Violence amongst Detroit’s street gangs has increased in recent years. Murderous beefs and turf battles between warring sets highlight a terrain as volatile as it’s been since the 1970s and the days of the infamous Black Killers and Errol Flynns. The most prominent of the current crop of Motor City street gangs is probably the Seven Mile Bloods, an organization not affiliated with the notorious California gang and under siege by the government. “It’s as bad out here on these streets as it’s been in a long time,” said one Gangster Report source plying his trade in the local drug game. “Things are popping off fast and furious. Guys got itchy trigger fingers.” Earlier this year, 15 members of the Seven Mile Bloods, centered on the dangerous east side of Detroit dubbed the “Red Zone,” were indicted in a federal racketeering case alleging widespread illegal narcotics activity, firearm violations and murder. The highest-ranking Seven Mile Bloods to find themselves in handcuffs were Billy (Killa) Arnold, Steven (Steve-O) Arthur, Eugene (Fist) Fisher and Corey (Cocaine Sonny) Bailey. The 28-count indictment built over an 18-month span by a federal drug task force known as the “Detroit One Partnership” chronicles gang affairs dating all the way back to 2003. The group’s drug dealing is alleged to stretch out of state to such locales as Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. Arnold is charged with committing a revenge murder in May 2015 on the same day a fellow Seven Mile Blood was slain. That same week he got into a shootout with a rival. A year prior, Arnold, aided by Bailey, allegedly committed another murder. The Seven Mile Bloods operate in the 48025 zip code, the zip code with the highest homicide rate in the nation, and headquarter out of the area around the Seven Mile Road and Gratiot Avenue intersection. According to the indictment, the gang is quarreling with a series of competing east side street factions including the Hustle Boys, the Gutta Boys, Six Mille Chedda Boys, the Boss Hogs, the Hustler Harder Crew and the MaxOut 220 Crew. Evidence of these disputes have appeared on social media – various boastful and self-incriminating posts found on many of the members’ Facebook and Twitter accounts are a big part of the pending case against them. “Killa” Bailey and “Cocaine Sonny” Bailey, both 29, have periodically been part of the Detroit underground hip-hop scene, rapping for the Hard Work Entertainment label. Arnold raps under the name “Bernizo.” Criminologists and historians differentiate between street gangs like the Seven Mile Bloods and so-called “corporate” urban drug conglomerates like infamous Motor City underworlds regimes of the past led by Young Boys, Inc., (YBI), the Chambers Brothers Gang, the Curry Brothers Gang and the Black Mafia Family (BMF). While YBI, BMF, etc. were primarily entrepreneurial in nature, street gangs like the Seven Mile Bloods are more territorial, repping blocks and sets taking precedent over clocking massive amounts of money and attaining profiles in the press. The east-side Black Killers and west-side Errol Flynns were Detroit’s original two major street- gang entities, springing up in the early 1970s. The “Flynns,” named after the old school actor, were headed by Greg (Bricks) Nix, Frank (Little Frank Nitti) Cunningham and Stanley (Wild Stan) Cherry, the “BKs” ran by Cedric (Chubby) Tooks and Johnny (Little Man) Curry, who went on to start the Curry Brothers Gang later in the decade.
