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Gang mayhem grips LA
Level 3 Advanced
1
Key words
Match these key words from the text with their deinitions.
backires to bury a crackdown a gang to mourn
a summit turf unprecedented to vow
1. A group of young people who spend time together and often cause trouble. __________
2. To put someone’s dead body in the ground (often in the passive). __________
3. To feel sad because someone has died. __________
4. An area that a group considers to be their own (informal, uncountable). __________
5. A strong action taken by the authority to stop a particular activity. __________
6. A meeting or series of meetings between leaders. __________
7. Never having happened or existed before. __________
8. To promise to do something. __________
9. If a plan __________ then it has the opposite effect you intended.
2
Read quickly
Skim the text to ind the answers to these questions.
1. How many gang members are there in LA?
2. What does the expression ‘a gang war between brown and black’ mean?
3. What two things did Cheryl Green’s death provoke?
4. What is the ‘hit list’?
5. What does Father Boyle do to help people leave gangs?
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2007
NEWS LESSONS / Gang mayhem grips LA / Advanced
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Gang mayhem grips LA
Level 3 Advanced
Gang mayhem grips LA
Paul Harris
March 18, 2007
5
Last year there were 269 gang-related killings
in LA. Gang-related crime leaped 15.7 per cent
last year, as most other types of crime fell. Hate
crimes against black people have surged. With
a rapidly growing Hispanic population, LA’s gang
culture is shifting. It means that being black in the
wrong neighbourhood can get you killed.
1
Father Greg Boyle keeps a grim count of the
young gang members he has buried. Number
151 was Jonathan Hurtado, 18 – fresh out of
jail. Now the kindly, bearded Jesuit mourns him.
“The day he got out I found him a job. He never
missed a day. He was doing really well,” Boyle
says.
6
Green’s death brought the gang war between
‘brown and black’ to public awareness. Next
week a summit will be held called the Black and
Brown Strategy Meeting which aims to head off a
race war. “All of the signs are there that a racial
war is going to explode in this city,” says Khalid
Shah, director of Stop the Violence, one of the
groups organizing the meeting. “You are look-
ing at an event which could not only paralyze an
entire city but an entire state,” he warns.
2
But Hurtado made a mistake: he went back to
his old neighbourhood. While sitting in a park,
Hurtado was approached by a man on a bike
who said to him: “Hey, homie, what’s up?” He
then shot Hurtado four times.
3
Boyle’s Los Angeles is a world away from the
glamorous Hollywood hills, Malibu beaches and
Sunset Strip – the celebrity-drenched city that
David Beckham and Posh Spice will soon make
their home.
7
Green’s death sparked Villaraigosa’s crackdown.
The police took the unprecedented step of
publishing a list of the 11 worst gangs, including
204th Street. They vowed to go after them with
police, FBI agents and injunctions to prevent
members meeting. But Angelenos have seen it
all before. The city’s history is full of anti-gang
initiatives.
4
Boyle’s Los Angeles is where an estimated
120,000 gang members across ive counties
battle over turf, pride and drugs. It is a city of
violence as a race war escalates between new
Hispanic gangs and older black groups. Mayor
Antonio Villaraigosa, who has referred to his city
as “the gang capital of America”, has launched a
crackdown on the new threat.
8
Publishing the ‘hit list’ could backire. In the gang
sub-culture, being on the list is a badge of pride.
“Putting out a list was a bad idea. Groups that
don’t make the list will want to be on it. They
don’t exactly think rationally,” said Alex Alonso, a
gang historian.
5
The latest front is the tiny strip of turf known
as Harbor Gateway, a nest of streets between
malls and ofice blocks. It was here, just before
Christmas, that Cheryl Green, a 14-year-old
black girl, died. As she stood on a corner talking
with friends, two Hispanic members of the neigh-
bourhood’s notorious 204th Street gang walked
up and opened ire, killing Green and wounding
three others. Traditionally, the outside view of
LA gangs has been of black youths but Hispanic
gangs are now in the ascendant, spreading
across America.
9
Yet there is hope. Alfonso ‘Chino’ Visuet, 23, was
sucked into the gang life as a teenager. There
was the lure of excitement and riches, the push
of a dificult home life. “People who join a gang
are always running away from something. They
lee to the gang,” Visuet says.
10
Visuet now works for Father Boyle’s Homeboy
Industries, a project that helps people leave gang
life. It provides jobs, an education, pays to have
gang tattoos removed and gives counselling. It
aims to remove the circumstances that lead to
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2007
NEWS LESSONS / Gang mayhem grips LA / Advanced
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Gang mayhem grips LA
Level 3 Advanced
crime: poverty, abuse and unemployment. It is
staffed almost entirely by former gang members
and has spun off a bakery, a silk-screen printers
and a restaurant.
who beats on them. They have the same story,”
he says.
13
LA is a city of two worlds – Hollywood and gangs.
On a two-lane highway that roars through the
middle of Harbor Gateway, a few hundred yards
from where Cheryl Green was gunned down,
there is a billboard for a new TV show called
Sons of Hollywood. It shows three rich young
men against a backdrop of palm trees. It claims
to be a ‘reality’ show, but for most of the impover-
ished, racially torn citizens it is nothing more than
a fantasy.
11
It worked for Visuet. He starts college this au-
tumn and wants to be a probation oficer. “I was
on the edge of doing something that would ruin
my life, either by doing violence or having it done
to me. That’s over now,” he says.
12
Visuet despairs at the conlict. “A brown gang
member now just sees a black gang member.
What they don’t see is how that person comes
from the same place they do. They might have
a mother who is an alcoholic as well or a father
© Guardian News and Media 2007
First published in the Observer 18/03/07
3
Comprehension check
Read again and ind the signiicance of the following names and numbers in the article.
1. Jonathan Hurtado _______________________________________________________________________
2. Father Greg Boyle _______________________________________________________________________
3. Antonio Villaraigosa _______________________________________________________________________
4. Harbor Gateway _______________________________________________________________________
5. Cheryl Green _______________________________________________________________________
6. 204th Street _______________________________________________________________________
7. 15.7% _______________________________________________________________________
8. Khalid Shah _______________________________________________________________________
9. 11 _______________________________________________________________________
10. Alex Alonso _______________________________________________________________________
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2007
NEWS LESSONS / Gang mayhem grips LA / Advanced
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Gang mayhem grips LA
Level 3 Advanced
4
Vocabulary 1: Ways of saying increase
Complete the second sentence so it means the same as the irst. All the answers are in the text.
1. The city is more and more violent as a race war increases and becomes worse.
The city is more and more violent as a race war e___________.
2. The number of Hispanic gangs is increasing.
The number of Hispanic gangs is o___________ the a___________.
3. Gang-related crime increased a lot last year.
Gang-related crime l___________ last year.
4. Hate crimes against blacks increased rapidly.
Hate crimes against blacks s___________.
5. LA has an increasingly big Hispanic population.
LA has an r___________ g___________ Hispanic population.
5
Vocabulary 2: Hyphenated words A
Complete the sentences with a word from the box.
drenched lane proile related gang culture
1. Much of the crime is gang-___________.
2. Beverly Hills is a celebrity-___________ part of the city.
3. The police are taking anti-___________ measures to reduce the crime.
4. Many gangs have their own sub-___________.
5. The mayor is organizing a high-___________ summit to address the problem.
6. A fast two-___________ highway crosses the centre of town.
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2007
NEWS LESSONS / Gang mayhem grips LA / Advanced
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Gang mayhem grips LA
Level 3 Advanced
6
Vocabulary 3: Hyphenated words B
Using the words from the exercise above, create new phrases for these deinitions. The irst one is done
for you.
1. A place with a lot of sun. sun-drenched
______________
2. A highway with ive lanes. ______________
3. Connected to drugs. ______________
4. Below zero temperatures. ______________
5. Good quality and expensive, of a better class. ______________
7
Discussion
What could be the causes of gang-related crime in a city like LA? Are there gang problems in your city?
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2007
NEWS LESSONS / Gang mayhem grips LA / Advanced
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