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tigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the. Bureau ‘of Alcohol, Tabacco and Firearms: DEA and Treasury agents in Seattle arrested three Los Angeles gang members on Cocaine-trafficking charges last month, seizing a sawed-off Shotgun, $5,680 in cash, quantities of crack, a-small safe, drug paraphernalia and business records, ° - The growth in gang membership here is partly attri- butable to the profit motive. “It’s hard to.tell a 15-year-old kid with $3,000 in his Pocket, who before ‘never had a dollar, that this is the wrong way to go,” said Detective Michael ‘Berchem of the Los Angeles Police Department's antigang unit. . In many cases, the older members of the gang del- egate the real work of acquiring and selling drugs to younger members because juveniles receive lighter penalties if caught. In exchange, the junior member gets a share of the profits. ° “It's basically like any other business, the higher up you go the less you have to do with the actual business,” Berchem said, But Dr. Lorenzo Merritt of Project HEAVY West, a nonprofit counseling center that tries to help children Stay out of jail, said they join “fundamentally because of a need for acceptance and identity. It generally means an absence of a cohesive . - - family life where there is. no sense of belonging and respect.” Even youths who don’t want to join a gang sometimes see no choice. A 19-year-old Crips member who ident tified himself by his gang name, Jay Stone, said: “You join to survive. If you're not in a gang, you have no pro! tection from other bangers. Once you're in, though, you're in for good.” “If you want to be a man, you're in it,” Lewis said. “ The Crips were identified as the city's first large’ black gang in the early 1970s, according to police, Shortly afterwards, the Bloods formed to protect then, selves and since then, the gangs have become mortal enemies. Membership is determined largely by neigh borhood. Crip members advertise their affiliation by wearing blue on everything from shoelaces to the bandanas that hang out of their back pockets. Bloods wear red in the same fashion. a] So far this year, at least 53 bystanders have bee: killed or wounded by gang members in Los Angeles, Police said. Several of those killed, died because they wore the wrong colors in a gang’s territory. Although Hispanic gangs in Los Angeles have a hist tory dating back to the turn of the century and account for some of the city’s gang-related violence, they tend to be “more territorial,” Kramer said. 5 ' “Hispanics gangs are not into the monetary gain as much as they are into proving their manhood and the fact that they are machismo and defending what they see as their neighborhood,” Sgt. Wes McBride of thé Los Angeles Sheriff's Department said. 5 But police say emerging gangs of Asian youths may soon rival the Bloods and the Crips in terms of drugs and violence. The recent deaths of two DEA agents ina Los Angeles County shoot-out with Suspected Asian drug dealers raised fears that Asian gangs, with direct links to Asian heroin, are developing into major narcotic organizations with potential for extreme violence. ; Meanwhile, the Crips and Bloods, with dozens of af- filiate factions throughout the city, remain the dominant Bangs. And police say the Crips fight among them: selves. é oo “There are many more Crips than there are Bloods, But within their different factions, you very seldom see Bloods feuding with other Bloods but it is very common to see other Crips feuding with other Crips,” Kramer Said... “The bottom line to the whole thing here, is that it doesn’t make any sense because there’s nothing to miake any sense about it,” Berchem said, “Why a guy over on this street will shoot a uy six blocks away be- cause he’s a different kind of Crip, but yet, six blocks ‘over the other way is a gang of Crips that he gets along with , . . just doesn’t make any sense.” Ys Fons a0 Ade (2)