Memphis, Tennessee serves as the Southern headquarters for clicks in the United States. According to the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department, there are approximately 182 gangs with 84,000 gang members in the county.
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Major cliques like OTM Business, KingGate Mafia, DouglassMAAB, YoungMob, MurdaSquad, TrullaMafia, HoodMob, O Gangboyz and FastCashBoys also major street gangs such as the Grape Street Crips, Bloods, Concrete Cartel Vice Lords, and the Folk Nation Gangster Disciples, with a growing presence of Latino gangs like La Raza Nation, MS-13, Mexican Mafia, Latin Eagles, Maniac Latin Disciples and Latin Kings. In 2010, 26 gang members faced deportation after they were arrested with ties to the Vatos Locos and Sureno-13 gangs.
Gangs in the Memphis area are concentrated in high crime neighborhoods like Hollywood, Hickory Hill, Parkway Village, Westwood, Raleigh, Frayser, Orange Mound, Whitehaven and Binghampton; but their presence is also felt in the suburbs of Tipton County, Tennessee.
After a series of gang related robberies at Tom Lee Park on the river bluff in downtown Memphis, the Memphis Police Department said that "they often feel powerless to control these out-of-control teens." In May 2013, high school students warned Memphis City Schools against a proposed school merger of Booker T. Washington High School and Carver High school. "It's like putting the Crips and Bloods together in a national convention."
In 2013, Memphis City Council and Memphis Mayor A C Wharton cut funding for Blue CRUSH, the gang division of the Memphis Police Department.
Sex trafficking
In 2013, The FBI arrested Gangster Disciples Folk Nation members on sex-trafficking charges and forced child prostitution.
Neighborhoods
According to the Governor's Public Safety Forum on Tennessee Gangs, gangs operate in Memphis rural communities like Northhaven and in predominantly black neighborhoods of North Memphis, South Memphis, Frayser, Whitehaven, Binghampton, Orange Mound, Hickory Hill and Riverside.
Famous Memphis gang activity
A member of the Gangster Disciples and allegedly the biggest drug dealer in the history of Memphis, getting drugs directly from Edgar Valdez Villarreal of the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel and funneling millions of dollars to the Black Mafia Family. In 2011, he pleaded guilty to 23 counts of violent crime and racketeering after working with the Sinaloa Cartel to build a drug trafficking empire in 5 states.
In mainstream culture
Music styles that originated from Memphis gangsta rap culture include Southern hip hop and crunk, made famous by Three 6 Mafia, Project Pat, and Hypnotize Minds. In the 2000s, the music genre gained acceptance after winning an Academy Award for the song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from Hustle and Flow.