The Crips started out as an alliance among individual street gangs, that had the same dream. The Crip alliance first started in the City of LA.
The street gangs that would join into the Crip Alliance would become a Crip set or otherwise known as a clique which are smaller individual sets within the actual Gang.
Identifying Crips
If you have ever heard Crips talking together, they will refer to each other as “Locs” or “Cuz” this is because they refer to Crips as family or members of the gang. This could be a dead give away that you are not Crip, because more often than not, a Blood or any other gangster from another set will not call you Cuz.
Gangs under the Crip alliance will wear blue as their primary colors, which most Crip sets do wear.
There are Crip sets under the Crip alliance that rock other colors as their primary to signify their set, for example. The Hoovers will rock orange as their primary color, and the Grape Street Crips will rock purple, Crips under the Gangster card are known to rock gray with blue, Rollin 20s rock yellow and black, etc.
Why do Crips wear blue? The history behind the Crips rocking blue is this. One of the OGs named Buddha would always color coordinate his outfit. Buddha would wear blue Levis jeans, a blue shirts and dark blue suspenders. When Buddha was murdered, at his funeral, Crips from all different sets wore a blue bandana to pay homage to their fallen soldier.
Buddha was killed on February 23, 1973, until this day the Crips rock a blue bandana.
Crips Hand Signs
Most Crips will use hand signs as a form of communication, with other Crips or enemies. Throwing up a set is referred to as stacking.
Throwing up your set to a rival is meant to intimidate them or egg them on into an altercation.
The universal Crip sign, is made with your index finger and thumb to form a “C” signifying you are part of the Crip alliance.
Different sub sets will identify with other hand signs though, so it is important to learn and know these signs when patrolling.
How did the Crips get their name
The Crips name may have come through a mistake, here is one of the theories on how the name originated.
Back in 1969, a 15 year old kid by the name of Raymond Washington started a gang called the Baby Avenues. The gang would eventually change the name to the Avenue Cribs, and then to the Cribs for short.
Due to all their news coverage, the newspaper would report on this gang and call them crippled due to their walk and would use canes at the time. Cripples would turn into crips and the name stuck, and the Crip alliance was formed.
Becoming Crip
Back in the day, to become a Crip Set you needed the ok from the OGs to start one. Now there are significantly more Crip gangs and a lot of these Crip sets may or may not be affiliated to the original sets in Los Angeles.
There is some confusion that people think Crips belong to the Folks Nation, but this is false, they are only part of the Crip Allaince.
For more information you can read another write up on who are the crips here.
Consolidated Crip Organization
The CCO is the Consolidated Crip Organization, it is a branch of the Crips that are locked up. In lock up Crips are locked up with other Crips, as they do not get along with Bloods, and must stay separated.
In Prison some crip sets may beef with each other like the Rolling 60s and the 83 gangster crips, but in prisons there is a truce and an alliance between the different crip sets. This is for protection against other prison gangs.
In West Coast Prisons, the Crips formed the Consolidated Crip Organization and the Bloods founded the United Blood Nation.