The Crips are a Los Angeles-based street gang composed of numerous semi-autonomous "sets" operating across the city. During the early 1980s, Crips sets from across Los Angeles became the primary retail distribution network for [[Crack Cocaine|crack cocaine]], a role that transformed them from traditional neighborhood gangs into what law enforcement would later describe as a coast-to-coast criminal enterprise.[^1] [[Ricky Ross]], who operated from a Crip neighborhood, initially sold to Crips members simply because those were his local connections. "I did not sell exclusively to Crips gang members," Ross said, "they initially formed a large part of my customer base simply because he and [[Ollie Newell|Ollie]] were from a Crip neighborhood. But that only mattered in the beginning." By 1984 and 1985, Ross was so far removed from street-level dealing that gang affiliations were trivialities.[^1] ### National Expansion As the South Central crack market became saturated, Crips members began traveling to other California cities to establish new crack markets, using their connections with Ross to supply them. This migration marked the start of an unprecedented cross-country expansion by the Crips, and later the Bloods, that spread crack from South Central to black neighborhoods across the United States.[^1] UC-Berkeley sociologist Jerome Skolnick wrote in 1988: "We think that law enforcement perceptions of gang involvement in the drug trade are sharper than the Klein and Maxson statistical study suggest. In fact, it appears difficult to overstate the penetration of Blood and Crip members into other states."[^1] ### GAO Assessment The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), in a 1989 report, documented the nationwide reach: "In the early 1980s the gangs began selling crack cocaine. Within a matter of years, the lucrative crack market changed the black gangs from traditional neighborhood street gangs to extremely violent criminal groups operating from coast to coast. The lure of profits coupled with increased pressure from local police have prompted the Los Angeles gangs to extend their territories far beyond their neighborhoods. Within the past three to four years, members of the Crips and the Bloods have been identified selling or distributing crack in Washington, Oregon, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Missouri, North Carolina, Arizona, Virginia, Maryland and elsewhere."[^1] The GAO noted that a Washington, D.C., crack ring in 1989 was distributing 440 pounds of cocaine every week, much of it allegedly purchased from the Crips and the Bloods, who had purchased their cocaine from the Colombians. The report included a map showing arrows emanating from Los Angeles across the country, with black dots marking cities where crack had appeared.[^1] ### Weapons The crack trade brought a flood of automatic weapons into gang hands. [[Danilo Blandon|Danilo Blandón]] began selling high-powered weapons to Ross and his associates in 1984 through [[Ronald Lister]]. "Around '86, '87, it was on. You name it, you could get it," one East Side Crip known as Leibo told interviewers. "You didn't hear that much about 9-millimeters, M-16's, M-14's and AKs unless you were hooked up and was high on the echelon, but after 1986 they were available to anybody."[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance*, Chapter 10: "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it"