[36][37] It has mostly taken place in major American cities, especially L.A., but is also present in Australia, Belize, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

The LAPD's 1987 anti-gang initiative, Operation Hammer, included the vandalism of people's homes, and led to mass incarceration which did not greatly reduce gang violence.

In response, the gangs' L.A. sets gained a sense of solidarity, and in 1992, signed a truce in the city conflict; the violence resumed in 1993, due to continuing tensions and economic instability.

[40][42] In the 1970s, law enforcement agencies heavily patrolled the South Central area, after civilians had been participating in "collective violence" against local government in the 1960s and 70s.

In 1972, Los Angeles County created a "Street Gang Detail" LAPD unit to combat violent groups.

[38] In 1977, the police unit CRASH started, which targeted gangs mainly in the Watts housing projects of Imperial Courts, Nickerson Gardens, and Jordan Downs.

The Reagan administration supported the removal of many Americans from welfare rolls, food stamps, and school lunch programs, which worsened the conflict.

[46] In 2014, Business Insider wrote that gang colors and tattoos had stopped being used, so members could avoid scrutiny from law enforcement, witnesses to their crimes, or potential employers.

[49] In the summer of 1987, as a response to the crack epidemic, LAPD officers started Operation Hammer in Los Angeles, which had a goal of "[making] life miserable" for gang members by arresting them for misdemeanors like traffic citations.

They also performed raids which vandalized local homes; this and similar "gang-like" behavior lead to mass violence and arson.

[51] In the early 1990s, the Amer-I-Can program (led by former NFL player Jim Brown) had been holding discreet meetings on "the principles of responsibility and self-determination".

Meanwhile, starting the night of the truce and continuing through the riots, the Crips and Bloods partied together at the Imperial Courts and Nickerson Gardens projects.

On May 16 and 17, as the National Guard was being withdrawn from Los Angeles, the Crips and Bloods sponsored a Saturday "unity picnic" and a Sunday family event which welcomed members of the community.

One of the organizers of the truce said that despite a decrease in gang violence, "this community [Watts] is more hopeless now that it was before", and that "they have no hope that anything is gonna change".

Time magazine wrote: "Given the continued lack of jobs, substandard housing, limited educational opportunities, and police harassment—all of the conditions that precipitated the rebellion in the first place—the old status quo seemed destined to reemerge.

"[38] Famous rapper and actor Tupac Shakur was murdered in Las Vegas in September 1996; he was shot on the 7th and died from his wounds on the 13th.

On April 26, 2006, Mendenhall's son Anthony Owens was shot and killed outside Imperial Courts, in a drive-by shooting perpetrated by the Carver Park Compton Crips.

Police honored her as a peacemaker, and provided to her a motorcade escort to the funeral, which was visited by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

[43] In 2006, Charlie Beck, a former CRASH officer, became Deputy Chief for the South Bureau of the Los Angeles Police Department.

He worked with civil rights lawyer Connie Rice to develop "a plan to train, certify and deploy gang-intervention workers to the city's hot spots".

The New York Times described the program as such: "Schools in neighborhoods with the highest gang presence, including Watts, now systematically identify the most at-risk children for extra services; gang-intervention workers receive city financing; and the city provides summer activities through its Summer Night Lights programs, which keeps parks and recreation centers open later in high-crime neighborhoods."

[59] In April 2015, Baltimore's police department announced that there was a "credible threat" of violence from the city's Crips, Bloods, and Black Guerrilla Family, saying that the three gangs had formed a partnership.

[62] Also that year, Bloods and Crips in Atlanta cooperated during Black Lives Matter protests over the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.

In December 2017, a leader of the Bloods in Franklin, Virginia, Brandon Lee Leonard, was shot and left in a ditch behind his girlfriend's house some time after getting into a confrontation with a member of a rival gang affiliated with the Crips.

[65][66] In 2020, an up-and-coming Blood rapper from Fort Worth, Texas, named Javien Calvin Wright ("J-Dub"), was fatally shot outside of his residence.

"Arguing and posturing" regarding his death began on social media; notably, a YouTube vlogger uploaded a video titled "Why Channel-5 J-Dub is dead.

This conflict over Wright, which began to involve members of gangs on the east and south sides of Fort Worth, led to a gathering of over 400 people at the city's Village Creek Park on May 10.

[67][68] In February 2022, in Los Angeles, Skipp Townsend held a peace meeting over brunch with the rivaling Rollin' 60s Crips and Inglewood Family Bloods at a restaurant in Manhattan Beach.

In 2024, he held The Pop Out: Ken & Friends concert in Los Angeles, in which Bloods and Crips celebrated together as a way to demonstrate unity against rapper Drake during the Drake–Kendrick Lamar feud.

[73] Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has a gang warfare gameplay mechanic, where players — acting as Grove Street Family member Carl Johnson — can kill Ballas to take over the city of "Los Santos" in sections.