All language subtitles for Gangland Chronicles - S01E11 - The Rollin 60s Neighborhood Crips

Gangs rule their territories through
ruthless enterprises, fear, and a strict code.

Deviate from this code,
or challenge their power.

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.

Then, their violent
reputation spreads across the

city with the death of
an innocent bystander,

turning the game into the
LAPD's public enemy number one.

It woke up not only the
community, but law enforcement.

Finally, the Roland 60s attract the
attention of the FBI when an OG becomes the

most prolific bank robber in history
by training kids to do his dirty work.

The Crips convinced these youngsters to
go into the banks and do the robbing.

These are the stories from the
Roland 60s neighborhood crypts.

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.

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.

Two neighborhood gang
leaders, Raymond Washington

and Stanley Tukey
Williams, decide to join forces.

They call themselves the Crips.

Raymond Washington, he
was about building and

expanding this crip
movement throughout LA.

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,

you're going to join the Crips.

They were looked at as bullies.

They were looked at as an imposing force.

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 would stand
out above the rest, right,

because they were more violent and more
about the gangster type of lifestyle.

The Rollin' 60s
territory expands, and by 2004,

there's an estimated
1,600 members on the street.

They're involved in organized crime.

They're involved in drug trafficking,
firearms trafficking, homicides, kidnappings,

extortions. They do everything.

When I was covering gangs at
that time for the LA Times,

400 hardcore members had
been arrested over 3,500 times.

And in the summer of 1984,

the Roland 60's ruthless reputation
spreads throughout all of South Central.

August 31st, 1984.

Watts.

Roland 60s Crips'
Tyquan Cox, Darren Williams,

and Horace Burns are getting ready to do
a hit job for a local nightclub owner.

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 Rolling Sixties
to kill her to make the lawsuit go away.

$50,000 for a murder for hire is
a lot of money in the mid-'80s.

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

Eighteen-year-old Cox, known
on the street as Lil' Fee,

has a rep as a ruthless enforcer.

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.

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.

What happens next is a
brutal mass murder that shocks

South Central and puts
the gang on the map.

August 31st, 1984. Watts.

Roland Sixties Crips, Tyquan Cox,

and Darren Williams enter a
house to carry out a contract hit.

She is shot multiple times in the head.

Then, Cox and Williams enter a
bedroom where a young woman sits up in bed.

She is shot.

Also in the room are two young boys and
they are shot while still in their sleep.

Once on the scene, LAPD officers
are shocked by the quadruple murder.

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.

Kermit Alexander is a retired NFL player.

The Alexander family
lives down the street from

the young woman the
club owner wanted killed.

The rolling 60s that morning in that
van simply went to the wrong address.

It was a daybreak, quadruple, home
invasion homicide with the wrong thing.

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 Roland's 60s territory.

During the raid, they actually found
the gun that was used in that murder.

LAPD questioned 17-year-old James
Kennedy about the murder weapon.

Kennedy holds to the gangster's
code until the police turn the screws.

The police say, OK, 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 Tyquan Cox and Moncarving.

Police arrest and charge Tyquan 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 rolling 60s,
this brutal and mistaken

hit only serves to grow their street cred.

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.

The Roland 60s are known for
killings in South Central.

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.

Crack cocaine changed
everything about the gang world

here in LA because it
was access to quick money.

The Roland 60s are banking so much, they
earn a new nickname, the Rich Roland 60s.

We're talking millions of dollars.

They were dealing with the
Colombian cartels directly in 1980s.

With profit margins so high,

the Roland 60s are venturing into new
territories to look for more buyers.

And so are many of their rivals.

January 30th, 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.

Roland's 60s Darrell Collins and his
homeboys are walking down the street

when they spot a crew of their
rivals from the Mansfield Hustler Crips.

Crips fight Crips.

The different sets are
constantly fighting amongst themselves.

The two sets trade
insults, and after a Mansfield

hustler makes a move,
Collins pulls out a gun.

January 30th, 1988, Westwood Village.

The standoff between Roland's
60s gangbanger Darrell Collins and

a rival crip is escalating in
this well-to-do neighborhood.

Collins pulls out a gun and opens fire.

He fires two shots, neither of
which hit the intended target.

Terrified pedestrians run for cover.

Darrell Collins ditches his
weapon and vanishes into the crowd.

On the sidewalk lies
27-year-old graphic artist Karen Tashima.

She got caught in the crossfire.

She took a bullet in the head
and died on the scene there.

This is 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.

One week after the shooting, LAPD
arrests and charges Darrell 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.

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,

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.

Operation Hammer forces the
Roland 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.

The Roland 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.

Suddenly, in 1991, violent
takeover robberies become the standard.

A takeover robbery, they come in blasting.

And intimidate people and scare people.

So a lot more violent,
a lot more dangerous.

But then, the rolling 60s add a new twist.

August 14, 1992.

Downey, California.

Without warning, the employees and
customers in a small bank branch are blindsided.

Kids, some as young as 13, barge into a
Wells Fargo in a takeover-style robbery.

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.

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 at the bank.

The juvenile bank robbers have no
intention of giving up peacefully.

They smash a window in
an attempt to get away.

August 14th, 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.

The third bandit makes a run for it,
and a police officer goes after him.

He gets cornered.

And so he turns around and shoot at
the police, and police shoots back.

The 15-year-old is fatally shot.

When the FBI interviews
the two boys in custody...

They admit they're working for an
OG 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.

He never walked in the banks himself.

Then he paid them either
in drugs or a little bit

of money and kept the
proceeds for himself.

Some wanted to be in the
gang, some wanted money,

but all like
disadvantaged and vulnerable kids.

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.

The FBI connects Casper's
cruise to 90 violent robberies

in the LA area with a
total take of $1 million.

Over two 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.

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.

But then the FBI get a
tip from an informant.

May 28, 1993.

The FBI tracks Casper to a
house in rolling 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. This guy
was a one-man crime spree.

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.

After Casper was sentenced,
bank robberies in L.A. plummet.

They were down 50% two years later.

Today, the Rollin' 60s
remain the largest and

most notorious crypt set in Los
Angeles, with over 6,000 members.

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.

So Rolling 60 Crips have
destroyed Los Angeles.

And they continue to grow.

You know, other groups have gone away,
but the Rolling Sixties continue to flourish.