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Hungry for customers, a growing number of gangs are going national, with black gangs like Los Angeles' Crips and Chicago's Disciples establishing franchises in cities from Seattle to Shreveport, La. "They're all over," says Detective Robert Jackson of the Los Angeles police department gang detail. "We've got a glut of coke here in Los Angeles, and the price is down. They can make three times as much money in Phoenix or Denver." Phoenix has suffered seven gang-related murders this year. In Denver the first Crips were detected in 1984; last March police there busted a crack house run by another Los Angeles ghetto gang, the Mafia Bloods.
In Los Angeles most black gangs call themselves either Crips, who wear blue, or Bloods, who favor red. Crips fight Crips and Crips fight Bloods; there is no central command over the hundreds of separate gangs. At stake are fiercely coveted turf and customers. "We're talking about unfeeling, murderous villains," says Sergeant Wes McBride of the Los Angeles sheriff's gang squad.
At 5 ft. 6 in. and 140 lbs., Hagan is all muscle and fight. His gang moniker, tattooed across both forearms, is "Wishbone." But "Powder Keg" might have been more appropriate. "If I'm loaded and get mad, anything can happen," he warns. He reckons that about ten of his friends have died violently over the years but still finds the dangers of the streets "exciting." Just another rush in a big man's game of cowboys and Indians. Even the prospect of a lifetime behind bars does not crack the cold composure. "To me, life is not much better on the streets than in jail," he says. "I can live here, no problem." He's not afraid of dying; he's not afraid of jail. Society has nothing to scare Hagan into line.
The oldest of three children, Hagan grew up with his mother in the squalor of south central Los Angeles. His father left the family when Hagan was only ten. It did not take Hagan long to learn who had the girls, the cars, the clothes and the prestige. When he was 13, he was jumped by a dozen local gang members, who beat him savagely. He fought back like a wild animal, and his courage earned him the status of a home boy, the generic street name for a fellow gang member. He had been accepted.
"The gang is your family," he explains. "If you're my home boy, I fight for you, no matter what the odds. If you're the enemy, it's do or die." Young punks with real guns playing capture the flag for keeps. Hagan is a member of the Eight-Tray Gangster Crips, a pack of predators named after their turf along 83rd Street. They identify themselves with hand signals and mark their territory with hieroglyphic graffiti that translate into a simple warning: TRESPASSERS MAY BE SHOT.
Within a year after joining the gang, Hagan was drinking, fighting and smoking PCP with the best of the home boys. Eager to please the older gang members, he became the fearless errand boy, quickly learning to rob and steal and priding himself on his growing reputation as a "crazy." He says: "I was like a hardhead. The more my parents told me to stay away from gangs, the more I wanted to hang with them." He has his own ideas about parenthood: "If I had a son, I would give him a choice: either he can go to school and be a goody-goody or hit the streets."