Do not get it twisted, the Fresno Bulldogs are not just a football team in California. The Fresno Bulldogs might just be one of the most dangerous street gangs in all of California due to its sheer size.

You can find Fresno, California in the San Joaquin Valley, it is the largest city in the greater Central Valley. Fresno is the third largest majority Hispanic city in the United States, in a survey done in 2020, 50.5% of its population is Hispanic.

Fresno has 600,000 people living there, which is more than Sacramento, Oakland and Long Beach. Fresno grew so large due to its great agriculture, which the entire city depends on, as that is its only economy. Which is not good, since Fresno is prone to draughts. When there is a lot of water, the city thrives.

When the economy is bad however, people still have to make money, this leads to constant wars on the streets for money.

This alone has caused some serious gang wars, and where the Fresno Bulldogs Gang comes into play. In order to find out why this has happened lets go back in time a bit.

Fresno Bulldogs History

Theres two Mexican Prison gangs that run all of California, The Nuestra Familia and the Mexican Mafia. Nuestra Familia started in 1965 and the Mexican Mafia started in 1957.

Nuestra Familia are direct enemies of the southern Mexicans who formed La eMe(Mexican Mafia). The Mexican Mafia was created to protect Mexicans in prison, but there were cases of La eMe abusing Mexicans from rural farming areas of Northern California.

If you end up going to prison in California, they will send you to a prison based off your location, if you are anywhere from above Bakersfield you were North(claimed red), anything below is south(claimed blue).

So by default Fresno would be a northern city by default.

In 1970s more and more Mexicans from the south side of California started moving to Fresno, which led to a lot of clashing of red and blue clashing. Red being the Nortenos and blue being Surrenos.

The Nortenos in Fresno were getting fed up with all the gang fighting because they felt they weren’t actually part of the initial feud between the Nuestra Familia and La eMe.

So in the 1980s in Valley State Correction Facility, the Fresno Nortenos started to disassociate themselves with the rest of the Nortenos, and they all together started calling themselves F14, with the F meaning Fresno first, and 14 to represent the Nortes.

The Nuestra Familia was not happy with this, and demanded them to stop, but the F14 did not care, and kept doing it.

By 1982 a new rivalry started between the F14 and the Nortenos.

This rivalry was dubbed as the Red Wave.

By 1986 F14 was not just behind prison walls, they were out on the streets now and spreading fast on the streets of Fresno.

The beef got so bad that F14 dropped any connection to the Nortenos by dropping the 14 from their name. They renamed themselves as the Fresno Bulldogs.

The Fresno Bulldogs Gang or BDS have grown so large now that there is an estimated count of 12000 members. There are Bulldog sets in Fresno, Fowler, Selma, Kerman, Sanger, Clovis, Madera, San Joaquin, Coalinga, Huron, Mendota, Parlier, Dinuba, Orosi, Orange Cove, and Avenal.

Fresno Bulldog Gang Tattoos

Like most gang members, the Fresno Bulldogs like to get tattoos to represent them.

Some common Fresno Bulldog Tattoos are the bulldog, paws, “bulldog”, dog chains, East Side or West Side.