Welcome to the Jungle

The Jungle, roughly between La Brea Avenue and Crenshaw Boulevard, south of Rodeo Road and north of Santo Tomas Drive in Southwest Los Angeles, was named a gang reduction zone in November.The area's name came from the lush plantings of the pool apartments but has come to signify the gang warfare that emerged from the tropical facades. Although city officials re-christened it Baldwin Village years ago, many residents still call it the Jungle -- P. Stone Jungle, as it has been ruled by the Black P. Stones, a sect of the Bloods, for more than three decades.The gated courtyards and carports of some 560 apartment buildings present a maze into which gangbangers can slip, and the area has some of the highest crime in the city. For years, the P. Stones have been at war with the Latino 18th Street gang to the north.
As casualties mounted, LAPD assigned Whiteman and two other gang-detail officers to the area in 2004. The next year, the FBI and LAPD swept through the area with federal drug indictments for 16 P. Stone leaders. And the year after that, the city attorney filed a gang injunction against the P. Stones, prohibiting them from congregating in public.Police said the P. Stones had been involved in 1,500 aggravated assaults and 28 murders between 2000 and 2005.Now eight gang officers focus solely on the nearly mile-square turf, rolling down the same streets over and over, using the injunction to conduct more searches and arrests, working directly with gang prosecutors.With this level of contact in the neighborhood, they get to know the spectrum of faces, from upstanding residents to hard-core gang members.