Crips: The Story of the L A Street Gang from 1971-1985

By Donald Bakeer

SOUTH CENTRAL L.A. CRIPS is the story of why nearly 10,000 people were

destined to get killed during the 1970's, 80's and 90's in a social explosion

that began in L.A. then spread across this nation and, indeed, the world.

This is the story of O.G. Jimmie Black (aka O.G. Bobby Johnson in the movie),

who evolves during tho

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lettra Press LLC
• Release date: Sep 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781955363112

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Crips: The Story of the L A Street Gang from 1971-1985

This book is written to provide information and motivation to readers. Its purpose is not to render any type of psychological, legal, or professional advice of any kind. The content is the sole opinion and expression of the author, and not necessarily that of the publisher.

This book is a novel; the characters and events are fictitious.

Copyright © 2021 by Donald Bakeer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or distributed in any form by any means, including, but not limited to, recording, photocopying, or taking screenshots of parts of the book, without prior written permission from the author or the publisher. Brief quotations for noncommercial purposes, such as book reviews, permitted by Fair Use of the U.S. Copyright Law, are allowed without written permissions, as long as such quotations do not cause damage to the book’s commercial value. For permissions, write to the publisher, whose address is stated below.

Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN 978-1-955363-10-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-955363-11-2 (Digital)

Lettra Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

Lettra Press LLC

30 N Gould St. Suite 4753

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Contents

Mr. Crenshaw’s Wall Must Fall

The Shooting

In the Beginning

The Baby

Crip Crazy

Legitimate Failure

The Resurrection

The Homecoming

Jimmie Jr. Goes Back to King Hospital

Prayer Works

Jimmie Black Sr. Becomes Yusuf Bilal

Ray Ray’s Dream

Crip’s His Daddy

Ray Ray’s Big Meeting

Jimmie Jr. Makes a Friend

The Beginning of a New Life

Jimmie Jr.’s Favorite Teacher

Jimmie Jr. Turns Around

Revenge

ALLAHU AKBAR!

Special Thanks For

assisting in the researching and addition of anecdotes:

Laurence (L.C. Shabazz) Fortenbury

Aadil Naazir

Sherry Coppage

John Abdul Hasan

Charles El Amin (R.I.P.)

Muhammad Abdullah

Sheikh Tajuddin B. Shu’aib (R.I.P.)

Sharon Bakeer (R.I.P.)

Aswan (Doc) Spry (R.I.P.)

The Hoover Crip Gang (HCG)

The Eight Tray Gangsters (ETG)

The Rolling Sixty Crips (RSC)

Tee Rodgers

The Blood Nation

The Griot Spirits

Edna Crutchfield (R.I.P.) &

The International Black Writers and Artists

Muhammad Ali

All the Los Angeles area Muslims

Father Amde and The Watts Prophets

Hilton Jordan (R.I.P.)

Maulana Karenga

L.A.U.S.D.

CHAPTER 1

Mr. Crenshaw’s Wall Must Fall

‘If he just had the nerve. He needed guts, and it was any day, now, before he was sure he was going to feel some growing deep in the pit of his stomach near his bowels, and they were going to take a reverse path. Then he would have them—guts! Then he would write on that big, pretty, pink wall there, too. He would show Old Mean Mr. Crenshaw that he had gone too far with the wrong boy, this time.’ Li’l Jimmie stared at the hated neighbor.

‘That’s a very bad boy for eight years old,’ thought Willie Crenshaw. The youngster was a con artist, and just natural bad luck and news. But, he still should not have shot the kid. Even he had to admit that the kid had made him lose his head.

Yeah, The Kid, The Li’l Baby, his B.K.A. (Better Known As). Li’l Jimmie could just imagine it...laying there for everybody to see. ‘Mr. Crenshaw’s wall must fall.’

It was beautiful, a pretty, pink, block wall that (he was ashamed to say) he could barely see over. And, on the other side of which he could see the house that he could never go into and children that he could never play with.

Willie Crenshaw was born on the West Side of Los Angeles, the product of a century of yearning. He had meant to move on 74th off Main Street for a quick real estate investment, then get out. But, the world was closing in on him. He had been here for nine years and a lot of people were saying property had peaked. Interest rates had reached 18% on first mortgages and his real estate investment was being frozen right up under him. Sex was always on his mind, and now he had this eight year old kid turning his own wife against him. You would think your own wife would back you just on the strength of being your wife, but see that’s what you get when you marry somebody out of Dorsey High. You just could not trust a bourgeois broad.

‘’So what if the kid’s momma is in trouble cause her man has gone to the majestic palatial county jail for a sojourn. The dude has been gone an awful long time. The dude was a sap, anyway." Willie held out his hand for an obligatory five. After all he was buying the beer.

‘’Sure you right," co-signed his drinking partner, Popeye, still not sure which kid he was talking about.

‘’And the momma is doing the... the unthinkable,’’ Willie giggled drunkenly.

Sure you right, and you know you right, chorused Popeye.

They can all die, Willie was on a roll.

Naw, man, you don’t understand. They are not your enemies, said Brother Less, breaking the spell.

‘’They are our friends, huh? said Willie, his mind going back to the grinning face of little Jimmie Willie Black, Jr. at his bedroom window. By the time he had stopped laughing at the irony of the intimate escapade that the little burglar must have seen... Burglar!" ‘What was the kid doing in his yard?’

Crazy Willie (his high school moniker) had felt a gripping sensation in his gut. The unmistakable urge gnawed at his entrails. It was more gripping than sexual lust. It was a ripened lust to kill a human being.

He reached for his shotgun by the bed and ran out of the screen door into the August night, pausing only momentarily to put on his robe. His mind moved into second gear.

‘What happens if I kill a burglar? How did I know it was a kid? Better get close so I don’t accidentally shoot up somebody’s house.’

A small form scaled the wall with one beautiful feline leap. His silhouette against the crimson night sky flexed against the penetration of the pellets. As if to say 96 months of life is not enough for this awful experience, but the skin relented and Jimmie was immediately flung into Main Street.

His mind went back to the moment before his decision to leap—the sound of the big street in the distance. ‘All the cars and people were protection. If he could just make it to Imperial, Mr. Crenshaw couldn’t kill him. He had left the weighty water hose underneath the car. He was hurt but he wouldn’t let the bullet kill him. It was fire in his back, and he fought to keep his consciousness, but somehow the voice that was meant to scare him was too far away. The only thing real was the pain in his back.’

‘’Don’t kill him," Brother Less had shouted with just enough emotion to jolt Willie back into first gear.

‘A Witness!’

‘’He was in my yard...stealing. Let me kill him," Willie pleaded, now, fearful but not yet ashamed.

‘’He ain’t your enemy, but I can’t stop you," Brother Less could see the all too familiar, yet, special hatred in Willie Crenshaw’s contorted frame. Yeh, Crazy Willie wanted that first kill, badly. His muscles tensed and his voice was straining, almost hysterical.

‘’The lawyers and bail bondsmen will bleed you dry, Willie." Brother Less’s reasoning climbed in between the anger and the act. Again, the street reasoning had prevailed.

The liquor store drinking buddies were about equally divided on the issue, and the emotion was high.

But, the men in their mid-30’s who climbed out of their worries and into their bottles (Bro. Less only drank soda) at this very unspecial spot each day were mostly veterans of high school street riots. They had all been members of the US Organization or the Black Panthers or Black Muslims in the tumultuous 1960’s at Fremont, Jordan or Locke High School, and though the flames of revolution had smoldered, this particular peer group could not help but consider and reconsider when confronted with the actuality of taking another soul brother’s life.

Somehow, they felt what they decided mattered more than the latest policy of 77th Street Division of the Police Department. Even in 1978 men were still the strongest force in the South Central L. A. community, and they were some of the strongest men.

The young brothers in some neighborhoods were rude to the police and ruthless to any show of weakness, but they tripped around Big Brother Less and Watt’s finest with the utmost respect. Why kill one because he was full of juice?

Finally, there was accord, begrudging assent to the code of unanimity for Willie, but it had cost him $400 to make bail though he was never arraigned because of the ‘’public outcry at the thought of one of their upstanding young father’s being charged with a crime for reacting courageously in defense of his family."

A lot of people in the neighborhood looked at Willie with a strange respect now. He was about to convince himself that he was the hero that the papers made him out to be. The women loved that kind of stuff, and Willie loved the women.

Except for the once and a while pain in his back that reminded Jimmie Jr. that he had still better take it a little cool, getting shot was the greatest thing he had ever done. Everybody had come to visit him at Martin Luther King Hospital, and he had stayed there a whole month. Clean sheets and all he could eat. The hospital was spank brand new and the smells were enough to make you want to live. He loved the alcohol smell. It meant clean and the nurses patted him and kissed him good night.

After he graduated from his wheel chair (chauffeur driven) to shuffling around in the pink house shoes that Nurse Shelley had bought him, he had been introduced to what was now his favorite game, Ping Pong. It fascinated him. He monopolized the table. Floundering at first, but before long he was beating all but the best players. Nurse Shelley had shown him how to play, but he beat her regularly before long. It seemed strange that the more he beat her, the more she made over him.

‘’Be careful, Jimmie, it’s time to lay down."

It was like he was her only patient. He knew she felt sorry for him, but there was something else. He felt it when she hugged him tight after he said he wished she were his mother, his face pushed comfortably against her firm bosom. He held on tight, his mind racing. He needed a woman in his life, and he hoped he didn’t ever have to let her go.

He shouldn’t have made that doctor dude look so bad on the ping pong table or who knows, he could still be waking up on that hill in Watts, looking out the window at the Watts Towers, comfortable and safe.

But, now, he was home, and his mother was taking out her hatred for his father on him.

‘’You no good. You just a no good yellow dog like your Daddy...’’

It no longer hurt. It just mounted up and up and began to sag like a heavy load. Yeh, sure, he knew he was her biggest problem, the family’s biggest problem, the world’s biggest problem, as she often called him, but what could he do about it? He was only eight, and if he was just like his daddy, it was his daddy’s fault. He should have hated his father, too, but he really didn’t remember him that well.

Things got so bad that he was either put out of the house or running away so much that he very seldom saw his mother. When they happened to cross each other’s path in the small apartment, she just grunted at him and frowned. She never cooked for him or gave him any money. She got up each morning, went to work and assumed he went to school. On weekends he seldom stayed at home. If his mother wanted to tell him something, she would tell his older sister, Tanya, who also hated him. But, Jimmie could handle Tanya. He was blackmailing her.

Tanya was the spitting image of her midnight dark, tight pantsed, gluteus maximum mother. They both shared a shameless penchant for light skinned, curly haired, pimping men. It was strange that they didn’t like Jimmie who was the spitting image of his dad.

Tanya was determined to get pregnant by somebody that, hopefully, nobody around the neighborhood knew, and she would go bus riding often and return with some light skinned Lothario with his pants bulging. They always eventually ended up arguing. Usually because the men began to flaunt their other women. It was amazing that they all knew her weakness. The worse they treated her, the more she loved them. Fortunately, none of them were immune to the criminal environment, so they soon wound up in jail. Neither were they very virile because Tanya still waited for her first baby to be born.

Jimmie the Kid had taken the opportunity to snap a picture of his sister at a most frenetically perverse moment with one of her lovers. The Polaroid camera had been his most prized possession before his mother found most of his secret pictures (various family members and friends on the toilet, dogs eating doo doo etc.). The kind of stuff that had put him in the third grade hall of fame with his male peers had sent her into a violent, screaming, frenzy, before making a wild eyed ceremony of the burning.

Only the picture of his sister and her eyes bulging had remained. This he used to force Tanya into doing what he needed, and he needed her help even more since he had been shot.

His mother seemed to think his overwhelming blame in the incident had canceled out the need for compassion, and Jimmie couldn’t bear to show her that he needed her. So, he threatened Tanya with graphic description of his hidden picture, and she did, begrudgingly, for him what most sisters would have done out of compassion. She fixed him food and changed his bandage (but she insisted on screeching and squealing at the