The Youth Gang Phenomenon: What Every Parent Should Know

A startling new phenomenon has emerged among America’s school age children that parents need to know about. Youth gangs! Children as young as grade-school are being approached and recruited to join these secretive, insular, and sometimes violent organizations.

Many of these gangs may disguise themselves as legitimate clubs, even going so far as to refer to themselves as a club, but do not be fooled. Their secretive nature, cult-like loyalty oath, code of conduct enforced with threats of violence, and the use of mysterious symbols and language among its members are all tell-tale indicators of a gang.

Here are just some of the youth gangs that have been identified, possibly operating in your own neighborhood!

THE BLOODY FIVE and THE FIENDS
The Bloody Five are a small group of boys known to headquarter in junk yards and scrap car lots.

Only boys considered “neat enough” are invited to join, and membership is for life. Members are required to recite a loyalty oath, as follows:

I, (state-your-name), promise to be a loyal member of the Bloody Five. And only go around with other Bloody Five guys as long as I live. And not to squeal on them, even if I get killed for it.

The details of their initiation rituals are not known, but they may be similar to those of a copy-cat gang that has been seen operating in the same neighborhood called The Fiends.

The Fiends can be identified by the skull-and-crossbones armband worn on the right arm, and a hood disguising the member's face.

They are known to hold midnight meetings in cemeteries, but potential new members attend a ceremony in the basement of a current member's home, blindfolded to conceal its location.

THE WILDCATS
The Wildcats are an all-boy gang known to establish their headquarters secretly in the barns of unsuspecting farmers.

Wildcats loyalty oath:

I promise I will never reveal any of the secrets of The Wildcats. I will not even tell anyone there is such a club as The Wildcats. And if I ever do, I will be struck down by the Curse of the Claw.

The Wildcats use a secret hand gesture to close their meetings, a cat-like swipe of the arm accompanied by a “Wildcat growl”. Meetings are often held by candlelight, with one member designated “The Keeper of the Flame”. While not considered a dangerous gang, the Wildcats have been tied to at least one case of arson involving a barn they were using as a meeting place.

Below is a file photo of a Wildcat’s sacred candle, seized as evidence as part of the arson investigation.

HE-MAN WOMAN HATERS CLUB
A larger gang consisting of as many as a dozen males, The He-Man Woman Haters Club was formed after an area girl held a party and failed to invite any boys.

They have a strict code of conduct forbidding them from interacting with girls.

Code of Conduct:

No man is to be seen with girls. You can’t look at them, walk with them, talk with them, or write letters to them.

Punishment for violation is five swats administered by their Sergeant-at-Arms.

The He-Man Women Haters Club can sometimes be seen patrolling neighborhood streets looking for members in violation.

THE EARTHQUAKE GANG
The Earthquake Gang is an inner-city gang operating out of an abandoned house.

While mostly boys, they recently added a female member to their ranks. Members of The Earthquake Gang can be identified by their denim vests with a red skull on the back, and black leather wristbands.

Earthquake Gang members are known to adopt an alias ("Rocky", "Muscles", "Crusher", "Dazzler, etc.) and typically do not attend school.

Although their current reputation is as a “nothing gang” (youth street lingo indicating they lack influence or status) they aspire to take over the entire territory, and have been known to engage in turf wars with other gangs, such as The Golden Goons.

File photo below shows the results of one such encounter:

THE RED HAND GANG
The Red Hand Gang is another inner-city group that, like The Earthquake Gang, is mostly boys, but with one female member.

The gang has been tied to kidnappings, jewel theft, unlawful transport of a monkey, and other general mischief, including impersonating a mannequin, as this file photo reveals:

Their headquarters is a makeshift shack located in a vacant lot.

They are known to “tag” (youth lingo for vandalize with graffiti) their sign, a red hand, on public and private property.

Their leader can signal other members using a small flute.

New members are initiated by writing a red letter “R” on their right hand. While the Red Hand Gang is a youth gang, there is at least one known adult member, believed to be a transient.

Is YOUR child in a youth gang?

Know the signs.

Heed the warnings.

Get involved!

Spooky Little Rascals (Our Gang) episodes

The Little Rascal's (a.k.a. Our Gang) was something I remember watching very early Saturday mornings (before the current cartoon lineup got rolling) and afternoons after school. As far as I was concerned, it was the oldest TV show I'd ever seen (having no idea at the time that these were actually theatrical shorts, that predated consumer television by good twenty years or so).

Despite their age, the humor and appeal of the characters arrived in the 1970s intact (save a few head-scratching references to things like castor oil or "mush"). Part of the appeal for me was the sheer anarchy on display in many of the episodes... a sharp contrast to the supervised and safety-conscious play environments I was accustomed to.

These kids often operated in an adult-free, child-ruled alternate reality, like an urbanized Lord of the Flies. Either that, or they were being antagonized by a borderline criminal adult authority (e.g. crooked orphanage, evil dog-catcher, etc.) that wholly justified any mayhem they might partake in. Either way, it was alluring stuff.

Occasionally The Little Rascal's adventures took a turn for the scary, and of course those are some of my best remembered episodes.

BOUNCING BABIES (1929)

Our first entry is the only Little Rascals short I'm aware of that is actually set on Halloween day. Not that this has any import to the plot, which revolves around Wheezer's (Robert Hutchins) attempt to return his toddler sister to the hospital in exchange for a goat. But it does provide an excuse for the other Rascals to give him and Farina (Allen Hoskins) a scare while in costume.



THE FIRST ROUND-UP (1934)

In this 1934 episode, Spanky (George MacFarland), Stymie (Matthew Beard), Scotty (Scotty Beckett) and others decide to go on a camping trip at Cherry Creek.

It isn't long after the campfire is lit when Spanky and Scotty, the youngest of the group, start speculating excitedly about the possible presence of ghosts.

SPANKY: I hope it gets good and dark!
SCOTTY: Yea, maybe we'll see some ghosts!

Ironically, its the older children that start to get spooked by this suggestion.

When Spanky notices the lantern is projecting his own shadow on a bridge beam, he playfully strikes various lurking poses...

...which appear as a sinister figure to the other kids.

After the others have fled the campsite, Spanky and Scotty are in for a fright of their own when the lantern appears to move on its own (we can see its merely sitting on the back of a turtle).

As they scramble to escape, they become entangled in some bedding which makes them appear as some kind of unusual beast, causing further panic.



OUR GANG FOLLIES OF 1936 (1935)

Spanky, Alfalfa (Carl Switzer), Buckwheat (Billie Thomas) and the rest of the gang are putting on one of their famous variety shows.

One of the acts opens in a moonlit graveyard. A spirit whistles past overhead.

Skeletons rise up one-by-one from behind the tombstones.

A skeleton dance begins!

Porky (Eugene Lee) provides the sound effects of the rattling bones.

The terrified faces in the audience are priceless.

As the dance ends, the skeletons are lifted straight up into the rafters.

But the scares continue between acts after Spanky tosses off his skeleton mask...

...and it lands on his pet monkey...

...which proceeds to chase a frightened Buckwheat off-stage.



SPOOKY HOOKY (1936)

When the circus comes to town, Alfalfa, Spanky, Buckwheat and Porky hatch a plan to get out of school the following day so they can attend.

They forge a doctor's note claiming they're all sick with colds ("or maybe new monia") and leave it on the teacher's desk.

But when they later learn the teacher planned to take the entire class to the circus the following day anyway as a field trip, they sneak back to the school later that night to retrieve their letter.

Buckwheat, left out front alone to stand guard, is freaked out by a nearby owl...

...which is admittedly a little creepy, with only its glowing eyes visible.

Meanwhile, inside the school, a distracted Porky has donned a sheet...

...which interrupts Spanky's lecture to a frightened Alfalfa that there's no such thing as ghosts.

At this point, all the commotion has awakened the sleep-in janitor.

Buckwheat, attempting to hide, accidentally backs up into the bony grips of an anatomy skeleton...

...which continues to cling to his shoulders as he runs through the school.

The janitor flees in mortal fear of the classroom skeleton, even though he surely must have seen the thing every day he came to work...



HIDE AND SHRIEK (1938)

Our next spooky episode begins when Buckwheat and Porky visit Alfalfa's detective agency, which sports the coolest front-door peephole I've ever seen.

While looking for clues investigating a stolen box of candy, the gang ends up hiding in a crate on the back of a truck that, unknown to them, is headed to a haunted attraction at a Long Beach amusement park.

They overhear the workers talk about delivering a pair of headless bodies to the "murder house"...

...but the kids are unaware they're referring to decorations for a ride, and exit the crate terrified.

Alfalfa accidently activates the ride while trying to switch on the lights. A record player with a scary narrator is triggered.

"Many enter this evil house, but few depart alive! But I will give you a chance! There are two doors. If you choose the right one, you may escape. But if you choose the wrong one... Ha ha ha ha!"

The first door they try opens to this jiggling figure.

The next door reveals this smoke-breathing monster. Porky and Alfalfa try to run, but the floor is a treadmill, and they merely run in place as the creature's arms stretch towards them.

Meanwhile Buckwheat, who stayed behind in another room, finds an aquarium populated by skeletal fish.

When he sits down on an organ bench, he is joined by two skeletons, which lower alongside him from above.

Soon Buckwheat joins Porky and Alfalfa. A trapdoor has opened at the end of the treadmill, and as each child tires and falls, they are dropped through the floor...

...and down a chute.

The exit is blocked by this devil-masked skeleton that swings towards them.

The narrator commands them to sit on the bench. When they comply, a safety bar lowers, trapping them as the bench lurches forward.

A massive buzzsaw, positioned right at their neck, blocks their path, but lifts at the last second.

The terrified kids are deposited at the ride's exit.




SPOOK SPOOFING (1928)

This final episode is also the oldest, a silent episode starring Farina, who plays a superstitious boy, afraid of ghosts.

Through a series of practical jokes, he is tricked into believing he's killed another boy, and carries him to the graveyard for burial. Of course the other Rascals are lying in wait with costumes and props to give him a good scare.

This creepy skeletal horse looks like something that escaped from a Survival Research Laboratories show.


The Little Rascals has been available in several different iterations on DVD and VHS, but just go for the 8-disc, 80-episode complete collection.