August 14, 1953 - Raymond Washington
What Washington set in motion as a teenager in South Los Angeles grew far beyond anything a local street gang typically becomes. The organization he founded in the late 1960s expanded dramatically after his death, eventually spreading across the United States and becoming one of the most recognizable gang structures in American criminal history — a trajectory he did not live to see, having been killed at twenty-five.
From Wikipedia
Raymond Lee Washington (August 14, 1953 – August 9, 1979) was an American gangster, known as the founder of the Crips gang in Los Angeles. Washington formed the Crips as a minor street gang in the late 1960s in South Los Angeles, becoming a prominent local crime boss. In 1971, Washington formed an alliance with Stanley "Tookie" Williams, establishing the Crips as the first major African-American street gang in Los Angeles, and served as one of the co-leaders. In 1974, Washington was convicted of robbery and received a five-year prison sentence, during which his leadership and influence in the Crips declined.
On August 9, 1979, Raymond Washington was murdered in a drive-by shooting shortly after his release from prison.
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