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Including Inglewood Airport Area • Baldwin Hills • Crenshaw/LA • Ladera Heights VOL. 23, No. 25
June 19, 2014
Authorities Sweep Major Gang in South L.A. Fifty Arrested
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ifty members of the Five Deuce Broadway Gangster Crips were arrested Tuesday in a massive sweep. Activities of the violent, drug dealing street gang is said to extend as far as Louisiana. Five Deuce has terrorized the South Broadway Corridor of Los Angeles for years, and recently moved into the Skid Row area downtown. Federal and local investigators moved in the early morning hours to break up the cartel which they say has terrorized residents for generations, and sold drugs openly near schools and playgrounds. The arrests were the culmination of a three-year investigation, and most of those arrested are believed to be part of a group of 72 defendants so far apprehended by police, and named in a 213page racketeering indictment accusing gang members of a multitude of crimes in South Los Angeles and beyond.
Eight defendants remain at large. The rest were already in custody. The three-year investigation, called Operation Gremlin Riderz, focused on a South L.A. gang that claims to have control over neighborhoods around the intersection of South Broadway and 52nd Street.
• Community • Entertainment • Health • Real Estate • Business
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ntertainment legend Ruby Dee, who died last week at the age of 91, will be remembered for her longevity. With a 50plus year marriage and an acting career that spans 74 years, there are few entertainers who could match her track record. According to daughter, Nora Davis Day, the actress, author and activist passed away from natural causes in her New Rochelle, NY home. Dee, whose acting career began on stage in 1940, was the wife of legendary actor Ossie Davis. They were
cocaine, PCP and gallons of codeine syrup. Five Deuce ran a sophisticated ring, aided by women who rented out residences as bases of operation. The women often took care of credit card transactions and Ruby Dee rented cars to transport the married for 56 years, and drugs. (Continued on page 2) inseparable until he passed away in 2005. They met on Broadway in 1946. Early in her career, she won critical acclaim for her role as Ruth Younger in the 1960’s film adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” Starring as the wife of a frustrated black man with big dreams, played by Sidney Poitier, Dee’s character dealt with racial discrimination and marital struggles. On television, she was a leading cast member on soap operas during in the 1950s and ‘60s, a rare sight for a black actress. Other highlights of Dee’s (Continued on page 6)
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On The Inside: • News
Law enforcement investigators allege the gang is responsible for committing at least four killings since 1987 and decades of shootings, stabbings, armed robberies and violent confrontations with police. Investigators seized cocaine, Ecstasy, methamphetamine, marijuana, crack
Remembering Ruby
By Thomas Bunn
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very June, we celebrate the culmination of our young people making the transition from one phase of their education into the next. This year, I’m proud to have a niece and a couple of nephews who’ve gone from elementary to middle school, and from (Continued on page 3)
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