were real big in KCK. (Several sets, Black Gangster Disciples, Gangster Disciples, Black Disciples and I believe the Saint Disciples) I've never known any of any Vice Lords in the KC area, but I do remember some Latin Kings and Latin Counts putting in a little work.
Gang Violence in Kansas City
- Thread starter mocheezkc
- Start date
It no coincidence the murder rate has dropped in past years...since concealed carry passed, mother f'ers think twice before tryin shit. Now legal folks can fight back. Punks want to bang...they might end up dead. If they want to just fight each other, they'll eventually eliminate themselves. You'd be surprised who all's packin these days.
I grew up mostly with the Latin Counts and 5th Street Bloods (500 Blocc) in Northeast. Then different sets/clicks merged/separated and everybody just started claiming Northeast Side. Now everyone seems to be dead or in jail, while a few remnants remain. ESL and several different hispanic gangs seem to run the area now. I left the hood after I joined the military, didn't want my kids growing up the way we did.
This dude wrote a book about these chicks that were with the Freemont Hustlers, at the time Northeast and Freemont were in a war. Although, girls were fucking guys from the other sides. Some of the shit is inaccuarte, but a lot true. Dude on the cover is a good friend of mine. These chicks in the book were on Sally Jesse Raphael, Donahue and some other talk shows... I think Geraldo. After this book came out, a lot of people were pissed because of the things he put in and left out. Nevertheless, this was the anticlimatic march of North East Side. After all the big homies died/went to prison the gang seemed to trickle into nothing. It was sad, but necessary and a better good.
Heres the book.
http://www.amazon.com/Dead-End-Kids-Gang-Girls/dp/0299158802
and a review
Dead End Kids:
Gang Girls and the Boys They Know
Mark Fleisher
The Fremont Hustlers and Northeast Gangstas fit all the stereotypes of feared youth gangs. These youth from a poverty-stricken area of Kansas City spend their days drinking, smoking and selling and using drugs; they use vulgar language and verbally and physically abuse each other; most of the girls have been pregnant several times before reaching age 18, though they've lost many of the fetuses because of their poor health; they buy, sell and use guns; and they are all familiar with courts and jails—"we're all on probation," as one boy cavalierly puts it.
However, as ethnographer Mark Fleisher shows in his recent book Dead End Kids: Gang Girls and the Boys They Know, they are also just that: kids. Fleisher, a professor at Illinois State University, fled far from the ivory tower for his research on the Fremont Hustlers and Northeast Gangstas, becoming such a part of the kids' lives that they trusted him with their innermost secrets and turned to him with their problems. Fleisher became inevitably personally enmeshed in the lives of his research subjects, staying up nights worrying about them and milking his academic and personal connections to (often vainly) try to help them change their lives.
His virtual immersion in the gang lifestyle also allowed him to come away with a book that is clear-eyed, objective, moving, entertaining, and above all, insightful. He purposely avoids proselytizing about law, racism, classism and policy relating to juvenile justice and gangs, but his conclusions and theories about these issues come through eloquently in the stories of his young subjects and his conversations with them.
Early in his research Fleisher realized that it was the girls in and affiliated with the gangs that held the key to understanding the dynamics of this world. While male youth are the more visible and publicly feared gang members, it was the girls who maintained the "family structure," shaping and controlling the social map and usually providing the semi-communal shelter and food.
Cara, Wendy, Janet, Cheri and the other girls Fleisher came to know and care about know how to package and sell drugs and how to execute drive-by shootings but don't even know how to grocery shop. Yet they are essentially like girls everywhere, motivated by the desire for stability, love, companionship and just plain fun. Their delinquent activities are omnipresent yet secondary to "hanging out"—developing and maneuvering various relationships and social connections, building their identities, maintaining their pride.
There is a desperation behind their romances, parties, and jests, with their abject poverty meaning that actual survival is a battle that each kid fights for her- or himself. Fleisher found that the gang lore of concepts like "pride" and "family," while constantly invoked by the kids, are really just lore. The gang lifestyle is all about literal survival, according to Fleisher, which means money, which means drug peddling and whatever needs to be done to protect this income.
As a trained ethnographer, Fleisher made extensive efforts to quantify and factually detail the structure and membership of the Fremont Hustlers gang, which was an interracial (black, white and Latino) group of about 70 local teenagers. While the members helped him come up with some categories of involvement and membership lists, he found what other gang researchers (including UIC professor John Hagedorn) have said before: that gangs are less organized, less structured and less malevolent than the media and politicians would have us believe, and that their identity as a "gang" is easily misrepresented and manipulated against them by police, lawyers and politicians.
"Confusion (about the definition of gangs) has been a boon to lawmakers and city government officials who can use the fuzziness of gang crime data in politically motivated under- or over-representations of street crime. (They)manipulate crime data near an election to indicate that a tough-on-crime stance has reduced gang crime. To boost police department budgets, city officials can claim that their city's gang problems are growing more menacing, thus frightening legislators and federal agencies into dishing out tax dollars."
Fleisher calls this the "gang industry." He points out that violent gang crimes are much less frequent than people believe and are almost always directed at other gang members. He is disgusted that these crimes receive sensational coverage, while most people are happy to ignore the terrible living conditions and lack of options available to poor youth. "Occasional youth gang crime is far less shocking than the abhorrent daily lives of teenage gang members and their preschool children and the neighborhoods in which they must survive." It is no surprise these children turn to gangs and drugs when considering the environment they are born into. Almost all have parents who are drug or alcohol-addicted and are the victims and perpetrators of physical and sexual abuse.
"Poodle's mother divorced her father after he was imprisoned...The man she remembers best is the one who beat her mom and put a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her," he writes.
Fleisher describes the Fremont neighborhood i as a Third World country plunked in the middle of an affluent city, where ice cream trucks literally sell marijuana and nine-year-old kids receive one-hitters as birthday presents from parents. City and social services and public transportation in Fremont are almost nonexistent. Even the police rarely go to Fremont except for a drug raid, like the massive one which put several gang members in prison and effectively ended the existence of the Hustlers. In this raid, Fleisher noted, police made no effort to find the wealthier people of all ages who came from colleges and affluent suburbs to buy drugs in the Fremont market.
Fleisher, who had previously done research on gangs in Seattle, boldly and gracefully inserts himself in the kids' lives by acknowledging his status as an outsider and reporter from the start but also relating to their lifestyle and language. He wins their trust with Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald's and other greasy fast food, the only thing the kids ever eat. And he also becomes a de facto lawyer for some of the kids, who find themselves lost in the juvenile justice system with overworked public defenders who don't even return their calls.
Cara is the girl who becomes closest to Fleisher during his research, and her heart-wrenchingly doomed struggle to "go straight" is central to the story. No one could question Cara's work ethic or determination: she puts in 13 hour days six days a week at Taco Bell in order to pay for a car and apartment. She is constantly trying to leave the hustle, but it isn't as easy as it sounds. Every time she gets a new apartment farther from "The Spot," old friends keep sneaking back in to crash on her couch, store drugs in her apartment and lead her back into the old lifestyle. It's hard for her to get away from this scene: these are her friends and the only stability she knows.
"Dead End Kids' natural conversations show they are ill-prepared for mainstream work and social life. They use profanity anywhere, anytime, and don't care how they are perceived by others. Sitting in the Pizza Hut or McDonald's or walking around a convenience store, these kids have no compunction about cursing profusely in raucous voices, bragging openly about bloody fistfights and drive-bys. Such conversations show these kids are quite adequately socialized for life on the street, but, for the most part, no place else," he explains.
Fleisher doesn't romanticize the gang's lifestyle and doesn't make excuses for the self-destructiveness and poor judgment of Cara and the others. He simply shows, in their own words, the fear, rage and feeling of abandonment that shape their lives and make the law enforcement policies used to deal with them so ineffective.
"Seeing drug-numbed kids, pregnant 15-year-olds, boys in jail, and babies whose lives depend on drug-addicted mothers made me weary and angry at KC for doing nothing but arresting these kids."
This dude wrote a book about these chicks that were with the Freemont Hustlers, at the time Northeast and Freemont were in a war. Although, girls were fucking guys from the other sides. Some of the shit is inaccuarte, but a lot true. Dude on the cover is a good friend of mine. These chicks in the book were on Sally Jesse Raphael, Donahue and some other talk shows... I think Geraldo. After this book came out, a lot of people were pissed because of the things he put in and left out. Nevertheless, this was the anticlimatic march of North East Side. After all the big homies died/went to prison the gang seemed to trickle into nothing. It was sad, but necessary and a better good.
Heres the book.
http://www.amazon.com/Dead-End-Kids-Gang-Girls/dp/0299158802
and a review
Dead End Kids:
Gang Girls and the Boys They Know
Mark Fleisher
The Fremont Hustlers and Northeast Gangstas fit all the stereotypes of feared youth gangs. These youth from a poverty-stricken area of Kansas City spend their days drinking, smoking and selling and using drugs; they use vulgar language and verbally and physically abuse each other; most of the girls have been pregnant several times before reaching age 18, though they've lost many of the fetuses because of their poor health; they buy, sell and use guns; and they are all familiar with courts and jails—"we're all on probation," as one boy cavalierly puts it.
However, as ethnographer Mark Fleisher shows in his recent book Dead End Kids: Gang Girls and the Boys They Know, they are also just that: kids. Fleisher, a professor at Illinois State University, fled far from the ivory tower for his research on the Fremont Hustlers and Northeast Gangstas, becoming such a part of the kids' lives that they trusted him with their innermost secrets and turned to him with their problems. Fleisher became inevitably personally enmeshed in the lives of his research subjects, staying up nights worrying about them and milking his academic and personal connections to (often vainly) try to help them change their lives.
His virtual immersion in the gang lifestyle also allowed him to come away with a book that is clear-eyed, objective, moving, entertaining, and above all, insightful. He purposely avoids proselytizing about law, racism, classism and policy relating to juvenile justice and gangs, but his conclusions and theories about these issues come through eloquently in the stories of his young subjects and his conversations with them.
Early in his research Fleisher realized that it was the girls in and affiliated with the gangs that held the key to understanding the dynamics of this world. While male youth are the more visible and publicly feared gang members, it was the girls who maintained the "family structure," shaping and controlling the social map and usually providing the semi-communal shelter and food.
Cara, Wendy, Janet, Cheri and the other girls Fleisher came to know and care about know how to package and sell drugs and how to execute drive-by shootings but don't even know how to grocery shop. Yet they are essentially like girls everywhere, motivated by the desire for stability, love, companionship and just plain fun. Their delinquent activities are omnipresent yet secondary to "hanging out"—developing and maneuvering various relationships and social connections, building their identities, maintaining their pride.
There is a desperation behind their romances, parties, and jests, with their abject poverty meaning that actual survival is a battle that each kid fights for her- or himself. Fleisher found that the gang lore of concepts like "pride" and "family," while constantly invoked by the kids, are really just lore. The gang lifestyle is all about literal survival, according to Fleisher, which means money, which means drug peddling and whatever needs to be done to protect this income.
As a trained ethnographer, Fleisher made extensive efforts to quantify and factually detail the structure and membership of the Fremont Hustlers gang, which was an interracial (black, white and Latino) group of about 70 local teenagers. While the members helped him come up with some categories of involvement and membership lists, he found what other gang researchers (including UIC professor John Hagedorn) have said before: that gangs are less organized, less structured and less malevolent than the media and politicians would have us believe, and that their identity as a "gang" is easily misrepresented and manipulated against them by police, lawyers and politicians.
"Confusion (about the definition of gangs) has been a boon to lawmakers and city government officials who can use the fuzziness of gang crime data in politically motivated under- or over-representations of street crime. (They)manipulate crime data near an election to indicate that a tough-on-crime stance has reduced gang crime. To boost police department budgets, city officials can claim that their city's gang problems are growing more menacing, thus frightening legislators and federal agencies into dishing out tax dollars."
Fleisher calls this the "gang industry." He points out that violent gang crimes are much less frequent than people believe and are almost always directed at other gang members. He is disgusted that these crimes receive sensational coverage, while most people are happy to ignore the terrible living conditions and lack of options available to poor youth. "Occasional youth gang crime is far less shocking than the abhorrent daily lives of teenage gang members and their preschool children and the neighborhoods in which they must survive." It is no surprise these children turn to gangs and drugs when considering the environment they are born into. Almost all have parents who are drug or alcohol-addicted and are the victims and perpetrators of physical and sexual abuse.
"Poodle's mother divorced her father after he was imprisoned...The man she remembers best is the one who beat her mom and put a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her," he writes.
Fleisher describes the Fremont neighborhood i as a Third World country plunked in the middle of an affluent city, where ice cream trucks literally sell marijuana and nine-year-old kids receive one-hitters as birthday presents from parents. City and social services and public transportation in Fremont are almost nonexistent. Even the police rarely go to Fremont except for a drug raid, like the massive one which put several gang members in prison and effectively ended the existence of the Hustlers. In this raid, Fleisher noted, police made no effort to find the wealthier people of all ages who came from colleges and affluent suburbs to buy drugs in the Fremont market.
Fleisher, who had previously done research on gangs in Seattle, boldly and gracefully inserts himself in the kids' lives by acknowledging his status as an outsider and reporter from the start but also relating to their lifestyle and language. He wins their trust with Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald's and other greasy fast food, the only thing the kids ever eat. And he also becomes a de facto lawyer for some of the kids, who find themselves lost in the juvenile justice system with overworked public defenders who don't even return their calls.
Cara is the girl who becomes closest to Fleisher during his research, and her heart-wrenchingly doomed struggle to "go straight" is central to the story. No one could question Cara's work ethic or determination: she puts in 13 hour days six days a week at Taco Bell in order to pay for a car and apartment. She is constantly trying to leave the hustle, but it isn't as easy as it sounds. Every time she gets a new apartment farther from "The Spot," old friends keep sneaking back in to crash on her couch, store drugs in her apartment and lead her back into the old lifestyle. It's hard for her to get away from this scene: these are her friends and the only stability she knows.
"Dead End Kids' natural conversations show they are ill-prepared for mainstream work and social life. They use profanity anywhere, anytime, and don't care how they are perceived by others. Sitting in the Pizza Hut or McDonald's or walking around a convenience store, these kids have no compunction about cursing profusely in raucous voices, bragging openly about bloody fistfights and drive-bys. Such conversations show these kids are quite adequately socialized for life on the street, but, for the most part, no place else," he explains.
Fleisher doesn't romanticize the gang's lifestyle and doesn't make excuses for the self-destructiveness and poor judgment of Cara and the others. He simply shows, in their own words, the fear, rage and feeling of abandonment that shape their lives and make the law enforcement policies used to deal with them so ineffective.
"Seeing drug-numbed kids, pregnant 15-year-olds, boys in jail, and babies whose lives depend on drug-addicted mothers made me weary and angry at KC for doing nothing but arresting these kids."
S 2 The B said it the best--The Game Changed Cause The OGs Left The Game Alone.
Ain't KC the ones who started the 8-Ball alliance and shit? Crips drawin off Folks literature and Bloods honorin the People. C's to the right like the Folks, B's to the left like the Brothas.
I don't think the B's & C's in other Midwest cities like Denver, Tulsa, OKC, Omaha, STL, or Minneapolis draw off People & Folk literature.
Ain't KC the ones who started the 8-Ball alliance and shit? Crips drawin off Folks literature and Bloods honorin the People. C's to the right like the Folks, B's to the left like the Brothas.
I don't think the B's & C's in other Midwest cities like Denver, Tulsa, OKC, Omaha, STL, or Minneapolis draw off People & Folk literature.
I'm from Dallas and back in the early nineties up until maybe 2000 ,Bloods was too the left and sportin crescents and fives and crips was to the right and threw up six point stars. Most spots in the south were like that. My Blood homeboys from Lil Rock did it the same way and I had Blood homeboys from Flint/Detroit, Omaha, Gary, that banged the same way. Shit back in 93/94 it was a Blood hood that was started by a couple of VL's from somewhere?
Aint no real ones tho, all these niggaz claiming crip and blood under 30 in kc is fake wanna be's cuz all the tru og's that was puttin in work back in the 80"s and 90"s was about money and dope houses aint poppin nomore so what are these youngstas bangin about? Back in the day niggaz was on some "we get our d from Blood or Crip niggaz this my block cuz we rollin out this bitch so dont short stop" but these youngstas wake up one day and say hey "I'ma so and so" thats pussy shit. Aint no OG's annointed these suckas cuz OG's aint with that shit nomore. And to Don Corleone, just a thought, why dont u exercise some respect cuz there might be some Blood niggaz on here so u aint gotta disrespect nobody, thats why so many niggaz gettin murked as it is...lack of respect. And for real if u aint from L.A. or some L.A. niggaz didnt come down and start a faction, then u really on some fake shit. Bangin in LA is generational, niggaz bang in 2007 cuz they mamas and daddy's was bangers, uncles and aunts so from birth they bred to bang. Niggaz down here phony.....
MAFIAQUEEN, U GOT SOME GOOD POINTS BUT TO ME CATCHIN BODIES AIN'T ON NO PHONY OR WANNABEE SHIT... IT'S ALL ABOUT A IGNORANT MENTALITY, NO MATTER WHO THESE YOUNGSTAZ WANNA BE DOWN AND IDENTIFY WIT...
IT'S A WHOLE COMMUNITY. ALOT OF OUTTA TOWN PEOPLE FROM THA SOUTH BE ASKIN WHY ERYBODY MUGGIN 'EM AND STARIN SO HARD??? R THEY GAY AND WANT ANOTHER MAN'S PHONE # OR ARE THEY TRYIN TO SHOW THAT THEY CAN ICEGRILL SOMEONE HARDER THAN THE NEXTMAN???
GET MONEY, DON'T COUNT THA NEXT MAN'S SKRILLI AND KEEP IT MOVIN...
THIS SHIT IS FOR REAL ON SOME DEEP EMBEDDED HISTORY TYPE OF SHIT, I'M NOT TALKIN BOUT THAT GANG SHIT EITHER.
WHO HAS THA ANSWERS??? AND BELIEVE ME, IF YOU THINK MUSIC HAS NOTHIN TO DO WITH WHUTZ GOIN ON WITH THA YOUTH OF TODAY AND HOW THEY ACT, U LOST IN THA GAME...
IT'S A WHOLE COMMUNITY. ALOT OF OUTTA TOWN PEOPLE FROM THA SOUTH BE ASKIN WHY ERYBODY MUGGIN 'EM AND STARIN SO HARD??? R THEY GAY AND WANT ANOTHER MAN'S PHONE # OR ARE THEY TRYIN TO SHOW THAT THEY CAN ICEGRILL SOMEONE HARDER THAN THE NEXTMAN???
GET MONEY, DON'T COUNT THA NEXT MAN'S SKRILLI AND KEEP IT MOVIN...
THIS SHIT IS FOR REAL ON SOME DEEP EMBEDDED HISTORY TYPE OF SHIT, I'M NOT TALKIN BOUT THAT GANG SHIT EITHER.
WHO HAS THA ANSWERS??? AND BELIEVE ME, IF YOU THINK MUSIC HAS NOTHIN TO DO WITH WHUTZ GOIN ON WITH THA YOUTH OF TODAY AND HOW THEY ACT, U LOST IN THA GAME...
You are absolutly right tho, Its like ignorance is celebrated. I use to make excuses about rap music like "its entertainment. its up to the parents, it dont influence nobody" but as I've gotten older I discovered I was wrong! I was reading Lil Waynes interview in the new XXL and he is the most ig'nant lil bastard in music today! All he is sayin is "New Orleans the murder capital of the world, we just beat Compton a few weeks ago", "nigga aint broke my jaw I murder niggaz" "I saw so and so "JUve, BG" and they aint do shit they aint shit I keep heat yada yada yada".....see rap influences an attitude!! It influences a disrespectful fake gangster attitude.....Now the bodies droppin in the town is very much real, but they droppin in the name of what??? Money...I doubt it...Women....sometimes.....Mean looks and wanting a rep...most of the time!!!! These lil bastards are playing a fixed game and dont know it..There is no honor nor integrity left in the streets.
If its music how you explain the fact that its always been like this.. you think fuckin cowboys in the wild west was rollin around bumpin fat tone killin for reps and shit? killing always has been and always will there is no rhyme or reason. jus human nature to be killin off the next man. from the start people have been killing. people try and blame it on shit. people are the reason. not music. not movies. not games.