‘Bona fide’ gang members roaming streets, writes D.C. 3rd District chief
Members of the notorious Bloods street gang are hanging out in Adams Morgan and Shaw in Northwest, flashing their red colors and wielding knifes, according to a D.C. police memo obtained by The Examiner.
In a June 11 memo to his officers, 3rd District Cmdr. George Kucik warned his officers that the gang intelligence unit has stopped “bona fide” members of the Bloods gang living and operating in the District and roaming the city’s nightclub district along 18th Avenue Northwest.
“In the past, the department has somewhat denied the existence of organized gangs, but the information regarding the Bloods has been verified,” Kucik wrote.
The gang members were both male and female, he said. They carried knives and were known to “stick” their victims, he warned.
Officers have been ordered to pass along information to the gang intelligence unit.
They wear their colors, red bandanas or red Washington Nationals hats with the “DC” logo on the front, which to the gang, stands for “Death to Crips,” Kucik wrote, referring to the Bloods’ rival gang.
Kucik refused to comment Friday. Over the last nine years, the violent Los Angles-based crew has crept into Maryland, but law enforcement officers and gang experts said the Bloods have begun to make a move into the District, an area that has historically kept out organized street gangs.
Last week, The Examiner reported that Bloods had infiltrated the violence-ridden Trinidad neighborhood in Northeast and the rough streets of Anacostia in Southeast. Law enforcement officers said they had begun to notice the trend in about six months ago.
“What you’re seeing in the District is more a phenomenon of local neighborhood gangs and crews now aligning themselves with the Bloods,” said Gaithersburg Detective Patrick Word, head of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Investigators Network. For instance, Word said, if the fictional Benning Road Crew aligned with the national syndicate, it would then call itself the Benning Road Bloods.
Most East Coast Bloods are part of the United Blood Nation philosophy, originating out of Riker’s Island Prison in New York, Word said. There are many similarities with their Blood brethren from the West Coast, but also a few differences. They’re involved traditional in gang crime, drugs, assaults, and weapons, but in the mid-Atlantic area they also are involved in prostitution, credit card fraud, identity theft and auto theft.
