Crips History

Crips History

Crip is an alliance of individual street organizations known as sets. The Crip alliance originated in Los Angeles, California. Each Crip set is its own individual gang and are known to have sub-clicks, blocks, or lines (line-ups) which are like smaller individual sets within the set. Gang members in gangs under the Crip alliance are known as Locs and all Crips call each other "cuz" (short for cousin) to signify that they see each other as family. The gangs under the Crip Alliance are mainly identified by the color blue which is worn proudly by all Crip members as a primary color. Each Crip set has significant differences such as hand signs, use of secondary colors, and customs. The Crip alliance has significantly branched out of California and has spread throughout the majority of the United States.

A 15 year old Fremont High School student named Raymond Washington started a gang called the Baby Avenues in 1969 in an attempt to be like the older gangs and copy the political activities carried out by other organizations such as the Black Panthers. The gang named itself the Avenue Cribs eventually and took on the nickname Cribs because most members were very young back then. The name Crips was first brought up in L.A. a Los Angeles newspaper in an article about young Cribs with canes, as if they were crippled. A lot of people believe the name came to existence because of a spelling error. Either way, the name stuck and the Crips alliance was formed.

Stanley Tookie Williams is one of the co-founders of the Crips. He started his own gang called the Westside Crips. The Crips were very well known throughout southern L.A. as more and more people began to join. The Crips eventually became the biggest and most ruthless gang in California and began targeting the other non-crip gangs with daily acts of violence. In retaliation, all non-crip gangs, including the Pirus, later formed an alliance that eventually became known as the Bloods.

Along with a few other friends near his 78th Street home near Fremont High School, Stanley Tookie Williams and Raymond Washington created the Crips alliance with the initial intent of continuing the revolutionary ideology of the 1960s. They failed miserably because of their lack of political leadership. They later became obsessed with protecting themselves from the other non-crip alliance independent gangs in the community which began to increase violence and resistance towards the Crips. The Crips began to increase violence and take over new turf. Some of the other original founding fathers of the crips were Angelo "Barefoot Pookie" White, Melvin Hardy, Bennie Simpson, Greg Batman Davis, and Jimel. The Godfather Barnes, Raymond Cook, Ecky, Michael Christianson, Michael Shaft Concepcion, Mack Thomas and No 1.

Most Crip sets wear blue. Some people believe the origin of the color is from the school colors of Washington High School in South L.A. Other believe they started wearing blue because of "Buddha", who always wore blue shirts, khakis, shoes, and a blue bandana from his left pocket, which is why Crips flag out the left side. When Buddha died, Tookie made blue the Crip color in honor of his death. The Grape Street Crips, on the other hand, have been known to wear purple in addition to blue. The Shotgun Crips are in Gardena, California and have been known to wear green, the city color of Gardena, in addition to blue to show that they are from Gardena. Crips under the Gangster Card are known to wear Gray in addition to blue. Long Beach Rollin' 20's Crips are known to wear yellow and black in addition to blue. Crips under the Neighborhood Card and the Avenue Crips are known to wear baby blue. Fudge Town Crips are known to wear brown and blue.

All Hoover Criminal Crip sets began to use orange flags in addition to the blue flags to separate themselves from the rest of the sets in the Crips alliance, essentially turning Hoover Criminal into its own "Card" or "Car" for short. Cards are smaller alliances of individual Crip gangs within the Crip alliance itself, which gangs within the cards are known to put before the whole Crip alliance. Other Crip cards include: Neighborhood Crips (NHC), Trays (Gangster Crips), Blocc Crips, Coasts, Deuces, and CC Riders. Crip gangs strictly bang (go to war) to defend their territory (hood) before any alliance or card, and are known to be very vicious in their attacks. Also, Crip sets are always trying to expand their territories and find new territories to take over which essentially makes their wars never ending. Crips are known to mark their territories and all boundaries by the use of extreme wall banging. Wall banging consists of marking territory with graffiti which shows what gang controls that turf or going into a rivals turf and crossing out their graffiti.

There are significantly more Crip gangs today than when the alliance was first created. This is because many independent organizations outside of California and across the United States have also decided to be sanctioned into the Crip alliance. All it takes for an entire independent organization or gang to be sanctioned into the Crip alliance is the permission from a member of an already sanctioned legit Crip gang. Many Crip sets have names which include the name of their City, a street that runs through their turf, or the name of the projects, apartment complex, or community they control. Crips are known to shout "CaRip" as a greeting to other Crips and to let their presence be known.

Contrary to popular belief, real Crips do not represent any 6 point star and are not part of the Folks Nation Alliance. The confusion of Crips representing the Folks Nation's 6 point star started on the internet with unknown persons creating various fictional "Crip Books of Knowledge" which consist of mixing Crip history and Folks Nation history, symbols, and literature (lit) together. These fictional "Books of Knowledge" spread rapidly throughout the internet and eventually into the streets with wanna-be's taking these books seriously. There is, however, a cease-fire/hood share agreement between Crips and Gangster Disciples that originated in Kansas City Missouri in 1993 called the "8 Ball". They call it the "8 Ball" because of the shape you get when you merge the "C" hand sign of the Crips with the "Pitch Fork" hand sign of the Gangster Disciples, which is how they greet each other. The "8 ball" has nothing to do with crips being part of the Folks Nation or using any 6 point star, it simply means they have an agreement to share a hood and its resources. All throughout the United States Crip hoods and Gangster Disciple hoods have linked up to form their own "8 balls" and in these hoods you will see both Crip and Gangster Disciple graffiti and gang culture. The "8 Ball" has been known to be "cracked" (cease fire dropped), leaving both gangs to fight a Bloody war for sole control of that hood, but these instances are very rare. The "8 ball" cease-fire agreement may have sparked the idea for someone to create the fictional internet "Crip Book of Knowledge".

Crips have a loose structure of ranks based on how long a person has been banging for their particular hood and how much work they put in for the hood. Their rank structure is as follows:

Lowest to highest
T.G. (Tiny Gangster)
B.G. (Baby Gangster)
O.G. (Original Gangster)
O.O.G. (Double O.G.)
O.O.O.G. (Triple O.G.)

These ranks don't signify leadership or dominance over anybody else in the set, they just signify respect for those who have been in the hood longer, put in more work for the hood, and have survived the longest. This means that Crips with higher rank don't give out orders or call shots over those with lower rank. Crips with higher rank are respectfully referred to as "Big Homies" by Crips with lower rank.