Yet even if authorities succeed in "neutralizing" Hoover and decimating the GDs, some observers believe gangs will thrive as long as joblessness, ignorance, and poverty plague urban America. Moreover, investigations similar to the sweeping GD probe are under way in Chicago's other major gangs, police say. A second wave of indictments of dozens of GD leaders is expected imminently. Indeed, as gangs and their lethal feuding spread rapidly across the United States, with an estimated 650,000 gang members and 25,000 gangs nationwide, Hoover's life offers a graphic inside look at the rise - and possible pell-mell decline - of an American supergang.Īlthough Hoover is perhaps the gang target most sought after by law enforcement officials, he is far from the only one. Hoover's influence is such that police, activists, and gang members alike predict that if he is convicted and confined to a distant federal prison, the power vacuum could cause a citywide eruption of gang warfare. One thing about Hoover, though, is certain: When he speaks, many people pay attention. To thousands of Gangster Disciples in the ghetto who have never laid eyes on him, he's "the old man," an almost mythical hero. To community activists, he's a gangster gone straight who mobilizes young black men behind their causes. To Chicago gang investigators, he's a shrewd, ruthless, and greedy thug who rules the city's most lucrative drug turf. Over the years, he has shown a chameleon-like ability to give starkly different impressions to different people. "Street gangs," he says, "could be the salvation of the community." Hoover leans forward, rests his arms on the table, and speaks in the slow measured tones of his native Mississippi. It was his first interview since he and 38 alleged GD leaders were indicted after a sweep by federal agents in August 1995. "My politics are what prompted them to keep me in jail," Hoover said last week at the Metropolitan Correction Center. He says his indictment masks a conspiracy by Mayor Richard Daley and other officials to halt the GD-backed voter registration drives, election campaigning, gang "peace summits," and protests that have won Hoover support from prominent Chicagoans in recent years. Over the past decade, he says, he's worked to transform his gang's law-breaking ranks into a force for bringing prosperity and power to Chicago's poor, disenfranchised black communities. He portrays himself now more as a Malcolm X than an Al Capone. The government's goal: to exile Hoover to a maximum-security prison in Colorado, cripple the GD leadership, and ultimately bring down the gang.įor his part, Hoover scoffs at his accusers. Secretly taped conversations and other evidence link Hoover and his associates to GD narcotics sales and killings, they say. US prosecutors charge that since the early 1970s, Hoover, a convicted murderer, has masterminded from behind prison walls an elaborate, 30,000-strong criminal organization that stretches to 40 major cities. Hoover one block north to the Dirksen federal building, where he will stand trial for allegedly running a $100-million drug empire as chief of what by many accounts is the nation's biggest street gang, the Gangster Disciples (GD). The only hint of his gangster past is a blue "H" tattooed on his left arm.īut in March, US marshals will lead Mr. A slight man with a goatee and unlined face, he doesn't look the part of one of America's most powerful gang leaders. Wearing an orange jumpsuit and blue canvas sneakers, Larry Hoover steps into a windowless visitor's cubicle on the eighth floor of a federal prison in downtown Chicago.
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