ABSTRACT
The story starts with the surge of gang violence in Los Angeles County in the 1980s-1990s. Los Angeles was experiencing an epidemic of gang violence and murders, exemplified by the now notorious ‘drive-by shooting.’ In my co-authored paper with Martin E. Silverstein, MD, I looked at the impact of gang violence in Los Angeles, describing the seemingly never-ending tempo of gang confrontations and homicides. Our conclusion was that gang victimology and epidemiology were understudied and constituted a chronic, endemic form of conflict disaster.2 Shortly after, I was approached by senior gang and tactical officers within the Los Angeles law enforcement community and asked if gangs could evolve to constitute potential terrorist threats. The short answer was that I didn’t know, but that it was worth looking into. Certainly gang violence had a ‘quasi-terrorist’ component, but the moti vations for their actions seemed to exclude a political dimension-at least at first glance.
