Gang Replaces Terror With Charity in Neighborhood

There may be more infamous streets in Los Angeles but over the past two decades, few have been any meaner than the mile-long stretch of 10th Avenue ruled by the Rolling 60s Crips.

But Wednesday night, members of one of the city’s deadliest gangs were distributing boxes of food along that avenue to needy families.

“For so long, we have terrorized this community,” said Kevin “Big Cat” Doucette, one of the few original Rolling 60s still alive and not in prison.

“We have run people out of their homes. We have turned the streets into a dope thoroughfare. The community has come to accept it,” said Doucette, a hulking, 250-pound man with 18-inch biceps. “It’s time the people stop fearing us behind closed doors and start to embrace us.”

As a first step, Doucette and nearly 20 Rolling 60s gathered before sundown Wednesday outside a 10th Avenue apartment building to hand out 100 boxes of food. Each box contained roasting chickens, milk, fresh vegetables, juices and canned foods, enough to feed a family of four for a week.

For Leona Abdullah and daughter Ameerah, 8, the timing of the food giveaway--one day before Thanksgiving--was a sweet coincidence.

“Thank you,” Abdullah said, balancing the box on a stroller.

As neighbors slowly gathered to receive the goods, there was no denying the gang’s notorious reputation. Doucette acknowledged the giveaway was a small gesture.

“You never forget,” he said. “But you can forgive.”

Originally, the boxes were to be distributed Sunday, part of a Los Angeles food giveaway coordinated by the Nation of Islam. But when the group could not find storage space, Doucette said, the gang members were called in early.

The giveaway was publicized by KKBT-FM radio personality Steve Harvey, whose listeners donated $145,000 for the needy, said Nation of Islam Minister Tony Muhammad. The amount was enough for more than 3,000 boxes of food.

Those receiving the boxes in Rolling 60s territory arrived on 10th Avenue between Hyde Park and 63rd Street, the same neighborhood where Doucette said he sold drugs and robbed and assaulted people.

At 41, he said, he has spent half his life in state prisons: Soledad. Corcoran. San Quentin.

Now he’s closing in on 12 months since his last prison release. “I’ve never made it that far before,” he said.

Doucette and others said the partnership of the Rolling 60s and the Nation of Islam was unprecedented.

“It is a big start for us because . . . we have never participated” in a community event, he said. “We have never let the Nation of Islam come over here with nothing. Every time they came over . . . they were chased away.”

Leaders of the Rolling 60s and Nation of Islam expressed hope that Wednesday’s food giveaway is a first step in reaching teenagers and making amends with neighbors.

“No matter how notorious people say our young people are, if you never give up on them, they can be reached, they are redeemable,” said the Nation of Islam’s Muhammad. “They have a heart.”

Said Doucette, “If we can get people to start looking at us in a different way, then maybe we can bring about some healing.”