LA Weekly:
The lead homicide detective of LAPD’s deadly Southeast Division found the list odd. “I can’t imagine that those are the worst gangs in the city,” said Detective Sal LaBarbera. “I think they were trying to spread it out over the whole city, because we’ve got five gangs alone in Southeast — the PJs, Grape Street, the Bounty Hunters, Hoover and Main Street — that could be on that list.”
Southeast Division and neighboring 77th Street Division suffered 136 homicides in 2006, representing more than 28 percent of all killings in Los Angeles. Yet only two gangs from Southeast and 77th got onto the apparently geographically and politically correct list — Grape Street Crips and Rollin’ 60s Crips.
The list does contain some truly dangerous gangs. But it also leaves out very powerful gangs: the Hoover Street Criminals, East Coast Crips, Bounty Hunters, Florencia 13 and Quarto Flats — the old-time Boyle Heights gang with close ties to Mexican cartels.
“It’s a bunch of bullshit,” said Antony “Set Trip” Johnson, 17, a gang member with the Five Deuce Hoover, a subset of the notorious Hoover Criminals. “We should be on that list. Fuck it. We the most hated gang in Los Angeles.”
Johnson, who was very familiar with the list, scoffed at some of the gangs on it. “204th Street? That’s bullshit. That ain’t a rough neighborhood. What they got, 10, 20 members? And Canoga Park Alabama? You gotta be kidding me. That ain’t a gang hood. La Mirada Locos? Never in my life have I heard of them.”
Here.