HOMEGROWN GANGS LOSING TERRITORY TO NATIONAL GROUPS

DURHAM -- Durham's gang problem goes back 10 years, when groups like the
DoggPound, the Few Crew and the East End Boys started marking their
territory with graffiti and feeding off the growing trade in crack cocaine.

"We didn't call it gangs," said Durham District Court Judge Marcia Morey.
"It was more loose associations in different pockets of the town."

Now the groups have lost ground to tightly organized local "franchises" of
national gangs such as the Bloods, Crips, Folk Nation and Latin Kings.

Mengie Parker, a former Durham police officer and gang behavior specialist,
said the national gangs took a business-like approach, branching out to
increase income from the drug trade and bolster membership.

"Part of the purpose of the migration to small towns was to establish these
different financial structures," Parker said. "But the ultimate goal of
most of your major gang nations is to spread."

As with businesses, growth involved mergers and breakups.

"That's what led to the Crips and Folk aligning. In response to that, you
have the Bloods and People [People's Nation] aligned."

Sometimes the alliances break down, Parker said.

"Crips sometimes work with Bloods if there's money to be made," he said.
Parker said such an arrangement has led to a feud between two Crips sets,
which are something like chapters, in Durham.

But others who study gangs maintain the process of national gangs spreading
to smaller cities is less purposeful.

George Tita is an assistant professor at the University of California,
Irvine, who has studied emerging gang activity and homicide patterns in Los
Angeles' Watts and Boyle Heights areas.

He has devoted several years to studying Crips and Bloods, both of which
have their roots in Los Angeles.

"I don't put much credence into the idea that Crips and Bloods decided to
franchise themselves across the United States and send profits back to the
home office," he said. "That just didn't happen."

Tita told the story of one Crip who moved from Los Angeles to a small
southeastern city. Despite the fact that he didn't seek to start a gang, a
set sprung up around the Los Angeles immigrant anyway, Tita said.

"He said what happened to him was that kids found out he was from L.A., and
he was from this group. He just decided to go along for the ride."

Romal Tune, a former northern California gang member who earned a master's
degree from Duke Divinity School last year, has a similar view. "There may
be links based on access to drugs and guns, and there may not be links," he
said. "In Durham, a lot of it has to do with immigration, particularly from
California. A lot of these kids were gang wannabes in California and they
set up shop, and that's all it really takes."

Gang members have immigrated from larger cities such as New York and Los
Angeles to Durham to set up gangs here, officials say.

Tune said he knew that Crips members had moved to Durham and established
sets here. The story is backed up by Spence Chamberlain, a member of the
Durham County Sheriff's Initiative for Effective Gang Enforcement, or
SIEGE, unit.

"A Crips member came in years ago, and some of the local gang members
joined up under him," Chamberlain said.

The newly initiated gang members purchased airline tickets for other Crips
to come and "beat in" new members in Durham, he said. A beat-in is an
initiating process in which several members of the gang physically beat a
recruit for a time, often for three minutes.

Some Bloods also claim out-of-town roots for their sets.

Teen-aged Bloods interviewed in July said a gang member who came from New
York to Durham started their set.

David Johnson, a self-described Blood Original Gangster, or leader, now
behind bars at Foothills Correctional Institute in Morganton, also claimed
that a New York gang member started his set.

But Bloods and Crips aren't the only major national gangs on the scene in
Durham.

Observers of the gang scene say the Chicago-based Latin Kings have gained a
firm foothold in the city, fueled by Hispanic immigration.

"We've seen more Latin Kings lately," said Steve Price, director of the
Durham County Youth Home. "They're here. I can verify. And they're here to
stay."

Both Price and Chamberlain said the Latin Kings are organized and disciplined.

"They're like a Fortune 500 company," Chamberlain said. At the national
level, they require secretaries to have degrees and be able to type 45-60
words per minute, he said.

The Latin Kings' constitution, or rulebook, is typed out and organized. It
contains forms to be used for funeral services, cremations and suspensions
if a member breaks a rule, he said.

Nationally, some of the gangs moving into Durham have also formed separate,
legitimate business ventures, Chamberlain said.

"The Folk Nation has organizations outside of the gangs that go in and help
rebuild neighborhoods," he said. "Some of these gangs have actually applied
for federal grants under assumed names and gotten them."

Still, the problem ultimately comes from within the community, Parker said.
Without fertile ground, national gangs wouldn't be in Durham.

"You're not dealing with necessarily armies of gang members marching over
here to Durham," Parker said. "Now, we do have gang members from other
parts of the country and, in some cases, from other parts of the world here
in Durham.

"But the real problem is the adoption of this gang ideology by the people
who are here -- people born and raised here."