Only kilometers from the scenic vistas and celebrity mansions that draw sightseers from around the globe — but a world away from the glitz and glamor — a bus tour is rolling through the dark side of the city’s gang turf.
Passengers paying US$65 a head on Saturday signed waivers acknowledging they could be crime victims and put their fate in the hands of tattooed ex-gang members who say they have negotiated a ceasefire among rivals in the most violent gangland in the US.
If that sounds daunting, consider the challenge facing organizers of LA Gang Tours: trying to build a thriving venture that provides a glimpse into gang life while also trying to convince people that gang-plagued communities are not as hopeless as movies depict.
“There’s a fascination with gangs,” said founder Alfred Lomas, a former member of the Florencia 13 gang. “We can either address the issue head-on, create awareness and discuss the positive things that go on in these communities, or we can try to sweep it under the carpet.”
Several observers have questioned the premise behind the tours, and some city politicians have been more blunt.
“It’s a terrible idea,” City Councilman Dennis Zine said. “Is it worth that thrill for 65 bucks? You can go to a [gang] movie for a lot less and not put yourself at risk.”
More than 50 people brushed aside safety concerns for Saturday’s maiden tour to hear how notorious gangs got started and bear witness to the neighborhoods where tens of thousands of residents have been lured into gang life.
The unmarked chartered bus wound its way through downtown. The first sight was a stretch of concrete riverbed featured in such movies as Terminator and Grease, where countless splotches of gray paint conceal graffiti that is often the mark of street gangs and tagging crews.
After that, it was on to the Central Jail, past Skid Row’s squalor and homeless masses and into South Los Angeles, breeding ground for some of the city’s deadliest gangs.
Motoring through an industrial area, the bus enters the Florence-Firestone neighborhood, close to the birthplace of the Crips and home to Florencia 13, a Latino gang accused by federal prosecutors of racist attacks against black residents.
Sieglinde Lemke, 46, an American Studies professor from the University of Freiburg in Germany, said she enjoyed the chance to interact with former gang members.
“It brings to life the class divisions you have in America,” she said.
Junior high school teacher Prisca Ricks, 37, was of two minds about going on the tour after reading critical blog comments about it being “ghettotainment.”
But she was pleased she went and said she appreciated the focus on helping the community.
Lomas, 45, a respected activist who has worked with the faith-based Los Angeles Dream Center to distribute hundreds of tonnes of food to low-income families across the inner city, left gang life about five years ago.
He says the aim of his nonprofit company is to bring jobs to communities along the route and reinvest money through micro-loans and scholarships, though he’s not sure how the tour will accomplish that. He also eventually wants to start a gallery and gang museum.
He says the tours will create 10 part-time jobs, mainly for ex-gang members working as guides and talking about their own struggles and efforts to reduce violence. The tour is initially scheduled to run once a month.
Lomas faces a quandary as he tries to show the troubled history of the area once known as South Central before politicians renamed it South Los Angeles in 2003 in an attempt to change its deep association with urban strife.
The tour is billed as “the first in the history of Los Angeles to experience areas that were forbidden.” But tour leaders don’t want it to be voyeuristic and sensational.
Out of sensitivity to residents, passengers are banned from shooting photographs from the bus. Also, stretches of the tour have almost nothing to do with gangs, but instead highlight chapters of violence such as a 1974 shootout between police and the Symbionese Liberation Army and the site of the riots that followed the acquittal of officers in the Rodney King beating.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was