Watts truce

The Watts truce was a 1992 peace agreement among rival street gangs in Los Angeles, California, declared in the neighborhood of Watts. The truce was reached just days before the 1992 Los Angeles riots and, although not universally adhered to, was a major factor in the decline of street violence in the city between the 1990s and 2010s.

Background and 1988 attempt

The late 1960s and the 1970s saw the formation of the Crips and the Bloods, which became rival gangs, but by the 1980s the infiltration of rock cocaine and high-powered weapons into poor inner cities had created infighting among factions. By the early 1990s, after 20 years of increasing gang warfare across public housing projects that saw peak crime rates in Los Angeles, gang members themselves began trying to stem the violence. An effort took place in 1988, which was dubbed the "Year of the Gang" by the LAPD and city leaders following the murder of Karen Toshima in the city's Westwood neighborhood. In July of that year, the Rev. Charles Mims Jr. and others organized a gang summit in South Los Angeles, but formal support for gang prevention was non-existent at the time and this early effort was short-lived in media. Most of the members attending kept the truce going and did not resort to violence against each other, in particular the two Watts gang factions, the Bounty Hunter Bloods and the A Line Crips, and the truce still stands to this day. In October 1989, Minister Louis Farrakhan visited Los Angeles to deliver his Stop the Killing speech aimed at curtailing gang killings. He returned for part two at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in January 1990 where hundreds of Crips and Bloods members were in attendance.

1992 peace treaty

In April 1992, Crips and Bloods in the Watts neighborhood in southern Los Angeles convened to negotiate peace. The Grape Street Crips from the Jordan Downs Projects, the PJ Watts Crips from the Imperial Courts housing projects, the Bounty Hunter Bloods from the Nickerson Gardens housing projects, and the Hacienda Village Bloods[1] agreed to a ceasefire agreement following the death of Henry Peco, who had been shot execution-style by LAPD officers during a blackout[2] in the Imperial Courts housing project.[3]

On April 28, 1992, representatives from these four gangs signed a formal peace treaty at a mosque in Watts. The treaty was modeled on the 1949 Armistice Agreements reached between Israel and Egypt. Jim Brown helped establish the truce through his Amer-I-Can Foundation.[4][5][6] Within days of the truce, despite the relative lawlessness caused by the 1992 Los Angeles riots, most of the African-American gangs in the city declared themselves at peace and there were no major flare-ups in violence. The Watts truce is generally credited with contributing to the trend in declining street violence rates in Los Angeles.[7]

See also

References
  1. Jackson, D. Amari (April 29, 2017). "The Lasting Legacy of the 1992 Watts Gang Truce". Atlanta Black Star. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
  2. Afaray, Kamran (2009). Performance and Activism: Grassroots Discourse After the Los Angeles Rebellion of 1992. Lexington Books. p. 77.
  3. CHAVEZ, STEPHANIE; SAHAGUN, LOUIS (January 5, 1992). "Slaying by LAPD Becomes Rallying Point : Police: Imperial Courts tenants use Henry Peco's death to vent frustrations about life at the housing project. They seek an independent investigation, but officials call the shooting justified". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 5, 2023.
  4. Duane, Daniel (January 2006). "Straight Outta Boston Why is the "Boston Miracle" – the only tactic proven to reduce gang violence – being dissed by the L.A.P.D., the FBI, and Congress?". Mother Jones. Retrieved November 9, 2013.
  5. Stoltze, Frank (April 28, 2012). "Forget the LA Riots – historic 1992 Watts gang truce was the big news". LAist – NPR News for Southern California – 89.3 FM.
  6. Trotter, Jim (May 20, 2023). "Was Jim Brown a great man? To me, yes. Was he a flawed man? Without question". The Athletic.
  7. Stoltze, Frank (April 28, 2012). "Forget the LA Riots – historic 1992 Watts gang truce was the big news". 89.3 KPCC Southern California Public Radio. Retrieved November 9, 2013.

Watts Gang Truce Activists. DeWayne Holmes, Twilight Bey

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