street. Tracc had what appeared to be a big, long-barrel .38 revolver in his left hand. Without stopping, Trace exclaimed, “Y’all bail, we just busted on some Families!” They kept running, right on past us.
We hadn’t done nothing, so we kept on our way. Not a minute later, a white Camaro screeched out of Duke’s parking lot. “There they go!” we heard an almost hysterical voice yell from the car. A second car, a huge orange Chrysler, came out of the parking lot, bearing down on the bumper of the Camaro—which was now heading directly for us. We scattered.
De and I darted into an adjacent alley behind Best Yet, and I don’t know where Stone and Snoopy went. The chase was on. Hopping a fence in the alley, De and I hid ourselves in the dense shrubbery behind Pearl’s Gym. The Camaro and the Chrysler roared up and down the alley several times as we lay in wait. The thoughts that ran through my head were hopes that the Blood who had been shot would die.
It’s significant that there were no Crip-on-Crip wars raging in these times. The worst enemies were Crip and Blood sets. Today, of course, Crips are the number-one killer of Crips. In fact, Crips have killed more Crips in the last twelve years than the Bloods have killed in the entire twenty-two-year conflict. And, too, sets in the Crip and Blood communities have increased twenty-fold—so that there is literally a gang on every street. Also, there are the huge conglomerate sets spanning hundreds of city blocks at a time, extending themselves into other cities and counties. It’s not at all unusual for one of these huge conglomerate sets to be policed by five separate divisions of both the LAPD and the sheriff’s department. (The East Coast Crips are one such set, spanning from First Street in downtown Los Angeles to 225th Street in Harbor City.)
After an hour or so we emerged from hiding and walked east in search of Snoopy and Stone.
“Man, them fools was mad!”
“Huh?” De spoke up. “If they would have caught us, Kody, we’d have been through.” De was very serious when I finally looked at him. “Why you didn’t bring the gat”—gat is a generic term for gun—“anyway?”
“’Cause of the metal detector at Rosecrans. Ever since the Families blew the door off they been really tight on security. Besides, all homies be there anyway.”
We found Snoopy and Stone standing on Western Avenue and Manchester. Well aware that the Families were now out in mass looking for revenge, we devised a new strategy for getting to the skating rink. Just then the orange Chrysler hit the corner of Eighty-fifth Street, packed with occupants from the Red side. We had two choices: run into the street and try to make it across Western and further into the interior of our ’hood and possible safety, or run into the surplus store behind us and hope they wouldn’t follow in view of such a big civilian crowd. We quickly chose the second option.
De broke first, with myself, Snoopy and Stone heavy on his heels. Looking back, I immediately realized that we had made a terrible decision, for the Bloods were bailing out of the huge Chrysler like beans from a bag and chasing us straight up into the store! I remember taking one last look back after I had jumped the turnstile, and I knew then that we were trapped.
The surplus kept a huge green trash can by the door that was full of axe handles of heavy oak; each Blood grabbed one as he entered. Alarmed and not knowing if this was a gang raid on his store, the manager locked the door once the last Blood had come in. I knew we’d be beaten to death.
Snoopy and Stone went one way and De and I went another. I followed De up some stairs that led to an attic supply room and further entrapment. Four Bloods followed us up, swearing to kill us for shooting their homeboy. One guy was shouting about the victim being his brother. Damn, how in the hell had we gotten into this?
Running up into the small attic area, I thought seriously about death for the first time in my life, and for the slightest second I wanted to turn and tell the Bloods, “Hey, all right, I quit. I’m only thirteen, can’t we talk?” Diplomacy was as foreign as Chinese to us all, but it’s a trip that when under pressure, clear thoughts seem to abound.
Stopping and crouching, temporarily having lost my tail among the rows and aisles of stocked clothing, I heard De trying to explain that it wasn’t us, that they had made a mistake. “Hold it, man, it wasn’t us,” I heard De say in a cracking tone of sincerity and terror.
“You a muthafuckin’ lie, we saw you Blood!”
Crack! “Ahh!” Crack! “All right, man, all—” Crack! “Ahh!”
Terrified, I crouched lower and closed my eyes, hoping they wouldn’t kill De, who was now on the ground and silent. But the beating continued. I felt completely helpless.
“Here go another one!” Crack! “Ahh!” Across the top of my head the heavy axe handle came down. Swoosh! A miss, and in an instant I was on my feet. Crack! “Ahh!” One to the back, as I tried to get past another in the semidarkness.
“Wait, wait!”
“Fuck that wait shit, fool, you didn’t wait when you shot Mike!” Crack! “Ohh.” Crack! “Ahh…” Blackness.
When I came to I was on my stomach, handcuffed. Next to me was De. Both of us were bloody and swollen. Craning my neck to the left, I saw Snoopy and Stone. They, too, looked whipped and soiled.
“Which one of you did the shootin’?” a police officer asked from somewhere behind me.
“Him, the one in the blue overalls and sweat jacket.”
That was me! “What?” I managed to say through fog and loose teeth. “Who, me?”
“Yeah, you, you little crab-ass punk!” (Crab is a disrespectful term used by Bloods against Crips—defacing the enemy.)
For the first time, I noticed her—a girl. Looking up, I brought her into focus. Never seen her in my life.
“You a lie, bitch—” I blurted out and was abruptly cut short by a police boot on the back of my neck.
“Shut up, asshole. Are you sure this is the shooter, ma’am?”
“Yes, yes I’m sure, officer. He was trying to talk to me and then found out who I was with and just pulled a gun and started shooting. I just—”
“Bitch, you lying, I don’t know you, I was—Uuugh!” I was kicked in the side by the police officer who had already smashed my face to the ground.
“One more word, dipshit, and you’ll get another ass whipping.”
I felt it best to remain silent. I was transported to the Seventy-seventh Street Division and booked for attempted murder.
Now I was hoping he wouldn’t die. I was the only one arrested. At the station, I was asked a series of questions, of which I answered none. I was taken to Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall to await court. I was no doubt facing a camp term now, worse than juvenile hall, for the attempted murder, which I hadn’t even had anything to do with. The strict code of the street held me, though, and I said not a word to anyone about who had really shot the Blood.
The Hall (juvenile hall) was another territory to conquer, just like South Central, but all the sets were now face-to-face, bunched together in units of fifty. I met Crips who I had heard about and others whose names I had seen spray-painted on walls. I fought against Bloods whose sets I had never heard of and, of course, against those who were our worst enemies.
I went to trial three months later. The gang turnout was surprising. Along with my family, at least fifteen of my home-boys came. All were in full gear (gear is gang clothes, colors and hats—actually uniforms). On the other side, the Bloods also came in force, in full gear. Tension ran thick through the courtroom as stares of hate were passed back and forth.
I was told after the first day that a shoving and shouting match had taken place in the hallway outside the courtroom. My homeboys had to serve as bodyguards for my family. On my next court date, I was released into the custody of my mother, pending trial proceedings. During my next scheduled court date, three gangs filled the court—the Crips, the Bloods, and the LAPD CRASH unit (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums).
The atmosphere was tight with rage that ran just below the surface, and this is where I began to grasp the meaning of “low-intensity warfare.” I couldn’t believe how personally the Bloods were taking this. After all, their homie was shot “legally,” that is, within the unspoken but generally known guidelines of gang warfare. He was fired on in a free-fire zone. In fact, this area, as I explained above, was contested. We had gotten numerous reports of Blood sightings. He just happened to be the first caught.
And now here they were, taking the war off the streets and into the courtroom, where neither of us had the experience to win. Blood after Blood testified to my shooting of their home-boy—all lying, of course. The final witness was the victim himself. He was thin and wearing cornrowed braids; his would be the testimony to seal my fate. After the prosecution asked him to convey the events of that day and time, he was asked if he saw the person
