Why More Car Chases And Gangs In Los Angeles?

[x635 4,066]

Kris and I were wondering while watching National Geographic Explorer's special on the MS-13 gang. Seemingly, there are more gangs and car chases in Los Angeles then in NY.

Does anyone have a theory why this is?

Is it just because it's still the "wild west"?

[SRS131EMTFF 471]

The reason for more car chases is in the east there are few places where some one can get up to a high speed and go far. On the west Coast, all someone needs to do is get on a big road and they can go fast...we dont have that.

[Future Fireman 4]

I would say the #1 reason for gangs is people "protecting" themselves. The majority of gangs out there are made up of Mexican immigrants who do drugs (that's an assumption).

As for car chases, well those immigrants have to make some REAL money somehow! (Migratory workers get crappy wages, about 2 bucks an hour! Even though it's illegal, the govt. just doesn't seem to care) What that guy way back when thought when he stole an LAFD ambulance is beyond me.

Mike

[Guest partyrock]

This a very superficial explanation. There was an excellent documentary on the rise of modern American street that I'll see if I can dig up from a few years ago. The gangs are in large thanks to the extreme segregation of LA. This segregation combined with the large influx of Latin American immigrants in the 70's created a kind of perfect storm for gang creation. To protect themselves from other groups they began to form their own. Then California's prison system began grouping a lot of these criminal elements together. In prison these gangs began to flourish and they exploded once they hit street. They had levels of organization that were previously unseen in street gangs. In the east the dominance of organized crime kept a lot of the street gangs from really developing. As new groups come to LA they develop their own style and become the new big deal. MS-13 sadly is not just an LA problem. They are the new problem in the tri-state area. The big change with them that is a huge problem is their brutality and their desire to infect new areas. The home invasion robberies that made headlines last year in long island we're all brought to you by MS-13.

Chases happen all the time in the 5 boroughs, but they end much more quickly thanks to the lack of straight highways and open roads. In NYC you are much better served fleeing on foot.

[JJB531 652]

A superficial explanation indeed.... gangs are just as prevalent in NY as they are in LA... besides your big ones (Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, and now MS-13), there are several other smaller but still prevalent gangs that are not as "commercialized"... DDP (Dominicans Don't Play), BONES, Cholos, Vatos Locos, to name a few.

One of the reasons for the pursuits is that LA has a rather "laxed" pursuit policy whereas NYC has very strict pursuit policies. You won't see a pursuit for a stolen vehicle go on for a half hour like you do in LA... a boss will call of the pursuit in the first two minutes.

There was an audio file floating around on the internet of a vehicle pursuit in Brooklyn where the cops were being shot at and all you hear is the 72 (I believe) CO calling off the pursuit while the cops are basically engaged in a gun battle with the perp. You hear one of the cops go over the air with, "Central, this friggin' (replace friggin with an expletive) guy is shooting at us, don't call it off man!"

[JetPhoto 626]

Seth, funny you should bring this up because their was recently a seminar on gangs for police in Orange County NY. this is from the RecordOnline.com

Investigator discusses issue of local gangs

Times Herald-Record

October 21, 2007

Harriman — There was a time when the conversation about street gangs in the mid-Hudson Valley quickly turned to the question of wannabes. Were the young men in suburban towns really Bloods and Crips, the talk went, or just small-town hoods who emulated gangsters they only saw on TV?

That time is over. In recent years, bona fide members of fearsome national gangs such as the Almighty Latin King Nation, the Bloods and MS-13 have turned up not only in Orange County cites like Newburgh, but in small communities like Chester, Walden and Ellenville.

One result has been the need for small-town cops to become gang experts on the fly.

John Chivattoni is one of the few detectives in the area whose full-time job is gangs. As an investigator for District Attorney Frank Phillips, Chivattoni is one of the original members of the Orange County Gang Task Force.

At a conference Friday in Harriman, Chivattoni answered a few questions about the world of Orange County gangs:

Q: Are we past the point in Orange County where gangs are an issue just for the cities like Newburgh, Middletown and Port Jervis?

A: Well, obviously, gangs are still a bigger concerns in the cities — for a lot of reasons. For one thing, in a city these guys can blend in. They can just hang out.

Q: Is the concern about gangs, especially in our smaller communities, overblown? Are people in the suburbs under the impression that street gangs pose a bigger threat than they really do?

A: Well, I don't know what the impressions are in the smaller communities, because I'm not there. But I will say this: Most of the groups and gangs I've looked into"¦ they're very disorganized.

It's not like traditional organized crime, where money flows to one individual and he pulls the strings. It's more like a free-for-all. Especially with the drug gangs.

What you're seeing is an influx in this area of Hispanic street gangs. And that's just immigration. If you look at immigration, that always happens. The Irish formed gangs. The Italians formed gangs. At first, it's for protection, and then later, it can become something else.

But these gangs (in our area), they're really not that sophisticated. We're not dealing with rocket scientists"¦ It's not like you see on TV.

Q: When it comes to drugs, is crack cocaine still king? Or is there more money for gangs in marijuana?

A: I'd say it's still crack. First of all, it's easier to transport and sell crack. And it's so highly addictive. You can make money fast.

As far as marijuana, yeah, there's a lot of it around. You can make a lot of money of it, but not as quickly.

Q: It seems like when it comes to gangs, this area is still in education mode, bringing police and communities up to speed on what gangs are out there and what to look for.

A: That's what it is, bringing people up to speed. But more than that, it's information sharing — constant information sharing.

I've been to most of the schools in the county, in the areas where you do see this kind of activity. Because that's where you see it first.

The SROs (school resource officers, police assigned to schools) are a big, big help, and this is the time of year you see more gang activity. All of a sudden, school starts, and you see more of it.