GANG WAR
Homicide Charge Against Youth
NEW YORK, August 24.
A young member of a streel gang was accused today of killing a 15-year-old negro girl and shooting and wounding four other youngsters in a gang battle which flared on New York’s lower East Side last night.
Police said 17-year-old John Cruz, described as “war counsellor” for a gang called the “Forsyth Street Boys,” had admitted the shootings and would be charged with homicide.
Three members of a rival gang, known as the "Sportsmen,” were also being held for allegedly stabbing two members of the “Forsyth Street” gang. The outbreak of street fighting over the week-end led ActingPolice Commissioner John Kennedy and Acting-Detective Chief Edward Byrnes to visit the scene today. The commissioner ordered 100 detectives. patrolmen and youth squad officers to be drafted to the area from surrounding districts.
The gang “war” flared when members of one gang, mostly negroes, invaded an area claimed by the rival faction, mostly Puerto
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28983, 26 August 1959, Page 13
Word Count
161GANG WAR Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28983, 26 August 1959, Page 13
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