The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project in Chicago

out across racial or ethnic groups involving youth from outside of Little Village.Frank, the youth worker, reported that the Two Six (a Mexican-American gang)had been fighting recently with the Vice Lords, a major African-American gangfrom an adjoining neighborhood. This started when members of the Vice Lordshad to travel through Two Six territory to return home from Currie High School,just the other side of Two Six territory in the early Fall. The school usuallyprovided special buses to take the African-American students directly back totheir neighborhood. Over the past week, because of a lack of special buses, theVice Lords had to take public bus transportation and transfer on a street in theheart of Two Six territory to get back to their neighborhood.Frank reported that the Two Six caught a Vice Lord as he waited for the bus. They shotand killed him. He called G. S. and R. C., the Project police, to give them someinformation on which Two Six faction was involved.The above gang situation caused a furor among leaders in the African-Americanneighborhood about the failure of the school authorities to provide adequate transportation andprotection for students. They demanded that the former busing arrangement of students directlyto the African-American neighborhood be reinstated immediately. The police also came out inforce both to patrol the Two Six area where the shooting occurred and further investigate thesituation to find the killer(s).The youth gangs in Little Village also had peripheral and sometimes direct connectionwith organized crime operations. Youth in the Two Six at times ran errands or transported drugsfor the Mexican Mafia across country, i.e., between Mexico and the United States or across statelines, usually between Texas and Illinois. Some of the Two Six families were heavily involvedin drug dealing. Nevertheless, most of the youth gang members were not disciplined racketorganizationapprentices. They could readily attack or rob a local Mexican Mafia drug dealer totake his money. Such an incident occurred when one of the members of a Two Six faction5.12