Original subtitles

[♪]

Gangs rule their territories through ruthless enterprises,

fear,

and a strict code.

Deviate from this code

or challenge their power,

and retribution soon follows...

especially for the infamous set

within the biggest and most ruthless street gang

in Los Angeles,

the Rollin' 60s Neighborhood Crips.

Here are three stories

that track how the Rollin' 60s

go from terrorizing one neighborhood

to all of Los Angeles.

First, their brutality is established

on their local turf

with a cold-blooded contract hit.

It was a daybreak,

quadruple home invasion homicide.

[Narrator] Then

their violent reputation spreads across the city

with the death of an innocent bystander,

turning the gang into the LAPD's Public Enemy Number One...

It woke up not only the community,

but law enforcement.

[Narrator] ...and finally,

The Rollin' 60s attract the attention of the FBI

when an O.G. becomes

the most prolific bank robber in history

by training kids to do his dirty work.

The Crips convince these youngsters

to go into the banks and do the robberies.

[gunshots echoing]

[Narrator] These are the stories

from The Rollin' 60s Neighborhood Crips.

This is Gangland Chronicles.

1971.

South Central Los Angeles.

The area is undergoing massive upheaval.

The Black Panther Movement

has disbanded.

Police brutality and racism run rampant.

[bystander] Let him go!

[Narrator] To survive,

young men begin forming neighborhood gangs.

Many folks, they formed these gangs

because it meant a family,

it meant people who would back you up.

[Narrator] Two neighborhood gang leaders,

Raymond Washington

and Stanley "Tookie" Williams,

decide to join forces.

They call themselves the Crips.

[Bowser] Raymond Washington,

he was about building and expanding this Crip movement

throughout L.A.

[Narrator] Washington and Williams' mission

is to roll up all the surrounding gangs

into the Crips,

and dominate South Central and beyond.

They would go to different communities,

and they would tell the communities

to go and join the Crips.

They were looked at as bullies.

They were looked at as an imposing force.

[Narrator] By 1978,

Washington and Williams

have absorbed 45 neighborhood gangs

under the Crips banner,

and the most dangerous set within the Crips

call themselves

The Rollin' 60s Neighborhood Crips.

The Rollin' 60s would stand out above the rest, right,

because they were more violent

and more about the gangster type of lifestyle.

[Narrator] The Rollin 60s' territory expands,

and by 2004, there's an estimated 1,600 members

on the street.

[Esteban] They're involved in organized crime,

they're involved in drug trafficking,

firearms trafficking,

homicides, kidnappings, extortions.

They do everything.

[gang members shouting]

[distant sirens]

When I was covering gangs at that time

for the L.A. Times,

400 hardcore members

had been arrested over 3,500 times.

[Narrator] And in the summer of 1984,

the Rollin' 60s' ruthless reputation

spreads throughout all of South Central.

August 31, 1984.

Watts.

Rollin' 60s Crips Tiequon Cox,

Darren Williams,

and Horace Burns

are getting ready to do a hit job

for a local nightclub owner.

[Gerould] There had been a shooting in there,

and a young woman on her birthday was shot.

She had a lawsuit against the bar

for a couple of million dollars,

and he then hired The Rollin' 60s

to kill her

to make the lawsuit go away.

[Esteban] $50,000 for murder for hire

is a lot of money in the mid '80s.

That's probably at least 200,000 or 300,000 today.

[Narrator] 18-year-old Cox,

known on the street as L'il Fee,

has a rep as a ruthless enforcer.

[Bowser] You end up getting killed

messing with that person.

He's involved in all the violence that's happening,

all the crime that's happening in that community.

[Narrator] At daybreak, Cox and his crew pull up

outside a small, well-tended house.

Cox orders Burns to keep the engine running.

Cox has a .30 caliber M1 carbine.

[Narrator] What happens next is a brutal mass murder

that shocks South Central,

and puts the gang on the map.

[Narrator] August 31, 1984.

Watts.

Rollin' 60s Crips Tiqueon Cox and Darren Williams

enter a house

to carry out a contract hit.

[gunfire]

She is shot multiple times in the head.

[Narrator] Then,

Cox and Williams enter a bedroom

where a young woman sits up in bed.

[gunfire]

She is shot.

Also in the room are two young boys,

and they are shot while still in their sleep.

[gunfire]

[Narrator] Once on the scene,

LAPD officers are shocked by the quadruple murder.

[Katz] The four victims

are members of Kermit Alexander's family,

his mother, his sister, and two of his nephews,

and Kermit Alexander is a legend.

[Narrator] Kermit Alexander is a retired NFL player.

The Alexander Family lives down the street

from the young woman the club owner wanted killed.

The Rollin' 60s that morning in that van

simply went to the wrong address.

It was a daybreak,

quadruple home invasion homicide

with the wrong victim.

[Narrator] A month goes by,

and it appears Cox and his crew

might get away with this heinous crime...

until the LAPD raid a stash house

in Rollin' 60s territory.

During the raid, they actually found the gun

that was used in the murders.

[Narrator] LAPD question 17-year-old James Kennedy

about the murder weapon.

Kennedy holds to the gangster's code...

until the police turn the screws.

[Gerould] The police say, "Okay,

you're going to be on the hook for quadruple murder,

and the death penalty

unless you decide you want to talk."

He says, "No, it wasn't mine,

it was Tiequon Cox's M1 carbine."

[Narrator] Police arrest and charge Tiequon Cox

with four counts of first-degree murder.

By 1985,

Darren Williams and Horace Burns

are also in custody.

Burns is convicted

and sentenced to life in prison.

Cox and Williams are found guilty

and sent to Death Row.

But for The Rollin' 60s,

this brutal and mistaken hit

only serves to grow their street cred.

[Gerould] There's the idea that being a little bit wild,

a little bit berserk

isn't always a bad thing

because it keeps people wary of you.

It keeps people scared of you.

[Narrator] The Rollin' 60s

are known for killings in South Central...

[shots blasting]

...but when they expand

outside of their home turf,

they become...

Public Enemy Number One.

1988, Los Angeles.

The city is in the midst of a crack cocaine epidemic.

[Katz] Crack cocaine changed everything

about the gang world here in L.A.

because it was access to quick money.

[Narrator] The Rollin' 60s are banking so much,

they earn a new nickname--

"The Rich Rollin' 60s."

[Valdemar] We're talking millions of dollars.

They were dealing with the Colombian cartels directly

in the 1980s.

[Narrator] With profit margins so high,

the Rollin' 60s are venturing into new territories

to look for more buyers,

and so are many of their rivals.

January 30, 1988.

Westwood Village.

It's a busy Saturday night

in the fashionable neighborhood

home to UCLA.

It was a place that everyone liked to go

and see movies,

or shop, or eat.

[Narrator] Rollin' 60s Durrell Collins and his homeboys

are walking down the street

when they spot a crew of their rivals

from the Mansfield Hustler Crips.

[Gerould] Crips fight Crips.

The different sets are constantly fighting

amongst themselves.

[Narrator] The two sets trade insults,

and after a Mansfield Hustler makes a move,

Collins pulls out a gun.

[crowd screaming, shots blast]

[Narrator] January 30, 1988.

Westwood Village.

The standoff

between Rollin' 60s gangbanger Durrell Collins

and a rival Crip

is escalating in this well-to-do neighborhood.

Collins pulls out a gun and opens fire.

[shots blasting, crowd screaming]

He fires two shots,

neither of which hit the intended target.

[Narrator] Terrified pedestrians run for cover.

Durrell Collins ditches his weapon

and vanishes into the crowd.

[distant sirens]

On the sidewalk

lies 27-year-old graphic artist Karen Toshima.

She got caught in the crossfire.

She took a bullet in the head

and died on the scene there.

This was way out of gang territory

and completely unexpected.

It got a lot of media attention

and woke up not only the community,

but law enforcement.

[distant sirens]

[Narrator] One week after the shooting,

LAPD arrests and charges Durrell Collins.

At trial, he is found guilty

and sentenced to 27 years in prison...

but that's not the end of it.

The shooting death of a bystander

outside of gang territory

triggers the LAPD to launch a war on gangs.

[Katz] The police response was intense.

City council, two weeks later,

approved the hiring of 150 more police officers,

and that was the era

of what the LAPD called Operation Hammer.

[Narrator] Operation Hammer is a large-scale attempt

to crack down on all gangs in Los Angeles

with the use of sweeping raids.

More than 50,000 people are arrested

by the time it's disbanded in 1990.

Operation Hammer was the idea

that we're going to have a kind of zero tolerance

on gang activities...

and so while gang crime did go down as a result of this,

it also brought up a lot of questions

about civil liberties,

and how much do you want the police

to be able to question people

when they're not committing a crime.

So it started a real kind of balancing act as far as that.

[Narrator] Operation Hammer forces The Rollin' 60s

to curb the violence,

but it doesn't stop them

from looking for new ways to score...

and the gang goes from LAPD target

to the FBI'S Most Wanted.

1992.

Los Angeles.

The city is considered

the bank robbery capital of the United States.

The number of bank robberies they committed in 1992

translated to one bank robbery every 42 minutes.

[Narrator] The Rollin' 60s are one of the first

to entice crack addicts to commit bank robberies

in return for drugs.

The old-fashioned way of robbing a bank

is with a note.

It's a very quiet encounter,

and that person passing the note

typically wants to get out of the bank

as quickly as possible.

[Narrator] Suddenly in 1991,

violent takeover robberies become the standard.

A takeover robbery, they come in blasting,

and they intimidate people and scare people,

so a lot more violent, a lot more dangerous.

[Narrator] But then,

the Rollin' 60s add a new twist.

August 14, 1992.

Downey, California.

Without warning,

the employees and customers in a small bank branch

are blindsided.

[Katz] Kids, some as young as 13,

barge into a Wells Fargo in a takeover style robbery...

[blows landing]

[automatic gunfire]

[Narrator] Brandishing semi-automatic weapons,

two of the youths empty the cash drawers

while a third terrorizes the people in the bank.

It was terrifying, it was violent,

and it left people in a position

where they felt "We're overwhelmed."

[Narrator] But someone trips the silent alarm,

and before the youths can get away with over $55,000,

the police arrive.

So the police have these three kids

surrounded in the bank.

[police loudspeaker] Come out with your hands up!

[Narrator] The juvenile bank robbers

have no intention of giving up peacefully.

They smash a window

in an attempt to get away.

[Narrator] August 14, 1992.

Downey, California.

After storming the bank

and terrorizing the people inside,

three adolescent bank robbers

shatter a window to escape,

but the police have them surrounded.

These kids come flying out

through the broken glass,

guns blazing.

The cops chase two of them down

and take them into custody.

[Narrator] The third bandit makes a run for it,

and a police officer goes after him.

[Bowser] He gets cornered,

and so he turns around and shoot at the police,

and police shoots back.

[shots blasting]

[Narrator] The 15-year-old is fatally shot.

When the FBI interviews the two boys in custody,

they admit they're working for an O.G.

who goes by the name of Casper,

but when pressed to make an official statement,

they refuse.

With nothing leading the Feds to him,

Casper remains a ghost,

and continues masterminding hundreds of takeover robberies

with other kids.

[Esteban] He never walked in the banks himself.

Then he paid them either in drugs,

or a little bit of money,

and he kept the proceeds for himself.

[Katz] Some wanted to be in the gang,

some wanted money,

but all, like, disadvantaged and vulnerable kids.

[Narrator] Casper leaves no physical evidence,

no prints, no witnesses,

and no surveillance footage

to tie him to any crime.

And he had a real knack for choosing stolen cars,

the right stolen cars for the right job

as getaway vehicles.

[Narrator] The FBI connects Casper's crews

to 90 violent robberies in the L.A. area

with a total take of $1 million,

over $2 million today,

and because of the baby bandits,

bank jobs are turning into vicious indoor muggings.

The FBI creates a task force of 50 agents

to end the reign of terror

and find Casper,

but he continues to prove elusive.

[Katz] Casper was using

all sorts of evasive techniques.

He was switching addresses,

he was placing his assets in other people's names.

He was apparently an expert behind the wheel

for shaking the police, if anyone was chasing him.

[crashing]

[Narrator] But then,

the FBI get a tip from an informant.

May 28, 1993...

[wailing sirens]

...the FBI tracks Casper

to a house in Rollin' 60s turf.

His identity is officially revealed

as Robert Sheldon Brown,

a member of the gang since he was 14 years old.

This guy's only 23.

The guy was a one-man crime spree.

[Narrator] Facing multiple indictments

that could send him to prison for 285 years,

Brown decides to plead guilty,

and gets 30 years.

He remains the most prolific bank robber

in U.S. history

with over 175 heists to his name.

[Katz] After Casper is sentenced,

bank robberies in L.A. plummet.

They were down 50% two years later.

[Narrator] Today,

The Rollin' 60s remain the largest

and most notorious Crip set in Los Angeles

with over 6,000 members.

[Gerould] The Rollin' 60s

really captured the imagination

because they were extreme.

"We're in it for money,

but we're also in it for rep,

and we're also in it to show that we are bad,

that we are in control."

[Esteban] The Rollin' 60 Crips

have destroyed Los Angeles,

and they continue to grow.

You know, other groups have gone away,

but The Rollin' 60s continue to flourish.