With one recent study enumerating 40,000 members in 700 gangs in Los Angeles, the city is the originator and exporter of dangerous gangs gone national, such as the Bloods, the Crips and Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS-13), said FBI spokesman Kenneth Smith.
"We have Blood and Crips sets in Indianapolis and Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville--you know, that middle part of the country where people don't think they have a gang problem," said Smith, who was an Indianapolis police officer for eight years until 1997.
Chicago Crime Commission President Jim Wagner acknowledged Los Angeles as a breeding ground for gangs that are now in Chicago's western suburbs. "We are seeing in the suburban areas a growth in the presence of MS-13," he said.
After more than 20 years trying to eradicate Los Angeles' gangs--whose violence influenced American culture from video games to movies--officials were sharply rebuked for ongoing failures in a new study by a local civil rights group.
Indeed, as gang fighting has turned racial between blacks and Latinos, the mayor, Police Chief William Bratton and other local officials have launched a high-profile campaign with such blunt rhetoric that visitors and tourists may think twice about Los Angeles.
"We're the gang capital of the United States of America," Villaraigosa said in one interview.
