Law enforcement officials in Los Angeles have charged nine alleged gang members with committing six homicides, multiple shootings and various other crimes in a pocket of South L.A. hit hard by the city’s recent surge in violence.
Police said all nine men — identified in charging documents as members of the Kitchen Crips — regularly committed violence in furtherance of the gang and in retaliation for threats to its members, instilling fear and attempting to assert control in neighborhoods including Florence-Firestone and Watts. The Kitchen Crips are a predominantly Black gang that claims as its territory an area of South Los Angeles east of the 110 Freeway.
Among their victims were individuals whom they believed to be members of rival Bloods sets and whom they conspired to kill, prosecutors alleged. One was a 61-year-old bystander killed when the men opened fire at a rival on a scooter, and another was killed when they opened fire into a crowd of people at the Nickerson Gardens public housing development, prosecutors alleged.
“It was one gang that was terrorizing several communities,” said Capt. Adrian Gonzalez, commander of the LAPD South Bureau’s Homicide Division. “It’s the gang life, and part of what they try to do is spread fear and influence.”