Baltimore Sun
Amid mounting unrest in Baltimore, an unexpected alliance—members of the Bloods and Crips—emerged yesterday to call for protection of local residents. At an event in a local church shown in a Baltimore Sun video, a man named Charles, who said he was a member of the Crips, wrapped his arm around a self-described Bloods member named Jamal to call for an end to riots over the death of Freddie Gray.
Hours earlier, Baltimore police had warned that members of “various gangs,” including the Bloods, Crips, and Black Guerrilla Family, would “team up” to attack police officers and posed a “credible threat.” In January, a member of the Black Guerrilla Family walked into a Baltimore police station with a loaded .22-calibur handgun, marijuana, and cocaine to “test security.”
“We not here for nobody to get hurt,” Charles told the Sun reporter. “We don’t want nobody to get hurt. All that about the police getting hurt by certain gangs, that’s false. We not here for that. We here to protect our community, and that’s it. We don’t want no trouble. We’re doing this because we don’t want trouble.”
“The police department hate to see us right now,” Jamal said.
Though unusual, a Bloods-Crips alliance would not be without precedent. On Saturday, members of both groups joined protests throughout Baltimore, marching side by side against police brutality. The Daily Beast reported that in August, several former Bloods and Crips carried signs while protesting in Ferguson, Missouri, that read: “NO MORE CRIPS. NO MORE BLOODS. ONE PEOPLE. NO GANG ZONE.”
And more than two decades ago, when four white Los Angeles police officers were acquitted in the 1992 beating of Rodney King, the two factions struck a truce that drew skepticism from officers and community workers, but is thought to have helped limit street violence in LA for years.
