Gang Seeks New Image With Paint Rollers

The broad sweep of Ross Johnson’s alley fence has proved irresistible to the Five-Duce Hoover Crips gang. They’d come back with their spray cans and their graffiti as soon as Johnson erased the wall with a new coat of paint.

Sunday, Johnson had the pleasure of standing by while a band of Hoover Crips obliterated their graffiti on his property and nearby buildings. The gang members called a press conference and, under the gaze of television cameras, announced that they wanted to cleanse the area around Vermont Avenue and 52nd Street of their territorial markings.

Good-Will Gesture

With paint provided by the city, they rolled away the wall scribblings that are a pervasive and unwelcome decoration in some neighborhoods of South-Central Los Angeles. It was a first step, the Five-Duce Hoovers indicated, a gesture of good will to their community.

Just what the next step would be, they couldn’t say.

“This ain’t no publicity stunt. It ain’t no peace treaty,” declared Mike Evans, an older member of the Five-Duce set who helped organize the graffiti removal. He said a majority of his 70-member set--who belong to what is reputed to be one of the toughest branches of Crips--approved of the painting project. They wanted to show the neighborhood “that all of us is not no psychopathic killers,” Evans said.

Still, Bam, one of about a dozen graffiti removers, was emphatic that he was in no way disavowing his gang affiliations. “We’re still Crippin’ to the fullest,” he stressed, adding that he had no desire to discuss reconciliation with the rival Bloods. He just wanted to clean up his ‘hood.

Gathered at a car wash at Vermont and 51st Place, the Five-Duce gang expressed little enthusiasm for last month’s highly publicized talks between members of the warring Bloods and Crips.

“It wasn’t real,” complained Wishbone, who had a beeper in his pocket and a beer in his hand after he briefly helped with the painting. The Crips and Bloods who sat down for three days of meetings weren’t representing anyone but themselves, he said.

The graffiti removal was an important gesture in the opinion of Leon Watkins, who runs the L.A. Family Hot Line. Since graffiti is an expression of gang identity and territory, getting rid of it can only help, he said.

Four Weekend Gang Deaths

The Five-Duce Hoover Crips’ good-will gesture came at the end of a weekend during which at least four deaths in the county were attributed to gang violence.

In the latest in a series of anti-gang sweeps, Los Angeles police said they arrested more than 500 people and seized 15 guns Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. More than half those arrested were gang members, police said.