Grape Street Watts Crips

Full Name: Grape Street Watts Crips
Also Known As: Grape Street Crips, Grape Street Watts, Jordan Downs Crips,
Founded: Early 1970s
Founding Location: Jordan Downs Housing Projects, Watts, Los Angeles, California
Years Active: 1970s–present
Territory: Jordan Downs Housing Projects
Ethnicity: Predominantly African-American
Colors: Purple 
Cliques/Subsets: Baby Locs/Watts Baby Locs, Bandera Blocc 97, 103rd Street clique, Dust Town, Peta Roll Squad, Peta Roc Squad, Peta Loc Squad, Parolee Squad, 95th, Dust Town Hoggs, Tip Top
Allies: South Side Watts Varrio Grape 13
Rivals: Bounty Hunter Bloods, PJ Watts Crips, East Coast Crips, Florencia 13
Notable Figures: Kenneth “Crow” Day, Wayne “Honcho” Day, Alphonso Eugene Foster, Brandon “BL” Bullard

The Grape Street Watts Crips (GSWC), also known as Grape Street Crips (GSC), are a long-standing African-American street gang based in the Jordan Downs Housing Projects in Watts, Los Angeles, California. They are one of the largest and most historically entrenched gangs in Watts and have long been the primary gang associated with Jordan Downs. Along with the Bounty Hunter Bloods of Nickerson Gardens and the PJ Watts Crips of Imperial Courts, the Grape Street Crips have been one of the dominant housing-project gangs in the Watts area for decades.

Known for their signature use of the color purple, the Grape Street Crips built a reputation in Watts through drug trafficking, shootings, and a long-running territorial war with the Bounty Hunter Bloods. The gang has also had a complicated relationship with the PJ Watts Crips, alternating between conflict and shifting street alliances depending on the period. Because of its deep roots in Jordan Downs, its role in the crack and PCP era, and its involvement in some of the most well-known gang conflicts in Watts, Grape Street remains one of the most important gangs in the history of the neighborhood.

History And Early History

The roots of the Grape Street Watts Crips go back to the late 1950s and 1960s, when a neighborhood gang known as Watts Varrio Grape operated around Jordan Downs. That earlier group included both Black and Latino members and reflected the local neighborhood makeup of Watts at the time. As racial divisions sharpened in South Los Angeles during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the group split along racial lines. The Latino side evolved into South Side Watts Varrio Grape 13, while the Black faction moved toward the emerging Crip identity in Watts.

During that transition period, the Black faction has been described in older accounts as the Eastside Grape Street Watts Crips or Jordan Downs Crips before the set became more widely known as the Grape Street Watts Crips. By the mid-1970s, the gang had fully adopted the Grape Street Watts Crips name. Like the Bounty Hunter Bloods in Nickerson Gardens and the PJ Watts Crips in Imperial Courts, Grape Street grew inside a major housing project rather than a spread-out neighborhood, which tied the gang closely to Jordan Downs from the beginning.

During the 1980s, the gang became one of the most powerful gangs in Watts as the crack cocaine and PCP trades expanded across South Los Angeles. Under influential figures such as Wayne “Honcho” Day, the gang built a reputation not only as a violent housing-project gang but also as a serious narcotics organization. By the late 1980s, Honcho Day had become one of the most influential figures tied to Grape Street, and some media accounts referred to him as the “Godfather of Watts.”

Members and associates were tied to PCP manufacturing, crack distribution, and interstate trafficking networks that reached well beyond Los Angeles. By that period, Grape Street had become one of the central gangs in Watts, locked in long-running conflicts with Bounty Hunter Bloods and other enemies in nearby projects and neighborhoods.

In 1987, Wayne Day and other Crip figures were tied to the creation of the Consolidated Crip Organization (CCO), an effort to reduce warfare between Crip gangs and create a broader political structure among Crip sets. The project never permanently stabilized the streets, but it reflected the influence Grape Street figures carried during that era.

The gang was also one of the key participants in the 1992 Watts Gang Truce, alongside Bounty Hunter Bloods and PJ Watts Crips. Like the truce between other project gangs in Watts, it temporarily reduced some of the violence but did not permanently end the rivalries that had already been built over years of bloodshed, narcotics conflicts, and territorial warfare. By the 2000s, many of those conflicts had reignited.

Territory

The Grape Street Watts Crips are based in the Jordan Downs Housing Projects, a long-standing public housing development in Watts. Their territory is generally centered around 97th Street to 103rd Street, between Grape Street and Alameda Street, though the gang’s influence historically extended into the surrounding blocks around Jordan Downs.

Jordan Downs gave the gang a compact project environment with narrow walkways and tightly packed buildings, making it easier to watch who came in and out of the neighborhood. Over time, that layout helped cement the housing project as Grape Street territory.

The gang’s location also placed it in immediate proximity to its major enemies. Nickerson Gardens, home of the Bounty Hunter Bloods, lies nearby, while Imperial Courts, home of the PJ Watts Crips, sits just south of Jordan Downs. The concentration of three major housing-project gangs within a small section of Watts helped fuel some of the most persistent gang warfare in South Los Angeles.

Identity and Structure

The Grape Street Watts Crips are one of the few Crip gangs in Los Angeles, most strongly associated with the color purple rather than blue. The color is a direct reference to the gang’s name, and over the years, Grape Street members have been known for wearing purple bandanas, Los Angeles Lakers gear, and at times Minnesota Vikings apparel because of the team’s purple color scheme.

Members also use identifiers such as GSWC, GSC, JDC, and various Jordan Downs references in graffiti, tattoos, and hand signs. Members have also tattooed phrases such as “Grape Watts” on their bodies to show loyalty to the neighborhood and the gang.

The gang has long operated through a decentralized clique structure rather than a rigid chain of command. Senior members and established “shot callers” have traditionally carried influence based on age, reputation, and control over money or street politics. Beneath that level, the gang has been divided into multiple cliques and subgroups tied to different sections of Jordan Downs.

Documented subsets include Baby Locs, Watts Baby Locs, Bandera Blocc 97, Dust Town, 103rd Street, Peta Roll Squad, Peta Roc Squad, Peta Loc Squad, Parolee Squad, 95th, Dust Town Hoggs, and Tip Top.

Documented Incidents

The Jordan Downs Arson Murders (1991)

One of the most notorious crimes associated with the Jordan Downs gang environment occurred on September 7, 1991, when a family living in the housing project was targeted in an arson attack after repeated tensions involving gang activity and neighborhood harassment. According to court records, Victor Spencer, Harold Mangram, and Frank Villareal were involved in an attack in which gasoline was poured through the mail slot of a Jordan Downs apartment and set on fire.

The blaze killed five members of a Mexican family, including three children. The murders became one of the most infamous crimes connected to the violent environment surrounding Jordan Downs in the early 1990s. The case reflected the racial tension and retaliatory violence that had taken hold inside Jordan Downs during that period.

The Watts Gang Truce (1992)

The Grape Street Watts Crips were one of the central gangs involved in the 1992 Watts Gang Truce, joining Bounty Hunter Bloods and PJ Watts Crips in one of the most significant peace efforts in modern Watts gang history. The truce temporarily reduced some of the warfare between the major project gangs in Watts, but it did not erase the rivalries, drug conflicts, and territorial tensions that had developed over the previous two decades.

The Murder of Brandon “BL” Bullard and the East Coast War (2008)

A major turning point in modern Grape Street history came on January 27, 2008, when Brandon “BL” Bullard, a prominent and highly respected Grape Street Watts Crips member, was shot and killed during a party on East Florence Avenue. Bullard was widely regarded as an influential figure inside the gang, and his death immediately triggered retaliation.

The killing helped ignite a violent war between Grape Street Watts Crips and East Coast Crips. Over the following weeks, shootings spread across South Los Angeles, leaving multiple people dead and wounded. The conflict became one of the most serious gang wars in the area during that period and showed how quickly tensions between longtime Black Los Angeles gangs could turn into open warfare.

The PCP Trafficking Case / Alphonso Eugene Foster (2008–2011)

One of the most important federal cases tied to the Grape Street Watts Crips centered on a large PCP trafficking operation led by Alphonso Eugene Foster, a senior Grape Street figure, and Kim Vernell Walker of the Santana Blocc Crips. Federal investigators alleged that the group used a San Bernardino graffiti-removal business as a front to obtain regulated chemicals used in PCP production, then moved them to a clandestine lab in Landers, California.

Authorities later seized more than 40 gallons of PCP hidden inside a car-transport truck in Missouri and linked the conspiracy to a larger interstate distribution network. Foster was ultimately convicted and sentenced to life without parole in 2011. The case showed that Grape Street’s narcotics activity had gone far beyond neighborhood crack sales and had developed into a large-scale PCP manufacturing and trafficking operation.

Operation “Grapes of Wrath” and the Tennessee Drug Case (2019–2022)

A later federal case showed that the Grape Street name had spread well beyond Watts. In 2019, federal prosecutors in Tennessee announced Operation Grapes of Wrath, a case that charged 16 defendants in a drug trafficking conspiracy tied to the Grape Street Crips. According to the indictment, the case centered on methamphetamine, heroin, fentanyl, and firearms offenses involving defendants in Memphis and one defendant from Los Angeles.

Sentencings in the case continued through 2022, including the sentencing of the final defendant in November 2022. Although the case involved a Tennessee branch rather than the original Jordan Downs set, it showed how far the Grape Street name had spread and how it continued to surface in major federal narcotics cases decades after the gang’s rise in Watts.

In Entertainment

The Grape Street Watts Crips have had a visible presence in Los Angeles gang culture, rap history, and film because of the gang’s long-standing place in Watts street history.

The most famous depiction of Jordan Downs in cinema came in Menace II Society (1993), directed by the Hughes brothers. The film used Jordan Downs as one of its central settings, and in the movie’s narration, the housing project is identified as the neighborhood where Caine lives with his grandparents. The production was also filmed in and around Jordan Downs and David Starr Jordan High School, helping give the movie its raw, location-based feel.

Jordan Downs was also the focus of Watts Waits (2015), an award-winning documentary short directed by Drew Bachrach. The film examined the history of the housing project, the effects of the crack era, and the uncertainty surrounding the redevelopment and demolition of the original Jordan Downs buildings. Unlike crime reporting or gang documentaries, Watts Waits focused more on the residents, family networks, and the changing future of the neighborhood itself.

In rap, one of the strongest modern ties to Grape Street is 03 Greedo, the Watts rapper whose music has repeatedly referenced the set and its neighborhood identity. Projects and songs such as The Wolf of Grape Street and Rich On Grape Street made that connection explicit and helped carry the Grape Street name into a newer generation of Los Angeles rap listeners.

Outside of Watts, the Grape Street name has also surfaced in battle rap through Arsonal da Rebel, the Newark battle rapper who has openly admitted his affiliation with the New Jersey chapter of the Grape Street Crips. His affiliation shows how the Grape Street name spread beyond Los Angeles and into East Coast rap and battle-rap circles.

Allies and Rivals

Historically, the Grape Street Watts Crips have aligned with several other Crip sets and at times maintained a relationship with South Side Watts Varrio Grape 13 and Compton Crips. Depending on the period, Grape Street has also been linked to alliances or working relationships with gangs such as Eight Trey Gangster Crips, Rollin’ 30s Harlem Crips, and other Crip sets in Los Angeles and Compton.

The Bounty Hunter Bloods of Nickerson Gardens have been the gang’s most deadly and oldest rival. That feud is one of the defining gang conflicts in Watts and has fueled decades of retaliatory shootings, murders, and project-based warfare. The gang has also had a long-running conflict with the PJ Watts Crips, a rivalry made more complicated by PJ Watts’ periodic alignment with Bounty Hunter Bloods against Grape Street.

Other enemies over the years have included Q102 East Coast Crips, especially after the 2008 murder of Brandon “BL” Bullard, as well as Florencia 13. They also feud with Hacienda Village Bloods and Circle City Piru.

Recent Activity and Redevelopment

In recent years, the Jordan Downs housing project has undergone major redevelopment, and that process has begun to change the neighborhood that had anchored the Grape Street Watts Crips for decades. Older project buildings have been demolished and replaced with new mixed-income housing, retail space, and redesigned public areas. That redevelopment has broken up parts of the old project layout and changed the makeup of the neighborhood.

At the same time, surveillance systems, gang intervention programs, and long-term policing strategies have increased the pressure on gang activity inside Jordan Downs. The redevelopment of Jordan Downs has changed the setting that helped shape Grape Street for decades, even if the gang’s name still carries weight in Watts.

News

• Grape Street Vs Bounty Hunter Bloods
• Watts Beset by Retaliatory Shootings
• FBI Charges Grape Street Crips