Gangs are known to steal territory and drug profits from one another, but could one gang ever steal part of another gang’s identity? After taking a look at the following two coded documents, I developed a theory indicating that in at least one case, they might be trying.
Document One: The Virginia Code
In 2000, officers working in a Virginia correctional facility found a fifteen-page encoded document. One of the pages contained the picture below (Illustration 1):
Illustration 1
Because the picture had notes indicating 166th Street, Bronx, NY, the material was forwarded to the New York City Police Department (NYPD). They sent the 15 pages to me and I got to work.
As you look at the picture, you may notice what appear to be “cross hair sights” and bullet holes.
Know your Gang Genealogy: Folks and Peoples
After examining the document’s first page (Illustration 2), I was able to decipher the words in the last paragraph through knowledge of the difference between two key entities in the greater gang community: Folks and Peoples.
Illustration 2
In the world of gangs, Folks and Peoples are the two major entities. Most large gangs fall in line with one of these two groups.
Gangs that affiliate with the Folks Nation — like the Black Gangster Disciples (BGD) and Crips — follow Folks rules and use Folks symbols. The Folks slogan is “All Is One” and all of their “signs” are to the right i.e. right pants leg rolled up, hat tilted to the right. Folks also use the number “6” as an identifier.
Gangs that affiliate with the Peoples Nation — like the Latin Kings and the Bloods — follow Peoples rules and use Peoples symbols. The Peoples slogan is “All Is Well” and all of their “signs” are to the left i.e. left pants leg rolled up, hat tilted to the left. Peoples use the number “5” as an identifier.
In the code sample that we are studying (Illustration 2), you will notice the use of the number “6” and that the number “5” is upside down (showing disrespect), indicating that this is a Folks-oriented gang document.
Look for Common Signs and Identifiers
Also notice the use of the pitchfork and six pointed star (Star of David). Both of which are known identifiers for the Black Gangster Disciple gang (Illustration 3).
Illustration 3
When I first looked at the bottom of page one, what I immediately saw was this:
Illustration 4
The first line of this paragraph reads, “All Is Not Well”.
Illustration 5
The second line contained “All’s Well” (Note the punctuation).
Illustration 6
The fourth line contained “All Is Not Well,”
Illustration 7
The fifth line contained “All Is One,”
Fill in the Alphabet Gaps
By now, you may have realized that this code uses more than one symbol to represent a letter. In fact, some letters have three separate symbols!
Using the nine letters that I had deciphered, I was able to determine what symbols represented the remaining letters of the alphabet:
Illustrations 8 & 9
Once I had the whole alphabet, I was able to decipher the whole first page of the document (Illustration 2), including the all important last paragraph, which reads as follows (Illustration 10):
Illustration 10
Compile the Important Details
The following important intelligence can be retrieved from this document.
Illustration 11 shows the “Set Kings” (Leadership) for this group which identifies itself as the Insane Gangster Disciples (IGD). Illustration 12 shows the translated version of the same page.
Illustration 11
Illustration 12
This document also contains insight into the gang’s belief system:
Illustration 13
Notice the use of the word “Disciple” in the upper portion of this deciphered page (Illustration 14) and the word “Folks” in the lower left portion of this page:
Illustration 14
Document Two: The Florida Code
Now that we have examined this Black Gangster Disciple (BGD) coded document found in Virginia, let’s look at an event that occurred recently in Florida.
A local police department responded to an incident that was initially described as road rage. One vehicle’s occupants shot at a victim’s vehicle. During a search for evidence of the “victim” vehicle, investigators found a blue colored bandanna tied to the rearview mirror. Further, the victim’s description of the perpetrator’s vehicle included the fact that a red colored bandanna was tied to their rearview mirror.
In addition, the search of the victim’s vehicle turned up a notebook containing 19 pages of what has been described as “handwritten information and questions and answers about Crips gang history, coded writings, key for the coded writings, gang graffiti drawings, etc…”
As I examined the 19 pages, I found evidence to support a theory that as the Crips gang moved east from Los Angeles, Calif., they picked up identifiers, symbols, and even history from the Black Gangster Disciples (BGD), which originated in Chicago, Ill.
The Crips and Black Gangster Disciples (BGD) are both affiliated with the Folks Nation. Because of this shared ideology they will have some identifying symbols which will be the same or very similar. In recent years, in some Crips gang sets, there has been an increasing use of BGD symbols which goes beyond this shared Folks Nation belief system.
Below is an example taken from the 19-page Florida sample. I have indicated some of the Crips, Black Gangster Disciple (BGD) and Folk Nation identifiers (Illustration 15).
Illustration 15
Here is another page from the 19-page Florida sample that has code symbols used within this document.
Illustration 16
Here is a close-up of the code symbols:
Illustration 17
As I examined the symbols in the nineteen page confiscated Crips document, I noticed that several of the symbols reminded me of the above BGD document that I deciphered back in 2000.
As I compared the Crips code sample with the BGD sample I noticed some striking similarities.
Illustration 18
LETTER: “A”
LETTER: “J”
Illustration 19
LETTER: “N”
LETTER: “O”
Illustration 20
LETTER: “S”
LETTER: “T”
LETTER: “W”
The two sample documents are from different gangs and are separated by both location and time. Yet, they appear to be using two extremely similar coded languages.
The Crips use of Black Gangster Disciple (BGD) gang symbols seems apparent and undeniable in this instance. This provides us with two good lessons:
1.) Not all gang code is completely unique.
2.) When deciphering coded documents, we can learn a lot by looking at what has come before.
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This article first appeared in American Jails magazine, May/June 2007 edition. It is reprinted here with the permission of the American Jail Association, www.aja.org .