It’s a big and poisonous snake, as federal prosecutors will attempt to prove this week as the first defendants go to trial. Armed with the computer list, wiretaps and informants’ testimony, prosecutors intend to expose the enormous drug operations of the self-proclaimed “street nation,” which has an estimated 50,000 members in 35 states. Sicking federal authorities on gangs has its advantages. The Feds have deeper pockets and friendlier wiretap statutes than local law enforcement. Better still, federal convicts can be shipped to distant prisons, stripping them of the cozy, gang-bred culture in state penitentiaries. One investigator tells NEWSWEEK subsequent indictments will take out hundreds of middle managers–“the nuts and bolts who make this organization work.”
The Gangster Disciples are an odd lot–part street gang, part mystical cult, with a personality split between thuggery and social activism. Unlike the California-based Crips and Bloods, the country’s other huge gang federations, all GDs worship a single leader, the charismatic Hoover. They claim to be struggling for social justice, with a special emphasis on kids. They’ve put candidates on Chicago election ballots and marched on city hall to support funding for schools and public-health clinics.
Hoover, 45, won’t be tried until later this year. Because he’s been in prison for 22 years, most of his followers have never met him. Weekly “lit classes” indoctrinate members in his vague gospel, which is spelled out in a creed (“We are a special group of people with Integrity and Dignity . . .”) and a 42-page constitution. “The GDs teach that Hoover is a godlike figure with spiritual powers,” says George Knox, a Chicago State University criminologist. “But the real point of the gospel is selling drugs .” The religious hokum glosses over the fact that Hoover is serving a 150-year sentence for ordering the execution of a man who stole drugs from the gang. Not that members need to be reminded how vicious the GDs can be. During Capone’s heyday, Chicago’s annual gangland murder toll peaked at 75 in 1926. Police say the Disciples kill about 75 every year.
The gang collects taxes in a vast pyramid scheme. Money from the drug trade flows uphill, as members and freelance “neutrons”-drug peddlers licensed to deal on gang turf– tithe a piece of their action to GD leaders. Cheating on gangtaxes invites being “violated,” or beaten, by gang enforcers whose instrument of choice is the baseball bat. The victim, ff he lives, walks around with what GDs call a “pumpkinhead.”
For a street gang, the GDs have a remarkable hierarchy (chart). Leaders regularly dun their troops for weekly dues ($6 and up) or special assessments like “the political,” which allegedly subsidizes candidates friendly to the GDs. According to the Feds, Hoover has boasted that the GDs collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in street taxes every day. “They don’t know what to do with all their money,” says Jack Hynes, Cook County’s top gang prosecutor. Much of it is laundered through girlfriends or pliant bankers who invest in businesses, houses and land. Still more cash is squandered at Midwestern riverboat casinos. Precious little goes back to the street mopes who risk their lives selling drugs. Sources inside and outside the gang say many of the street dealers-called shorties-are little more than slaves. Some GD leaders favor Georgetown University sweat shirts bearing the school’s athletic nickname, Hoyas. In gang parlance, Hoya is an acronym for “Hoover’s On Your Ass.”
That is not the image Hoover wants to cultivate. He has said that he quit the GDs in 1987. He now claims to head a different GD group, Growth and Development, which is devoted to minority neighborhoods and disadvantaged youth. The word from gang members is that Hoover now lives and breathes politics, reading Machiavelli and studying how the late mayor Richard J. Daley built his Chicago machine.
Federal authorities scoff at the notion that Hoover has gone straight. His power, they say, comes not from the street but from within the Illinois prison system, where more than 5,000 GDs are incarcerated. His prison henchmen rigidly control gang members inside. And those on the outside fear former prisoners, who are especially loyal to the leaders behind bars. But Hoover’s alleged attempts to nile the Disciples from the joint may be his undoing. Miniature transmitters hidden in prison visitors’ badges allegedly caught incriminating conversations between Hoover and subordinates who oversaw his operations nationwide. If the legal team led by federal prosecutor Ronald Safer can convince a jury that Hoover conspired to distribute narcotics, Hoover faces life without parole in some prison far away from his chums.
Hoover’s attorney calls the government’s case preposterous. Anita Rivkin Carothers says all that tape-recorded gang talk was just “fanciful.” Besides, she says, the Feds selectively edited the tapes to make her client look bad. As for the computer list of gang leaders, Carothers says that’s just a roster of Growth and Development members; it was typed as part of the group’s peacemaking efforts. Hoover has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Right now, there’s a power struggle inside the GDs. In January, two gunmen killed Charles (Big Chuck) Dorsey, who took over the gang’s operations in Chicago after the August arrests. “Dorsey wasn’t following orders,” says Chicago police commander Donald Hilbring. “He thought he was higher than Hoover.” That’s treason–apparently punishable by death.
PHOTO (COLOR): Cult figure: Leader Hoover has never met most of his followers
Federal prosecutors allege that the Gangster Disciples have a rigid, corporate hierarchy that’s designed to market illegal drugs. An estimated 50,000 members operate in $5 states. Orders come down, money flows up.
Chairman of the Board Lary Hoover, also known as Chairman Larry or King Larry Board of Directors/prisons Controls 5,000 members in prison Board of Directors/streets Controls street operations Governors controls drug trafficking within large geographical areas, typically supervising four regents Regents supply product and oversee several drug-selling locations, or “spots,” within governor’s realms Area Coordinators collect revenues from spots hourly for transfer to regents First Chair, Second Chair Hands-on control of each spot and its security squad Enforcers “violate,” by means of beatings o killings, members who cheat the gang or disobey other rules Shorties New members or youngsters who staff spots and execute drug deals
