Raymond Lee Washington (August 14, 1953August 9, 1979) was an American gangster, known as the founder of the Crips gang in Los Angeles. Washington formed the Crips as a minor street gang in the late 1960s in South Los Angeles, becoming a prominent local crime boss. In 1971, Washington formed an alliance with Stanley "Tookie" Williams, establishing the Crips as the first major African-American street gang in Los Angeles, and served as one of the co-leaders. In 1974, Washington was convicted of robbery and received a five-year prison sentence, during which his leadership and influence in the Crips declined.
On August 9, 1979, Raymond Washington was murdered in a drive-by shooting shortly after his release from prison.
Biography
Early life
Raymond Lee Washington was born in Los Angeles, California, on August 14, 1953, the youngest of four sons to Violet Samuel and Reginald Cecil Washington. His parents separated when he was two years old, and he was raised by his mother and stepfather. He grew up on East 76th Street, between Wadsworth Avenue and Central Avenues in Los Angeles' South Central.
According to neighbors of Washington, he developed an affinity for fist-fighting as an adolescent, and was constantly in trouble with the Los Angeles Police Department for various offenses. Washington's mother is quoted as saying, "Raymond was a good kid when he was a boy. Raymond didn't go out of his way to fight or do anything bad, but if someone came to him, he would protect himself. And he was well built. He tried to protect the community and keep the bad guys out. But after a while, every time I looked up, the police were coming to the house looking for Raymond."
Within a few years, much of the original Crip leadership were either imprisoned or dead. On February 23, 1973, Curtis "Buddha" Morrow, a close friend of Tookie Williams and a high-ranking Crip enforcer, was shot to death in South Central following a petty argument. Mac Thomas was murdered under mysterious circumstances in the mid-1970s.
Robbery conviction
In 1974, 21-year-old Washington was arrested for second-degree robbery and sentenced to five years' imprisonment at the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy, becoming the first Crip to be incarcerated there. Washington was unpopular among the prison population as he began to recruit young African-American inmates into the Crips, much to the disapproval of established black prison groups like the Black Muslims and the Black Guerrilla Family. According to a former inmate who was housed at Deuel with Washington, the Black Muslims and the Black Guerrilla Family were aware of the spread of the Crips in Los Angeles, and warned Washington that they would not tolerate the formation of Crips in the prison. Washington faced another problem while serving time at Deuel: as the Crips murdered rival gang members on the streets of Los Angeles, inmates at Deuel who were relatives of victims held Washington responsible for their deaths. Greg "Batman" Davis, a friend of Washington and an original Crips member, stated "People in the prisons was losing their loved ones on the streets and because Raymond was the founder of the Crips, they blamed him for it. And since Raymond was the only Crip up there (at Deuel) at the time, they were trying to kill him."
In 1976, Washington paroled from prison and returned to Los Angeles. Reportedly, Washington was shocked to discover that the violent war between the Crips, Bloods, and Hispanic gangs had escalated to the point that fighting using firearms, as opposed to fist fighting, was now normal. Over the next few months, Washington became disillusioned with the Crips as the gang committed more violent and senseless crimes, with new recruits seeking to build their reputations. Since Washington's imprisonment, the organization had totally broken down into loosely-affiliated decentralized sets that often fought each other, as the Crips' original leadership had disappeared. Tookie Williams, the last remaining original Crips leader, served as the de facto leader during Washington's imprisonment. Williams had been injured in a drive-by shooting in 1976, and developed a growing addiction to PCP that caused his authority to wane until he was arrested for four counts of homicide shortly before Washington was murdered. According to law enforcement, former gang members and close friends, Washington had decided that the Crips needed to be brought back under one umbrella organization to stop infighting, and then to work towards a truce with the Bloods. Upon realizing he no longer held influence in the gang, Washington started to distance himself from the Crips.
Death
Around 10:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 9, 1979, five days before his 26th birthday, Washington was shot on the corner of East 64th Street and South San Pedro Street in South Central Los Angeles, in a drive-by shooting. Washington was rushed to Morningside Hospital where he died while undergoing emergency surgery. No suspects have been arrested, and Washington's murder remains unsolved. It was reported that Washington was hanging out on the corner when a car pulled up and the unidentified occupants called him over to the car. Washington's associates, as well as the police, were aware he would never walk up to cars of people that he did not know, and most likely knew the occupants of the vehicle as he told an acquaintance that he knew them. Washington engaged in a brief conversation with them before the occupant in the passenger seat drew a sawed-off shotgun and shot him in the abdomen.
See also
- List of unsolved murders (1900–1979)