Sons of Samoa is a

Crips The Crips are a primarily African-American alliance of street gangs that are based in the coastal regions of Southern California. Founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1969, mainly by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams, the Crips ...

-affiliated

street gang A gang is a social group, group or secret society, society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over Wiktionary:territory#Noun, territory in a ...

based in

Long Beach Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...

, California, United States. Its membership mainly consists of Samoan Americans with other Pacific Islander members.

History

The Sons of Samoa gang is a faction of the

gang based in west Long Beach, California. In 1985, the Sons of Samoa gang had about 200 members scattered throughout Long Beach, many of whom were Samoan immigrants or first-generation Samoans. In the late 1980s, it was the focus of a Long Beach Police Department sweep after gang members had attacked two police officers. Around the same time, they were in a gang war with a gang from Garden Grove. In 2015, an investigation led to new charges and the arrest of a Sons of Samoa member for a murder in 1996. Three SOS members were arrested on March 16, 2021, for the February 9 fatal shooting of a man during late hours on the street near a church in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...

. The victim was not known to have had any connection with the suspects.

Activities

In the 1980s, the Sons of Samoa were heavily involved with the sale and use of

cocaine Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid and central nervous system stimulant, derived primarily from the leaves of two South American coca plants, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense, E. novogranatense'', which are cultivated a ...

and PCP, as well as robbery, burglary, and extortion. In the 1990s, the Suicidals subset of the Sons of Samoa sold drugs in alleyways. A 2011 report from the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

listed Alaska, California, Missouri, Utah, and Washington as states where the Sons of Samoa operated.

References

{{Organized crime groups in Los Angeles Organizations established in 1976 1976 establishments in California Crips subgroups Pacific Islands-American gangs Samoan diaspora in the United States Gangs in Los Angeles