How the US Exported a Bloods and Crips Gang War to Belize

in the gang controlled streets of belize city the police are on high alert a few nights ago the son of a famous gangster was assassinated security forces say there will be payback [Music] the police just told us that someone was just shot in the same district and somebody was shot just a few nights ago we think it's a retaliation and we're headed there now [Music] three people were shot like just right there yes sir we have one person who apparently has died and he's still at the scene this area this street is what we call blind street and this area is basically the border line between the two gangs that have been shooting for quite some time now you know this person yeah it's my uncle oh i'm sorry i'm so sorry [Music] far from the island resorts and tourists gangs have been plaguing belize since the early 90s their violent feuds have pushed murder rates here to some of the highest per capita in the world police are now using coveted safety measures as an excuse to aggressively patrol the city's south side a hot spot for gangs the coffee is normal at 10 o'clock right but tonight is friday and this curfew is still 12. so we'll see a lot of people out here a lot of activities if we see anyone that looks suspicious if we believe that they have a weapon a firearm will stop uncharged they've been deployed to tackle the gang problem but what we're seeing is ordinary people being pulled over by heavily armed officers so you stop people and you just search them no no we have to have a reason to stop them if it's a motorcycle and a person doesn't have a helmet we'll stop if they're in a gun era then we have to stop [Music] [Music] now so what's the hope in kind of stopping people and kind of patting them down i mean how does that help you guys do help us to um find firearms we have fun at least 13 firearms in this month alone the gangs here are loosely divided into crypts and bloods that sounds familiar that's because they're distant cousins of the u.s gangs by the same name selling weed is their main hustle what did you find um it's that's cannabis we got a tip from someone that it was hidden in a drink and we went to search for it on the edge of town we managed to track down one of the gangs waging war here it turns out this is what they're fighting over five dollar bags of weed what is it this is the mexican kush yeah you don't sell hydro straight kush wow because it's expensive and the hair joe like how much is it a part of everything that's going on with them now apart from everything because without the weed i think we can't eat these gangs aren't running a multi-billion dollar drug trade like the mexican cartels but the rivalry between them is still ferocious this man is the muscle of the group you consider yourself a yeah i'm a grip what made you want to join no it's just a habitat i born around alone blue if i was born around red then i was going to be ready but eventually you just got to get a first kill and if you're strong enough then you know you have to kill someone and then you're in yeah just don't tell to the cops how do the like different gangs work how does the crips work how do the bloods work here if you if you've early at me about for kilo like point blank right seconds i don't know where i could meet you at the shop home in your yard anywhere if you see that's going to hear wow it's easy just then we hear noise in the background there's been another shooting yeah yeah so i'm like somebody want to come bust on us right now i'm going to get rid of the site because i'm kind of heavy bro i'll get a sense you got to state that fire though he disappears into the alley no one was hit but this man says that he was the target how many do they shoot the whole fair shot five wow you know who he was does that happen a lot but these kinds of things happen sometimes like killing season like fruits season really worried too much thinking are you not good for being a crazy for nothing to find out how the gang wars here got so out of control we found someone who was there at the very beginning to speak to him we went to the belize central prison leslie pipersberg is serving life for murder he joined the crips in the early 90s when he was 19. you've been inside now for 18 years 18 years 10 months to be examined well how did the games come to the gang's come to belize from this you got this moving colors with the crypts and bloods movie that the movie yeah the movie yeah colors moving in colors this 1988 movie starring don cheadle robert duvall and sean penn has a cult following here it's about the gang culture in la and the real life feud between the crypts and the bloods on the real streets gang violence was rapidly increasing in the us and the government's answer was to mass deport immigrants convicted of violent offenses over a thousand undocumented belizeans were sent back to their country but when gang members arrived here they brought the feud with them when the movie come out now and start taking the same behavior like the movies that claim or color so they took all of this from a movie a movie people coming back from the states yeah they adopted some deportees the parties then from then it starts never stop so many guys still fighting long time beef that is 10 15 years old and guys still fighting the beef how do you think it has changed since then no ideas the youtuber believes no then catch anybody any family member if your brother sister maybe even up to your father it won't hurt [Music] navidad garcia's family has paid the price for these gang wars 51 year old son was one of the men killed the night that we went on patrol with the police it really hits us hard the family you know it hits us hard garcia says that her son wasn't a gangster but a bank manager with two kids it was unbelievable that he was in an area that i think he shouldn't have been there what have you heard about why he was at that place at that time he likes his domino game so he was just playing dominoes hanging out he was just really dominoes and a spot where he usually goes right there at this point but according to what i heard one of the men playing domino his children there in the guns i think they were just scooting around and trying to find their targets but i guess that they decided if they couldn't find the sun they would shoot their dad belize's recently elected prime minister is trying to find a new solution to this very old problem with millions of foreign tourist dollars at stake he's keen to slow the violence just this weekend four people were killed in a matter of five days are you worried about that dealing violence with violence will not work we have to improve our intelligence gathering we have to start a law and which we are doing already and that you do that by community policing we have to make sure that we have a plan but the other aspect is to be able to ensure that we can create opportunities for these people some of these little kids get them off the streets my dear brothers and sisters we got here to come to our brother raymond to guard our father so far the police have not been able to contain the violence in the first four months of this year robberies are up 70 and more than 50 people have been killed in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen it's dangerous it's it's really dangerous killing people from naughty and sometimes elder people are killed in crossfire i don't know what is in their mind to go and shoot up on people's house we had the police we had this special force but i think that they're not doing enough to keep down the violence and almighty god remain with you always the father and the son and the holy spirit amen you

Channel: VICE News

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Id: ejGi5V3NC60

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 15 2021