Chapter Seven
The Shame of the Cities:
Minnesota's Gangs
and Gangsters
Learning Objectives
- Identify some of the infamous gangsters of Minnesota's past
- Describe the causes and consequences of Prohibition
- Analyze the O'Connor System of policing in St. Paul
- Describe the origins of state and federal gun laws
- Discuss problems with defining gangs and using gang member databases
- Identify some of the major gang branches in Minnesota
- Critique the Metro Gang Strike Force
- Explore gang intervention efforts in Minnesota
- Define hate crimes
- Explore the role of drug cartels in the Minnesota drug trade
A walk through Minnesota's history reveals storied tales of violence, vice, corruption, and extortion that blemish the “Minnesota-nice” reputation. After all, it was here that “Public Enemy Number One” John Dillinger vacationed and the notorious James-Younger Gang met their demise (Maccabee, 1995). It didn't help Minnesota's “Nice” image that nepotistic politicians and police were in lockstep with the criminals, securing safe havens and accepting bribes, among other crooked practices. The pages that follow, therefore, illuminate the causes and consequences of Minnesota's very special relationship with gangs and gangsters. One consistent theme throughout the chapter is the connection between Minnesota and Chicago, Illinois, from the business ties between criminals in both places to the migration of gang members from one place to another.
History of Gangs in Minnesota
We begin with a historical approach to examine gangs and organized crime, for as philosopher George Santayana once argued, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” As
Figure 7.1
highlights, as of today we have not fully remembered the past, since gangs have been part of the Minnesota landscape for more than 125 years.
Figure 7.1. Timeline of Minnesota Gang History
The Northfield Raid and the James-Younger Gang
On September 7, 1876, eight notorious outlaws—Jesse James and his brother Frank; the Younger brothers, Cole, James, and Robert; Charlie Pitts; Clel Miller; and William Stiles—attempted to rob the First National Bank in Northfield (Northfield Historical Society, n.d.). Northfield was (and still is) a college town approximately one hour south of the Twin Cities—home to Carleton and St. Olaf colleges. The James-Younger Gang, educated in violence during the American Civil War, robbed banks and trains and killed uncooperative employees, cultivating a Robin Hood image of stealing from the rich to give to the poor (Riedel & Welsh, 2011). The local bank was thought to be an easy target. The James-Younger gang thought wrong.
In a textbook James-Younger robbery, three gang members entered the bank, drew their weapons, and announced the holdup. Cashier Joseph Lee Heywood was told to open the safe. Heywood refused, citing a time-delay lock that could not be opened, and subsequently was shot dead (Minnesota History Center, n.d.). Meanwhile, the citizens of Northfield engaged the remaining members of the James-Younger Gang in a gun battle on the street. In the melee that followed, Clel Miller and William Stiles were killed. Cole and Bob Younger were wounded. The others were forced to flee. It was the beginning of the end for the band of
outlaws that had elicited a response between fear and fascination for more than a decade following the Civil War.
The Youngers were eventually captured in Madelia after another gun battle in which gang member Charlie Pitts was killed. The three Younger brothers were tried in Faribault, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to life in the state prison at Stillwater. Bob Younger died in prison in 1889; Jim was pardoned in 1901 and committed suicide in 1902; Cole, also pardoned in 1901, helped found the prison's first newspaper,
The Prison Mirror
, and eventually died in 1916 (Minnesota History Center, n.d.).
The Shame of Minneapolis
Minneapolis has produced countless upstanding citizens who have contributed greatly to society. There are, however, a few individuals the city would rather forget, chief among them Albert Alonzo “Doc” Ames (January 18, 1842–November 16, 1911). Ames held four non-consecutive terms as mayor of Minneapolis between 1876 and 1902. Ames was known for his assistance of the poor, sometimes giving medical treatment to those who could not afford it. But following the 1903 publication of “The Shame of Minneapolis,” an article by New York-based muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens for the influential
McClure's Magazine
(see Steffens, 1957), Ames became better known for creating one of the most corrupt municipal governments in American history.
Upon election to his final term as mayor in 1900, Ames “set out upon a career of corruption for which deliberateness, invention, and avarice has never been equaled” (Steffens, 1957, p. 42). First, he employed his brother Fred as Minneapolis' chief of police. Next, he picked an easily corruptible former gambler, already acquainted with the underworld, for chief of detectives. Then, using the
spoils system
(a practice in which politicians, after winning election, give government jobs to their patrons as a reward for working toward victory, and an incentive to keep working on their behalf), Ames fired officers appointed under previous administrations and sold their badges to the professional criminals he consulted for advice (Nathanson, 2010).
The deck was stacked. Ames and colleagues organized a citywide system to extract bribes from gambling parlors, opium joints, and houses of prostitution forbidden under city law (Steffens, 1931). This arrangement, and the systematic release of known criminals from local jails, attracted more criminals to the city, many of whom arranged with the police to be left alone. Illegal businesses multiplied. At one point, there were more saloons than churches in the city of Minneapolis (Nathanson, 2010). There was even some evidence of women setting up candy stores for children as fronts for brothels (Steffens, 1957).
Ames extorted huge sums of protection money from illegal businesses, but his organization quickly swirled out of control when the police and politicians began cheating each other (Steffens, 1957). A city grand jury, under the leadership of foreman Hovey C. Clarke, finally brought Ames down. Members of the grand jury paid out of their own pockets several private detectives to investigate Ames and his coconspirators (Kaplan, 1974). The investigators submitted numerous indictments. The mayor fled the state and lived in exile until he was eventually arrested in New Hampshire in February 1903.
Ames was extradited to Minnesota and tried for receiving a $600 bribe from a prostitute (Nathanson, 2010). He was found guilty and sentenced to six years in the Minnesota State Prison at Stillwater, but served no time in jail. His sentence was overturned on appeal and following two mistrials, all legal action against him ceased. Ames' brother Fred, however, served several years in state prison, and many others also wound up behind bars.
After Ames, alderman D. Percy Jones, the City Council president, took control as acting mayor. He tossed out the bad apples on the police force and named a church deacon and personal friend as chief (Steffens, 1957). Ames' crimes are explained in part by his supposed alcoholism (Zink, 1930). Alcohol also features prominently in life of the next elected official, although in a very different way.
Prohibition
Minnesotan Andrew John Volstead (October 31, 1860–January 20, 1947) was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1903–1923. A lawyer by training, Volstead served as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee from 1919 to 1923. Most famously, however, Volstead collaborated with Wayne Wheeler of the Anti-Saloon League to draft, sponsor, and champion the National Prohibition Act of 1919. The so-called Volstead Act was enacted to carry out the intent of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which from 1920 until its repeal in 1933, prohibited the sale, manufacture, distribution, and importing of intoxicating liquors in the United States.
Prohibition was an effort to reverse the perceived negative influence of alcohol on public health, safety, and morality. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, for example, advocated for the law as a means of preventing abuse from drunken husbands (Bordin, 1981). Prohibition succeeded in reducing liquor consumption in America, the police arrested fewer people for drunkenness, and the cost of alcohol and liquor became too high for many to afford (National Archives, 2015). It also took a lot of resources on behalf of the government,
who could not enforce every violation. The unintended consequences were many, including illicit drinking, consumption of unregulated and often toxic forms of alcohol, disrespect for the law, government corruption, and increased organized crime (see Riedel & Welsh, 2011). And so it was that a law named after a Minnesotan became the catalyst for a new episode of gangsterism throughout the state and nation.
Perhaps the most notorious gangster in Minneapolis' history is Romanian-Jewish immigrant Isadore “Kid Cann” Blumenfeld (September 8, 1900–June 21, 1981). Cann's rise from Northside nickel-and-dime pimp and bookmaker to Midwest godfather is almost cinematic. With the onset of Prohibition, Cann and his brothers Jacob and Harry, began
legally
importing industrial grade alcohol from Canada, ostensibly for the processing of fur (their father was a furrier), and diverting it to
illegal
distilleries in the forests near Fort Snelling (Karlen, 2014). The Cann family also purchased large quantities of premium corn liquor moonshine (the only “branded” moonshine produced in the U.S. during Prohibition) from local farmers in Stearns County to sell on to the Chicago Outfit, bossed by the legendary Al Capone (Davis, 2007)—the first of many Chicago connections outlined in this chapter. The power and influence of Cann's “Minneapolis Combination,” as it came to be known, has been compared to that of Capone's Chicago Outfit, but so too has the mythology surrounding it. For example, Cann's organized crime group supposedly enjoyed ties to the Genovese crime family, one of the “Five Families” of New York and among the most powerful mafias in the United States (Karlen, 2014). See
Figure 7.2
for definitions of organized crime and mafias.
A number of deaths are attributed to Cann and his gang, including journalists who were assassinated for exposing the inner workings of his organization and its ties to corrupt politicians. Cann also was implicated in the 1924 murder of cab driver Charles Goldberg, the attempted murder of police officer James H. Trepanier at the Cotton Club in Minneapolis, and the 1935 murder of Walter Liggett. Liggett, the founder and editor of
The Midwest American
newspaper, reported a link between Cann and his childhood friend, Minnesota Governor Floyd B. Olson. As a result, Liggett was arrested on trumped-up morals charges and machine-gunned to death in the alley behind his home at 1825 2nd Ave. S, right across from Stevens Square Park (Sparber, 2011). Cann was indicted, but suspiciously acquitted of the crime despite eyewitness testimony from Liggett's wife and daughter, among others, identifying him as the shooter.
Cann held considerable power over the Jewish neighborhoods in North Minneapolis and oversaw illegal activities such as bootlegging, prostitution, and labor racketeering. He later graduated to trucking distribution routes, illegal gambling, and real estate deals throughout the American Sun Belt. He
is perhaps the most famous of local crime figures in Minnesota, but often ignored when compared to the national gangsters who frequented St. Paul (Karlen, 2014).
Figure 7.2. Definition of a Gang, Organized Crime Group, and Mafia
The O'Connor System and Big Tom Brown
In the 1920s and 1930s, St. Paul was either home to or a stopping place for the most notorious gangsters of modern folklore. John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Babyface Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, Ma Barker and her boys, and others all frequented the capital city at one point or another during their criminal careers (Maccabee, 1995). In 1936, in an article illustrated by Ludwig Bemelmans, author of the Madeline children's books,
Fortune Magazine
named St. Paul the best place in America to hire a hit man (MinnPost, 2008). Part of the reason was Israel “Icepick Willie” Alderman, an assassin who punctured victims' brains via their eardrums with his namesake tool to avoid signs of homicide during an autopsy, was in town (Karlen, 2014). St. Paul was also cited as a destination for money laundering and fencing stolen property.
What explains this history? St. Paul's police chief at the time, John J. O'Connor (October 29, 1855–July 4, 1924), had established a
Layover Agreement
that offered criminals a safe haven within the city limits of St. Paul provided they followed three very simple rules: (1) check in with police upon arrival; (2) commit no serious criminal activity within the borders of the city; and (3) pay all necessary bribes (Maccabee, 1995). O'Connor served two terms as police chief between 1900 and 1920, but his agreement, known as
The O'Connor System
, was policy and practice in the City of St. Paul until the mid-1930s.
With unilateral authority, O'Connor reorganized the St. Paul Police Department and created a quid-pro-quo system he believed eliminated major
crime, but in reality only displaced or encouraged it. The O'Connor System attracted gangsters on the run from around the country. Nightspots like The Green Lantern, at 10th and Wabasha, and the “Hollyhocks,” on Mississippi River Boulevard, catered to them. The notorious Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's last “Public Enemy Number One,” once said of this time in history, “If you were looking for a guy you hadn't seen for a few months, you usually thought of two places: prison or St. Paul. If he wasn't locked up in one, he was probably hanging out in the other” (as cited in Gorn, 2009, p.88). Case in point: after John Dillinger escaped from an “escape proof” Indiana jail and eluded a nationwide manhunt in March 1934, he wound up in St. Paul (Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d.). The Uptown Theater at Oxford and Grand was one of Dillinger's favorite haunts—apparently he liked aisle seats for quick getaways (Maccabee, 1995).
On March 31 of that year, the
St. Paul Daily News
reported two major stories under the headline “Machine Guns Blaze as Jury Whitewashes Police” (as cited in Thayer, 2009). First, Dillinger had evaded FBI agents by shooting his way out of an apartment building on Lexington Parkway (N.B., before 1934, federal agents did not have the right to carry weapons or arrest criminals, relying instead on local police). Second, a St. Paul grand jury concluded a lengthy investigation by declaring that the city, contrary to rumors, did not have a gangster problem (MinnPost, 2008). The irony was thick. City Mayor William Mahoney, running for reelection at the time, responded, saying, “If there are any gangsters here, it is because they have been invited by the newspapers,” a slight at critic Howard Kahn (1934),
St. Paul Daily News
editor, who was actively using his First Amendment free-press rights to expose corruption.
During the
Public Enemies
era (June 1934 to May 1936) in which the FBI labeled Dillinger, Floyd, Nelson, and Karpis, in that order, “Public Enemy Number One,” police posts were politically charged mayoral appointments. In 1930, for example, “Big” (he was 6 foot 5 inches tall) Tom Brown became chief after a stint in the so-called “Purity Squad,” a special St. Paul police unit designed to identify and shut down speakeasies (places that sold alcohol illegally) but notorious for its repeated failure to find any illegal activity (Mahoney, 2013). Brown is credited with enabling Ma Barker and her boys to kidnap William Hamm Jr., the Hamm Beer Company heir, and Edward Bremer, founder of Bremer Bank, for ransom (Mahoney, 2013). Brown also was involved in the 1934 killing of former ally and Dillinger associate, Homer Van Meter. Police ambushed Van Meter and egregiously machine-gunned him to death at the corner of Marion Street and University Avenue, allegedly to get at his money, which was pocketed by the perpetrators (Mahoney, 2013). Police even acquired
Van Meter's automobile and pressed it into service as a squad car (Saint Paul Police Historical Society, 1984).
Eventually, the law caught up with Brown, but he never saw the inside of a prison cell. The “Houdini of gangster-cops” simply retired to collect his pension and run a tavern up north (Mahoney, 2013, p. 4). To prevent future O'Connor Systems, however, St. Paul changed the law to select police chiefs on merit, not political connections.
The O'Connor System enabled criminals to organize and build coast-to-coast crime syndicates (Maccabee, 1995, p. 50–7), but the true underlying mechanism was Prohibition. Prohibition failed because it was unenforceable. It confused Americans about what was right and wrong—people became criminals overnight for enjoying alcohol, and had to interact with criminals to obtain it. Prohibition's coincidence with the “speed graphic era” of photojournalism also fast-tracked the ambivalence toward violence and culture of public investigation seen in contemporary media (Millett, 2004, 2008). The sensationalized run of such criminals as John Dillinger, whose robberies of banks and railroads made him popular among poor people, only increased admiration for the “outlaw as social bandit” (Riedel & Welsh, 2011, p.49). National Prohibition was eventually repealed in 1933, leaving the issue up to individual states. Minnesota legalized liquor, and like the gangsters before them, taxed it. But the end of easy money through booze simply triggered a new era of kidnappings and bank robberies among the criminal elite.
Guns and Gun Laws in Minnesota
The gangs and gangsters that arose after passage of the Volstead Act used guns to devastating effect. Since Al Capone's Chicago Outfit orchestrated the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre of six North Side mob associates and a mechanic in Chicago, for example, the Thompson submachine gun forever lives in infamy. One year after the Twenty-First Amendment brought an end to Prohibition, therefore, Congress also levied sharp regulations and high taxes on gun sales, with emphasis on weapons generally associated with gangster violence: “A shotgun or rifle having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length, or any other weapon, except a pistol or revolver, from which a shot is discharged by an explosive if such weapon is capable of being concealed on the person, or a machine gun.” The
1934 National Firearms Act
became the first federal regulation on guns in U.S. history.
Today, the United States has by far the highest rate of gun ownership in the world. The Small Arms Survey (2007) estimates there are 270 million civilian-owned firearms in the U.S., which translates to 89 guns for every 100
people. More guns, however, does not necessarily translate into more gun owners—three-quarters of people with guns own two or more and the prevalence of gun ownership has declined steadily in the past few decades (Small Arms Survey, 2007). In a state like Minnesota, it is not surprising that the general public would own guns, and multiple ones at that, as this state is known for hunting. Hunting is big business in Minnesota (see
Chapter Two
). The first weekend in November operates much like a state holiday with the opening of deer hunting season.
In Minnesota, a permit to purchase is required to transfer/purchase “military-style assault weapons” and handguns through Federal Firearms License (FFL) dealers (Minnesota Statutes §624.7131). A permit to carry also acts as a permit to purchase for Minnesota residents. Traditional rifles and shotguns (primarily used in hunting) may be purchased without a permit, but Minnesota is a “shall issue” state, meaning a permit to carry a pistol is required to carry handguns. Minnesota Statutes §624.714 observes “a person, other than a peace officer ... who carries, holds, or possesses a pistol in a motor vehicle, snowmobile, or boat, or on or about the person's clothes or the person, or otherwise in possession or control in a public place without first having obtained a permit to carry the pistol is guilty of a gross misdemeanor.” Concealment is permitted but not required, and only handguns may be carried concealed. To obtain a permit to carry, people must first complete authorized firearms training.
It is important to note, persons listed in Minnesota's criminal gang investigation system (see below) and persons less than 21 years of age are prohibited from possessing a firearm. Yet, juvenile gang members still commit the vast majority of gun murders (Decker & Pyrooz, 2011). In reality, gang members get their guns from corrupt firearm dealers, theft, and friends and other criminals in their social networks (Cook et al., 2007).
Figure 7.3. A Brief History of Guns in America
New Gang City: Murderapolis
On June 30, 1996, in an article headlined “Nice City's Nasty Distinction: Murder Soars in Minneapolis,” the
New York Times
gave Minneapolis a controversial new name: “Murderapolis” (Johnson, 1996). The name reflected a record 97 murders in the city in 1995, or 27 per 100,000 people, many of them attributed to gangs. This was not news to local residents, who had endured years of gang violence, such as the 1994 arson killing of the Coppage family—five children ages 2 to 11—wherein the 6-0 Tre Crips firebombed the home of a former gang member, who escaped, in revenge for a suspected breach of the gang's “code of silence” (Lee, 2003). Two half-brothers were eventually convicted. Fast-forward two decades and Minneapolis now is a much safer city: there were 39 murders in 2012 or 10 per 100,000. But the reality of gangs still looms large in the Twin Cities.
Migration or Mimicking?
The 1980s and 1990s were decades of gang
proliferation
, wherein communities across the United States increasingly reported the existence of gangs and gang problems (Maxson, 1998). Street gangs are now found in about 3,300 jurisdictions across the U.S., including Minnesota (Egley & Howell, 2013).
Gang migration
—the movement of gang members from one city to another—was one popular explanation for this trend, encompassing both temporary relocations (e.g., visits to relatives, short trips in search of new criminal markets or to develop new criminal enterprises, and longer stays while escaping crackdowns on gangs or gang activity) and more permanent changes, such as residential moves and court placements (Maxson, 1998). During this time, gang members from Chicago and other large Midwest cities certainly converged on Minneapolis, supposedly drawn to the city's more generous housing and social welfare policies (Worthington, 1993). At the same time, however, Minnesota young people began
looking at gang culture popularized in the media and adapting styles to local conditions, taking on affiliations with “supergangs” from Chicago and Los Angeles (see
Table 7.1
) that were more imagined than real (Howell, 2007). As such, the precise mechanisms underlying gang proliferation in Minnesota are unclear.
Table 7.1. Typology of “Supergang” Branches in Minnesota
Generally speaking, motivations for joining gangs can be understood in terms of pushes and pulls (Decker & Van Winkle, 1996). Push factors speak to the economic, social, and political forces that propel youth toward gang involvement; such as concentrated disadvantage in the urban ghetto following economic restructuring and the flight of black working- and middle-class families (Wilson, 1987). Pull factors pertain to the attractiveness of gangs and the perceived advantages of gang membership. Gangs facilitate certain imperatives for young people, for example, the search for protection, the search for money, the search for pleasure and moral transcendence, and the search for respect and recognition (see Densley, 2015). The irony of course is youth join gangs for protection, yet gang membership increases their risk of victimization (Melde, Taylor, & Esbensen, 2009). Youth join gangs for excitement, yet gang life is generally “a boring life” (Klein, 1995, p.11). Youth join gangs for kinship, yet there is no honor among thieves (Densley, 2013). And youth join gangs for “quick money,” yet gang members are poorly compensated for their efforts (Levitt & Venkatesh, 2000). Further, selection into gangs is a two-way process (i.e., people choose gangs, but also gangs choose people), which means there are inherent costs and risks to gang membership that gangs themselves fail to disclose (Densely, 2012). You might say gangs are not held to the same
truth in advertising
standards as legitimate organizations.
United for Peace and the Murder of Patrolman Jerry Haaf
In the early 1980s Sharif Willis, a Chicago Vice Lord “minister of justice,” migrated to Minneapolis. The Vice Lords are one of the largest and oldest gang branches in Chicago, and founding members of the People Nation alliance (Howell & Griffiths, 2015; see
Table 7.1
). During the 1980s and 1990s, the Vice Lords fought with their Folk Nation rivals, the Gangster Disciples, for control of transportation and distribution of crack cocaine and retail distribution of powdered cocaine and heroin in Minneapolis. Willis rose to prominence when he killed a man over $5 in a crap game dispute and served six years of a 10-year prison sentence for the crime. The city embraced him after his release, and although still tied to the Vice Lords, Willis vowed to end escalating gang violence in Minneapolis.
With city funding, Willis set up United for Peace, a coalition of gang leaders and inner-city civic leaders that organized
gang summits
, modeled on peace talks between warring nations, and used donated portable cellular phones to dispatch gang members to police calls in an effort to mediate disputes (Police
Officers Federation of Minneapolis, 2015). United for Peace was housed under The City Inc., a nonprofit organization that provided alternative high schools, day cares, parenting classes, and job programs for inner-city youth. In this regard, parallels can be drawn between Minneapolis in the 1990s and Chicago in the early 1970s, when the Black P Stone Nation and Jeff Fort secured public and private support for their Youth Organizations United (Worthington, 1993). The Chicago project ended when a U.S. Senate investigation found evidence of fraud. Fort was later convicted for narcotics trafficking.
The unusual Minneapolis police-gang cooperative agreement, United for Peace, ended in far more shocking circumstances. On September 25, 1992, 30-year police veteran Jerry Haaf was shot in the back and killed in the Pizza Shack restaurant, a popular cop hangout, during his morning coffee break. Haaf was only a few months from retirement. Hours earlier, a police-community meeting in north Minneapolis turned tense when protestors accused the Minneapolis Police Department and Metro Transit Police Department of manhandling a blind, disabled black man over unpaid bus fare (Hughes, 2002). Police, in turn, accused United for Peace of trying to incite a disturbance and then complain about police brutality. Four alleged members of the Vice Lords were eventually tried and convicted of Haaf's murder, which investigators found was planned at Sharif Willis' house—although whether or not Willis was present is unclear (Hughes, 2002). In 1995, Sharif Willis was sentenced to almost 27 years in federal prison for separate drug and gun-related crimes.
Not all gangs in Minnesota are connected to Chicago “supergangs” such as the Vice Lords. But just like the first gangs in 1920s Chicago (Thrasher, 1927), ethnicity and migration feature prominently in the etiology of Minnesota's criminal landscape, including Hmong and Native American gangs.
Asian Gangs
The Hmong people, originally from the mountainous regions of China, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, were U.S. allies during the Second Indochina War (also called the Vietnam War, 1955–1975). After the United States pulled out of Vietnam, the Hmong—considered traitors—were left behind to face retaliation from hostile political regimes. Displaced by the war, hundreds of thousands of Hmong refugees fled to resettlement camps in Thailand. Thousands eventually resettled in the United States and during the 1980s, many Hmong arrived in the Twin Cities area because of a multi-million dollar program started by the University of Minnesota Agricultural Extension Service providing education, equipment, and land to Hmong farmers and their families. Today, some 66,000 ethnic Hmong call Minneapolis-St. Paul home and
the Twin Cities has become the “cultural and socio-political center of Hmong life in the U.S.” (Grigoleit, 2006, p. 2).
Like generations of immigrants before them, the Hmong (and more recently Cambodian, Karen, and Vietnamese peoples) experienced difficulty integrating into American society. And like generations of immigrants before them (Thrasher, 1927), second-generation Hmong youth formed gangs as a subcultural adjustment to their anomic situation and in accordance with illegitimate opportunity structures in their community (Tsunokai & Kposowa, 2002). The first Hmong gang in Minnesota was the Cobra gang (Straka, 2003). The gang originally comprised teenage friends who lived together in housing projects, played together on a soccer team, and banded together to protect themselves and other Hmong youths from racist bullying (Straka, 2003). From benign origins, however, the group—like many gangs (Densley, 2014)—evolved into a criminal entity. What started out as fights, thefts, and other minor delinquency transformed into more serious crimes like aggravated assault and auto theft (Straka, 2003).
Around 1988, a new Hmong gang was formed outside of the Cobra gang (Straka, 2003). Hmong youths who were barred from joining the Cobra gang on the grounds they were too young, banded together to form The White Tigers. The White Tigers are credited with ushering Hmong gangs into a new, more violent, era. In 1992, for example, gang members crashed through the front door of a Federal Firearms Licensee in a stolen vehicle and took 100 guns (Straka, 2003). Hmong gangs today are primarily involved in automobile theft for parts, home invasions, burglaries (whereby gangs exploit the Hmong cash-economy and an absence of guardianship during lengthy cultural and spiritual events), and illegal gambling. Some gangs also use immigrant community networks to traffic marijuana grown for personal consumption in California over to Minnesota.
In the City of St. Paul, Hmong gangs have taken up a loose stylistic affiliation with the Bloods and Crips of Los Angeles. Examples include the Asian Crips 357, comprised primarily of second- and third-generation Hmong-Americans, the True Bloods 22, comprised of newer Thai and Hmong immigrants, Purple Brothers 162, and Menace of Destruction 301, which identifies as Blood in Minnesota, but Crip in California. Such gangs, concentrated in the University Avenue, Frogtown, Northend, and Eastside areas of St. Paul will come into conflict at big cultural events like the annual July 4, Hmong soccer tournament and the Hmong New Year celebration (McIntee, 2010). Many of them have branched out into prostitution and sexual violence, exploiting the stigma attached to extramarital sex in Hmong communities to secure immunity from prosecution (Straka, 2003). Indeed, owing to the “bride price” (Nqi poj niam) tradition in Hmong marriages,
whereby the groom pays money or goods to the bride's family for her hand in marriage (essentially to compensate the family for their “loss” of domestic help), victims of sexual violence are assumed promiscuous and are literally worth less.
Native American Gangs
According to 2010 census data, more than 25,000 Native American people live in the Twin Cities metro area. Between 1992 and 2002, Native Americans experienced violent crimes at double the rate of the rest of the nation (Perry, 2004). Alcoholism mortality rates are 514 percent higher than in the general population and Native American teens experience the highest suicide rate in the country (Center for Native American Youth at the Aspen Institute, 2011). Native American children in Minnesota are six times as likely to make contact with child protective services as white children, eight times as likely to experience neglect and 12 times as likely to spend time in out-of-home care (Minnesota Department of Human Services, 2010). These problems, and more, have deep roots. In 1862, for example, President Abraham Lincoln ordered the hanging of 38 Santee Sioux men in the largest mass execution in American history. The hanging in Mankato came in the aftermath of the Sioux Uprising, in which Dakota tribal members attempted to drive white settlers from their territory after being robbed, cheated, and starved by local, state, and federal officials (Minnesota History Center, 2012). After the hangings, many Natives were removed to Nebraska, and over the next 100 years, the area's remaining tribes and bands underwent brutal changes—moving to reservations, sending culture and tradition underground, and migrating from their homelands to cities like Minneapolis (see
Chapter Nine
). This explains in part why distrust of police is still part of daily life for the city's Native American community. The American Indian Movement was born in Minneapolis in the 1960s because of police brutality in the Indian community (Birong-Smith, 2009). In the 1990s, moreover, Minneapolis police arrested two intoxicated American Indian men and decided to transport them to a hospital in the trunk of their car (Human Rights Watch, 1998).
Native American gangs trace their roots back to the 1980s and 1990s, when city gangs first introduced themselves to Indian Country (Ahtone, 2015). Until the early 1990s, gangs in Minneapolis' Native American neighborhoods primarily existed for protection. As discussed, gangs from Chicago, Detroit, and other major Midwest cities had begun migrating into the area, and Native young people often banded together to resist the growing number of threats. Groups like the Clubsters, the Naturals, and the Death Warriors were small, all-Native groups, vying for legitimacy with primarily black gangs. Minnesota's two most prominent Native American gangs, the Native Mob and the Native
Disciples, however, evolved out of the high-profile murder of Randy Pacheco. Pacheco, a Native member of the Vice Lords, was shot in 1994 following an altercation with Shinob-Mob members Joe and Terry Bercier. Terry was convicted for the murder, while his brother Joe was acquitted (Ahtone, 2015).
With Joe out on the street, Vice Lords' members sought permission to avenge Pacheco's death. The Vice Lords' predominately black leadership refused. Pacheco's Native American compatriots struck anyway and were excommunicated. In turn, they formed their own gang, Native Mob, affiliation with which was signified by wearing red and black clothing. Predictably, Joe Bercier's murder prompted further retaliation, this time from the Gangster Disciples—another Chicago-based gang that had emerged in Minneapolis—who had ties to the Bercier family (Ahtone, 2015). Reciprocal violence escalated, and Native members of the Gangster Disciples in the East Phillips neighborhood soon found themselves at war with Native Mob and the Vice Lords. Lacking support from the Gangster Disciples' black leadership, Native members split to form their own Native Disciples (Ahtone, 2015).
Native Mob grew to more than 200 members across cities and reservations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North and South Dakota. The group was implicated in crimes such as drug trafficking, weapons sales, assault, witness intimidation, murder, human trafficking, sexual assault, and racketeering (United States Attorney's Office Minnesota, 2014). But this all ended in 2013, when local, state, and federal officials launched a takedown of Native Mob, resulting in dozens of arrests and convictions under the RICO or Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (United States Attorney's Office Minnesota, 2014). In maintaining strict codes of conduct and hierarchical structures, Native Mob was the exception, not the rule, among street gangs (Howell & Griffiths, 2015). Still, Ahtone (2015) observes, “With arrests and indictments having resulted in the temporary absence of Native Mob, a power vacuum exists in Minnesota's Indian gang world. And while both new and old gangs are eager to fill it, the Native Disciples may be the only group with the organization and manpower to do so.”
Defining Gang Membership in Minnesota
Defining gangs is not as easy as it sounds. Minnesota gangs are increasingly splintered into smaller “cliques” and crews running a few blocks, some of which are small subsets of more established gangs (Williams, 2015). This, in turn, has made defining gangs even more difficult. As the father of gang research, Frederick Thrasher (1927) observed, no two gangs are exactly alike in form and function. Criminologists, in turn, struggle with or challenge the term “gang”
because, after 100 years of trying, still no uniform definition exists and, as we shall see, the arbitrary and capricious labeling of benign peer groups as gangs has catastrophic consequences (Katz & Jackson-Jacobs, 2004; McCorkle & Miethe, 2002). Gang definitions, for instance, often fail to separate the actions of gang members as individuals from the actions of gangs as organizations (see Densely, 2013). In this sense,
gang member
activity is simply any independent action taken by people who happen to be gang members.
Gang-related
activity speaks to individual action taken in furtherance or support of the gang, whereby individuals in gangs act as agents of the organization (Sánchez-Jankowski, 2003).
Minnesota Statutes §609.229 defines a “criminal gang” as any ongoing organization, association, or group of three or more persons, whether formal or informal, that:
1) has, as one of its primary activities, the commission of one or more of the offenses listed in section 609.11, subdivision 9, including murder in the first, second, or third degree; assault in the first, second, or third degree; burglary; kidnapping; false imprisonment; manslaughter in the first or second degree; aggravated robbery; simple robbery; first-degree or aggravated first-degree witness tampering; criminal sexual conduct; escape from custody; arson in the first, second, or third degree; drive-by shooting; possession or other unlawful use of a firearm;
2) has a common name or common identifying sign or symbol; and
3) includes members who individually or collectively engage in or have engaged in a pattern of criminal activity.
This legal definition is obviously more prescriptive than Klein and Maxson's (2006, p. 4) “consensus Eurogang definition” of gangs as durable and street-oriented youth groups whose involvement in illegal activity is part of their group identity (see
Figure 7.2
), in part because since the late 1980s crimes committed to benefit a gang in Minnesota carry longer prison sentences (National Gang Center, n.d.). The Eurogang definition, however, is sufficiently general to capture the essence of the gangs described in this chapter.
GangNET and the Metro Gang Strike Force
Minnesota once had a coordinated approach to corroborating gang information and challenging gang activity. The state's use of a collaborative task force, comprehensive gang criteria, and computerized gang databases, was celebrated as a potential model for other states to follow (Barrows & Huff, 2009).
Recent scandals have halted progress, however, and today Minnesota lacks both a centralized repository for counting gangs and gang members and a clear mandate for policing them (Huff & Barrows, 2015).
In 1997, the Minnesota Legislature (by Minnesota Statutes §299C.091) established the “Criminal Gang Investigative Data System” or “Pointer File,” administered and maintained by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) to tally and track gang members (see Barrows & Huff, 2009). The legislature also established 10-point criteria for entry into the system, as follows:
- Admits to being a gang member;
- is observed to associate on a regular basis with known gang members;
- has tattoos indicating gang membership;
- wears gang symbols to identify with a specific gang;
- is in a photograph with known gang members and/or using gang-related hand signs;
- name is on gang document, hit list, or gang-related graffiti;
- is identified as a gang member by a reliable source;
- arrested in the company of identified gang members or associates;
- corresponds with known gang members or writes and/or receives correspondence about gang activity; and
-
writes about gang (graffiti) on walls, books and paper.
(Aba-Onu et al., 2010, p. 225)
Individuals had to meet three of the ten criteria, be at least 14 years old, and commit a gross misdemeanor or felony to be entered into the file, and the BCA was tasked with “cleaning” it every three years. If within the three-year period an individual in the Pointer File had not been arrested or convicted of a crime, they were to be removed (Barrows & Huff, 2009). By 2009, 2,000 potential gang members were named in the Pointer File.
In 1998, however, the Ramsey County Sheriff's Department received state funding to create their own database of potential gang members, called GangNET (Gottfried, 2009). Criteria for entry into GangNET—private, proprietary software developed by Orion Scientific Systems—was not as strict as criteria for entry into the state's rival Pointer File (Aba-Onu et al., 2010). GangNET, for example, included people who met any
one
of the 10-point criteria, had no age limit, and did not require that an individual commit a crime to be entered. Further, the data were cleaned only every ten years. As a result, GangNET reportedly had eight times more gang members than the Pointer File database, totaling approximately 16,000 (Aba-Onu et al., 2010).
The community eventually began to question the validity of the GangNET system, not least because, contrary to popular belief, gang membership is generally
of short duration, typically less than two years (Pyrooz & Sweeten, 2015), and police and rival gang members may perceive
former
gang members listed in the database as
current
gang members and arrest or attack them as such (Decker, Pyrooz, & Moule, 2014). Tensions increased in 2007 when the BCA audited 219 of the 2052 files in the Pointer File database (Gottfried, 2009). Despite an 85% success rate, the BCA found discrepancies in who gets entered into the database and for what reasons.
Further evaluation of the supposedly confidential Pointer File and GangNET databases in 2010 raised additional concerns about the methods used to track gangs and criminal activity (see Aba-Onu et al., 2010). Specifically, (1) individuals (or their parents) were never notified when they were entered into either system; (2) not all individuals entered were
bona fide
gang members; (3) blacks were overrepresented; (4) who had access to the data was not defined within the legislation; (5) and there was no appeals process for people misidentified or no longer in a gang.
Ramsey County Sheriff Matt Bostrom officially closed GangNET in August 2011, although in reality the system's use by law enforcement agencies had dwindled since the Metro Gang Strike Force was shut down two years earlier in 2009 (Xiong, 2011). Although the Pointer File is not formally closed, no new information is being added, since GangNET was feeding the Pointer File (Huff & Barrows, 2015).
The Minnesota Gang Strike Force, created in 1997 by Minnesota Statutes §299A.64 alongside the Criminal Gang Oversight Council, was a statewide task force of gang officers, “to eliminate the harm caused to the public by criminal gangs and their illegal activities within the state of Minnesota.” Due to funding issues, the Minnesota Gang Strike Force was disbanded in 2005, restructured to have only one office stationed in New Brighton, and renamed the Metro Gang Strike Force (MGSF). In 2009, a legislative audit report into the MGSF found at least $18,126 in cash seized from suspects was unaccounted for and 13 out of 80 confiscated vehicles were missing (Furst, 2011). A former strike force commander, quoted as saying “the Strike Force is the best task force that the state of Minnesota has ever funded,” also illegally sold a seized television to a student employee in his office (Furst, 2011). A later report found the MGSF guilty of widespread impropriety, excessive force, and illegal searches and seizures; concluding that much of the task force's police work was ineffective (Luger & Egelholf, 2009). In the end, the MGSF was unable to account for 202 of its 545 cash seizures, totaling $165,650 (Hurst, 2011).
The MGSF was disbanded in 2009 and eventually ordered to pay $3 million to victims of misconduct (Nelson, 2010). This included $6,000 for a two-year-old toddler who was kicked in the head by one Task Force officer during an illegal
search for drugs, and $35,500 for two immigrants who were afraid to report their experience of excessive force out of fear of deportation. The two immigrants were also awarded special visas to stay in the United States (Furst, 2012). In total, the money addresses “wrongdoing and improper seizure” and funds “statewide training to keep similar misconduct from happening again” (Nelson, 2010, p. 2).
The MGSF scandal led to significant changes in police policy and practice, including establishment of the new nine-point gang criteria (see
Figure 7.4
) and a curtailing of agency-specific gang units in Minnesota (see Huff & Barrows, 2015). The FBI Safe Streets Task Force in Minneapolis largely replaced the MGSF, although some agencies, including the St. Paul Police Department, maintained their own gang units. In April 2015, Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau announced her department would form a new unit comprised of five officers and a supervisor to address gangs and stem retaliatory shootings during the summer months (Roper, 2015). The unit would also monitor social media and YouTube rap videos for online insults and chatter about retaliatory violence. The announcement came shortly after social media and gang
pointers
again got police in trouble, during an episode known as “Pointergate.”
Figure 7.4. The Nine-Point Criteria for Gang Membership in Minnesota
In response to a 2014 photograph of Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges posing with “convicted felon” Navell Gordon, “law enforcement sources,” for KSTP-TV, including police union chief John Delmonico, conflated Hodges' extended pointer finger with a “known gang sign” and argued the photo “could jeopardize
public safety and put their officers at risk” (Kolls, 2014). The Twitter hashtag “Pointergate” went viral and the story even featured on the
Daily Show with Jon Stewart
(Wemple, 2014). The public condemned police for politicking (Hodges had been outspoken in her criticism of the Minneapolis Police for resisting her body-camera initiative, see
Chapter Ten
) and racial stereotyping (Gordon was a young black male, not a gang member) and found KSTP-TV guilty of the lesser offenses of sensationalism and poor taste.
Gang Intervention in Minnesota
So far, police have not come off well in this chapter. The good news is Minnesota is also the site of some innovative best practices in policing gangs and gang violence. Minneapolis, for example, was the first city after Boston, Massachusetts, to pilot Group Violence Intervention (GVI), a well-documented gang violence reduction strategy that began life as “Operation Ceasefire” in the 1990s (see Kennedy & Braga, 1998) and now is codified by the National Network for Safe Communities (2013). GVI is a focused-deterrence strategy comprised of various tactics. GVI begins with a problem analysis, such as a systematic review of all violent incidents and an audit or mapping of all violent groups in any given jurisdiction (see
Chapter Ten
). Once the key players are identified, coordinated law enforcement action against the most violent group follows in an effort to demonstrate to other groups that violence will not be tolerated. Next, community moral voices and social service providers partner with law enforcement to engage directly with violent group members (and through them, their associates) in a “call-in,” or face-to-face meeting, at a venue of civic importance (Kennedy, 2011).
There is “strong empirical evidence” for GVI's effectiveness (Braga & Weisburd, 2012, p. 25). Some of that evidence comes courtesy of the St. Paul Police Department (see Densley & Jones, 2016). After the Metro Gang Strike Force fiasco, the St. Paul Police Department became one of the only law enforcement agencies in the state to maintain its own stand-alone gang unit. In early 2011, the unit identified an escalation in retaliatory violence between local factions of two rival Latino gangs—18th Street and Sureños 13. Intelligence from social media and a confidential informant also indicated the 18th Street gang was poised to initiate a large number of girls into their ranks through a process that included sexual assault. Immediate intervention was needed.
Utilizing gang intelligence and criminal records, the St. Paul Police Department Gang Unit served an unconventional search warrant on active members of the gang; one that included a search, but in lieu of automatic arrest, an
invite to dinner at a local community center for conversation about the need to stop the violence now before it was too late. Initially, this unorthodox plan to search but not arrest gang members was condemned as being “soft on crime” (Gervais, 2011). However, the Gang Unit persisted and mobilized community leaders and service providers to help the gang members desist from gang life. To gain parental input, the Gang Unit recruited the Mexican Consulate to mitigate fears of deportation and unlock some of the failed narratives that had alienated police from the Latino community in the past. They eventually conducted a “call-in” with the 18th Street gang and all interested parties.
A key partner in this effort was the Neighborhood House's Gang Reduction and Intervention Program (GRIP), a social service initiative that steers young people away from gangs and crime toward a brighter future. The Neighborhood House is a landmark social service agency in St. Paul where people can meet over Latin American cuisine to learn about Latino culture and celebrate friendship and personal responsibility. GRIP includes weekly meetings with speakers and field trips, free gang-tattoo removal (plastic surgeons and nurses donate their time to perform the laser treatments), tutoring, boxing lessons, social support systems, and volunteer work in the community (Gervais, 2011). The program's director, Enrique “Cha-Cho” Estrada, continues to put his own moral voice behind the SPPD and offer services to gang members.
Paul Iovino, who was commander of the Gang Unit at the time, recalls internecine violence between 18th Street and Sureños gang members declined immediately after the call-in (Gervais, 2011). Today, “clique” gangs such as Hit Squad, Ham Crazy, Gutter Block Goons, and Selby Side, are the most active of the approximately 30 gangs resident in the City of St. Paul (Williams, 2015). For further discussion of juvenile crime and violence intervention, see
Chapter Six
.
Hate Groups, Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs, and Drug Cartels: Gangs by Any Other Name
There are eight active “hate groups” in Minnesota, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC, 2015). Nationwide, there were 784 active hate groups in 2014 that “have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics” (SPLC, 2015). Hate itself is not a crime because it is protected under the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression. But crime motivated by hate is not protected, hence Congress defines a “hate crime” as any “criminal offense motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity” (Federal Bureau
of Investigation, n.d.). From 2003–2013, Minnesota was responsible for approximately 1–3% of all the hate crimes committed nationally. The motivations for these crimes are displayed in
Table 7.2
. As shown, victims are most likely to be targeted because of their race, both in Minnesota and nationally.
Hate groups in Minnesota include: the Aryan Strikeforce, a racist skinhead group; the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, a Black Separatist group; a National Socialist Movement franchise of Neo-Nazis; the Parents Action League, an anti-lesbian, -gay, -bisexual, and -transgender (LGBT) group; The Remnant Press, a radical traditional Catholicism group; the Vinlanders Minnesota, another racist skinhead group; Weisman Publications, a Christian identity group; and You Can Run But You Cannot Hide, another anti-LGBT group. From 2004 through 2012, SPLC lists 59 incidents of hate-related crimes in Minnesota, many of which were related to vandalism, threats, and harassment.
Outlaw motorcycle clubs also have a presence in Minnesota. Since the 1980s, the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club has established itself as the dominant motorcycle gang in the state and via creation of the Minnesota Motorcycle Clubs Coalition (MMCC), controls most of the smaller motorcycle clubs in Minnesota, including Hells Outcasts, the oldest motorcycle gang in the state, formed in 1947, and Los Valientes, another Saint Paul club, formed in 1976. The Hells Angels maintain a truce with The Sons of Silence, which has active chapters in Faribault, Hutchinson, Mankato, Rochester, and St. Cloud. The Outlaws are the Hells Angels' main rivals, with a large presence in the neighboring state of Wisconsin. While outlaw motorcycle gang activity is largely hidden from public view, these so-called “one-percenter” clubs (a reference to a comment made by the American Motorcyclist Association that 99 percent of motorcyclists were law-abiding citizens, implying that the last one percent were outlaws) are used by their members as conduits for criminal enterprise, specifically trafficking and cross-border smuggling of guns and drugs (Barker, 2007).
Outlaw motorcycle clubs control some of Minnesota's narcotics market, but Mexican drug cartels are the primary producers, transporters, and distributors of illicit and prescription drugs in the state (Tarm, 2013). The I-35 corridor that runs from just north of the U.S.-Mexico border in Laredo, Texas, up through Minnesota is partly responsible, but more so is Minnesota's proximity to Chicago, which in 2010 was the only U.S. city to rank in the top five for shipments of all four major drug categories—heroin, marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine (U.S. Department of Justice, 2010). The powerful Sinaloa Cartel enjoys a virtual monopoly on the Chicago drug trade, to the extent that Cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera once referred to the city as his “home port” (McGahan, 2013). In 2013, El Chapo was declared Chicago's Public Enemy Number One, a distinction last held by Al Capone. And his ties
to Minnesota were exposed in 2014, when the Sinaloa Cartel reportedly hired MS-13 gang members to fly from Los Angeles, California, to St. Paul to find the people they suspected of stealing 30 pounds of meth and $200,000 from a stash house (Gottfried, 2014).
Table 7.2. Motivation for Hate Crimes in Minnesota and Nationally
Concluding Remarks
In the 90 years since Frederic Thrasher (1927) first documented 1,313 gangs in Chicago, street gangs remain an enduring and challenging social problem facing adolescents and young adults, particularly in urban America. Over 30,000 homicides in the U.S. are attributed to street gangs since the 1990s (Howell & Griffiths, 2015). Such homicides are often very public and characterized by cyclical and retaliatory exchanges (Papachristos, Hureau, & Braga, 2013). As a result, gang members have homicide victimization rates that are at least 100 times greater than the general public (Decker & Pyrooz, 2010). This is a national problem with local implications. This chapter has explored Minnesota's unflattering history of gangs and gangsters. We hope as students of criminal justice, you advance this knowledge in the continuing fight against corruption and serious youth violence.
Key Terms
1934 National Firearms Act
Doc Ames
Gang
Gang Migration
Gang Summit
GangNET
Group Violence Intervention
Hate Crimes
Jerry Haff
John Dillinger
Layover Agreement
Mafia
Metro Gang Strike Force
Murderapolis
National Rifle Association
Neighborhood House (GRIP)
O'Connor System (Layover agreement)
Organized Crime Group
Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs
Pointer File
Prohibition
Public Enemies Era
Speakeasy
Spoils System
Supergangs
Volstead Act
Selected Internet Sites
Discussion Questions
- What is a gang? What are the differences between gangs in the 1920s and gangs today?
- What is the Volstead Act and what effect did it have on gun laws in the United States and Minnesota?
- Compare and contrast GangNET and the Pointer File.
- What were some of the concerns raised about the GangNET and Pointer File databases?
- What are some push and pull factors for juveniles to join gangs in Minnesota?
- Research organizations in Minnesota that are helping to prevent
gang membership and/or intervene
in gang violence. What are their methods?
- Besides gang task forces and other strategies discussed in this chapter, what more do you think police departments can or should do to help respond to gang problems in the community?
- Do you think a lot of hate crimes go unreported? Why would someone not want to report being a victim of a hate crime?
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