Crack on the Move : Gangs Feel Heat in L.A., Open Markets in Other Cities

Bloods and Crips. The two gangs that dominate Los Angeles’ underside, spraying bullets from moving cars and terrifying their own impoverished neighborhoods in an out-of-control gang war, have not limited their activity to Southern California. Cities as far-flung as Anchorage, Seattle, Portland, Reno, Denver and Phoenix have been invaded by brutal, Los Angeles-style drug-dealing and violence. Some police departments have acted quickly and forcefully to control the invasion. Others, such as Portland, lack the manpower and dread the spillover as Los Angeles gets tough with its gangs.

When crack cooks on Irine Tate’s street, the air smells of easy money, simmering violence and the bitter promise of a long, hot summer.

Spring rain disperses the acrid odor of drugs boiling, so the dealers on the corner wait until the sky opens wide before they turn up the heat. Tate knows that little trick. She knows that nasty smell.

“It burns your eyes, it burns inside your nose and burns your tongue,” she said of the caustic stench created by the process of cooking cocaine and baking soda into the powerful derivative called crack. “It goes down your throat and stays there a long time, just burning the hell out of you.”

Eighteen months ago, she smelled only the sweet fragrance of roses around her bungalow. That was before California gang members lusting after astronomical profits rolled in, cooking their stuff and clogging her street with nonstop drug traffic.

The gangs brought crack for sale, fear for free, north to Anchorage and east to Denver and beyond, invading medium-size cities unaccustomed to hard-core Los Angeles-style drug-dealing and violence.

Across the West, quiet streets like Tate’s have become sales territories for Los Angeles’ two preeminent gangs, the Crips and the Bloods, ever searching for bigger, better drug markets. Business is booming and Southern California police are getting tough, so expansion makes good economic and survival sense.

Prices Inflate

The crack that sells for $600 in Southern California might bring as much as $3,000 along the northern reaches of the Interstate 5 corridor, ample incentive for gang members to hit the highway.

Word on the street is that Portland is easy pickings, that Reno is ready and that Seattle is the land of milk and honey. For Crips and Bloods with money, crack and a certain entrepreneurial spirit, untouched communities dangle before them like ripe fruit waiting to be plucked and squeezed dry.

“They call it ‘putting the move’ on a city,” said Portland Police Sgt. Neil Crannel, who was working patrol in the housing projects when he first noticed the Los Angeles connection in autumn, 1986. A year ago, Crannel became the force’s gang resources officer and began keeping track of gang-related crimes. To date, they number more than 280, including at least 20 gunshot wounds.

Seattle has recorded at least seven gang-related murders, five in 1987 and two so far this year. In one recent six-month period, Sacramento arrested 77 known gang members from Los Angeles; from 1984 to 1986, felony drug-related gang cases soared 2,000%.

In March, police in Reno arrested four youths with ties to Southern California Crips for raping a 13-year-old girl and stealing $1 from her. One of the accused was the same age as the victim. Police said the gang members laughed when the charges were read in court.

Intelligence Difficult

A Los Angeles police consultant came in to tell Reno police what they were up against. Intelligence gathering is tough, and cities around the West constantly share information. Los Angeles authorities provide critical gang education, but it goes only so far.

“When you get out of L.A.,” Crannel said, “all the same rules don’t apply.”

Crips and Bloods who might have killed each other in turf battles in Southern California have been known to cooperate in Portland, Seattle and Anchorage, at least until they have taken over the local drug trade. Crips and Bloods have shared crack houses in Portland and street corners in Seattle, police say.

“The bottom line is selling the stuff,” Seattle Police Officer Dan Fordyce said. “If it means working with one another, they’ll do that. If it means shooting at one another, they’ll do that.”

When it comes time to battle, they pull out heavy-duty weapons, including Uzis, Soviet-made AK-47s, sawed-off shotguns, pieces that resemble small Gatling guns and weapons with laser sights.

Sacramento police have switched to 9-millimeter semiautomatics, another popular gang choice. “Our police-issued .38s just were not standing up to some of the firepower we were running into,” Sgt. Bob Burns said.

Wear Latest Fashions

The gang members typically wear the latest fashions, carry beepers on their belts and keep cellular telephones in their shiny BMWs, Cadillacs and Blazers, the very picture of young urban professionals.

Their sophistication can be frightening. Irine Tate befriended one Crip who showed her a spreadsheet on his five houses, one of which appeared to rake in $50,000 a day.

“How much they got from each house, how much went to where from his expenses--he had it all broken right down,” she said. “He was only 20 years old. And he told me, ‘It’s a business.’ ”

Once the business takes hold, shutting it down becomes close to impossible. Police and concerned citizens are all too aware of how the Los Angeles gang wars have escalated; many have come to see for themselves. They return to their cities and neighborhoods with a clear message: Act now and act tough.

“The gangs can only be as strong and big as the community allows them to be,” said Sgt. Steve Hollingsworth, who monitors gang activity for the Portland school police. “You need to attack very quickly in the infant stages. Don’t let it fester and develop roots, or it will cost you much more to deal with later.”

A team of gang experts from California and Washington state recently traveled to Alaska to teach law officers there how to squash its growing gang problem. Anchorage police have identified a dozen California gang members in their city: some blue-clad Crips and a Blood dressed in red were conspicuous at the Anchorage airport.

‘Real Easy Money’

“It’s always been real easy money up here,” Anchorage police investigator Ron Weatherman said of the Alaska drug market. “They come in, undercut everybody, and just take over.”

In Seattle, aggressive local law enforcement in league with federal authorities prompted California gang members to limit their activities to three-day junkets, selling their drugs and returning south rather than setting up more permanent crack houses. Of the city’s seven gang killings, five defendants either have pleaded or been charged, and federal charges can mean no bail and stiff sentences.

Seattle’s strategy: “We stay in their face,” said Police Lt. Gerald Adams of the intelligence section.

“We’re trying to show them that Seattle is not a hospitable place to come and deal drugs,” said Capt. John Pirak, who heads two gang-oriented units. “If they come to Seattle and are apprehended, they’re going to go to jail.”

Sacramento, which first recognized its Los Angeles gang connection three years ago, has adopted a similar stance, using “red light abatement” laws to force landlords to shut down crack houses or risk having their property padlocked by police for a year.

Last year, the California capital spent $1.6 million on narcotics enforcement, including more than $400,000 in overtime. The effort has paid off, with arrests up 13%.

‘Little River Village’

“When these people first started coming up here, we interviewed a Los Angeles gang member,” Burns said. “He said the word on the street in L.A. was that Sacramento was a good market, a little river village, and they could come up here and just about do what they wanted.

“A few months ago, we arrested a guy from Los Angeles. . . . He said the word on the street in L.A. is don’t get popped in Sacramento, because they’ll slam-dunk you.”

Portland, suffering from too little jail space, cannot say the same. Unlike Sacramento, Denver, Phoenix, Seattle and Las Vegas, Oregon’s largest city has no gang squad and no room to lock up gang members. Most are cited and go on their way.

“We’ve arrested various ones, and they’re out the next day or the same evening,” Crannel said. “The whole system seems to be screwed up right now.”

On the city’s hard-hit, racially mixed inner northeast side, residents estimate there are at least 300 crack houses. Police are stretched painfully thin.

“It takes at least five different people calling for any house to move up on the priority list,” said Sharon McCormack, who chairs a 55-member youth gangs task force. “In some blocks, you don’t have five people who will do that. In some blocks, you don’t have five phones.”