Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles, describes his city as the “gang capital of the world”. In the Los Angeles Times in January 2007 he stated “We agreed that Los Angeles is the epicenter of the nation’s gang crisis and an effective assault on gang crime will require increased suppression, intervention and prevention measures,”

In March 2008 the LA International Chiefs of Police held a summit on Gangs.

“Though violent crime is down in Los Angeles, the notorious birthplace of many gangs, the city is under siege by the constant threat of gangs, many of whose membership has grown to global proportions,” said Salvador Hernandez, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI in Los Angeles.

“We in law enforcement are committed locally and internationally to suppressing violence in all its forms,” said Sheriff of Los Angeles County, Leroy Baca. “The high number of deaths from gang activity has reached a crisis point. Over the last decade, in Los Angeles County, we’ve lost more than 5,800 people to gang violence in comparison to less than 500 people to natural disasters.

“Drug and gang violence continue to break apart families and communities,” said Special Agent in Charge of DEA Los Angeles Timothy J. Landrum.

With LA admitting they have a crisis Ross travel to Los Angeles, home to over 700 gangs to investigate why this city is a touch paper for gang violence.

For decades, LA’s gang scene was dominated by the Crips and Bloods who for the best part of three decades fought a turf war. From the 1940s through to the early 1990s Hispanic and Black gangs rarely engaged in conflict. But something changed in the early 1990s. A massive upsurge in illegal migration across the Mexican border meant that by 2004 Latinos had become the largest minority in the US. Today the areas in LA with the highest rate of gang murders are all areas shared by blacks and Hispanics, with many in the black community claiming to be victims of what amounts to a campaign of ethnic cleansing by Hispanic gangs.

No one knows how it started. Some blame demographic changes, some say its down to a drug rip-off almost ten years ago, but experts agree that the city’s black and Hispanic gangs are at war, and that it’s the Hispanic’s who are in the ascendant. More organized than the Bloods and Crips the Latino gangs are allegedly acting on direct orders from the Mexican Mafia prison gang, to cleanse their neighborhoods of African-American gang and non-gang members.

Ross Kemp arrives in the midst of a turf war pitching the Crips and Bloods, the biggest black gangs in the US, against the Latino gangs.

Ross discovers extreme racism between the Latino and Black Gangs. Latino gangs openly express their hatred towards the Blacks. His journey leads him to Joker, a key member of the Latino ‘Sureno’ or Southside, who control and operate in an area in LA called Riverside. He discovers that the Latino Gangs are controlled by a mafia called La Eme, otherwise known as the Mexican Mafia. He meets with an ex-associate of La Eme who explains that they work in a military fashion with a hierarchy of control.

Ross travels to Kern Valley State Prison where he is shown the horrific and bloody violence metered out by gang members on each other for refusing to obey orders. He is also shown how those who run La Eme get their orders out to the street gangs. By using a practiced form of mini writing, messages are written on small pieces of paper that are transported to the outside via the anal cavity.

Finally, Ross is invited back to Riverside by Joker. Here he witnesses a Latino Gang tradition, a ‘jumping in’ ceremony whereby young recruits, some as young as 12 and 13, are baptized into the gang.

Quotes

“I’ve made three programmes about gangs in LA now, unfortunately there are very rich pickings over there. Meeting Blood Hound again was like meeting an old friend - he’s responsible for the series. It was amazing to see him alive, because he had a pipe bomb placed under his car by a Latino gang”.

“I watched a 13-year-old being ‘jumped in’ to a gang. Noah was a lovely kid and it was what he wanted to do and you can’t really stop people from doing what they want to. It’s said because he’s a gangster now and he’ll probably end up either having a short life or spending most of it in prison”.

“If you want to talk about scary people I’ve met, Joker is definitely in the top 10 or top 5. I don’t condone what his actions at all, but I enjoyed his company.”

“I visited a prison in Los where I was recognised by a guy from four years previously. It was strange to be recognised by a lifer”.

Ross Kemp On Gangs, September 1st, Sky One