luckyseven
Well-Known Member
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- Jan 8, 2015
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I've spent a lot of time in Philly. FWIW I definitely think that "The Dragons" is a reference is The Flying Dragons, a Chinese gang in the northeast. They had a documented presence in Philly in the '80s and the '90s (and still do today). It is probably worth mentioning that around this time The Dragons were taking a major hit - the leader was convicted in 1992, and shortly after there were a lot of arrests which likely also means a lot of snitching, double-crossing, and general violent turmoil. You may not realize it, but street gangs are very real and very prominent on the coasts. The murder rate in Philly was huge around the 80s and 90s, and a big percentage of that was attributed to gang violence. I don't think Chinatown buses were a thing until the late 90s, but, even so, there would definitely have been A LOT of traffic (buses, trains) moving through the 30th St. Station that would have been coming from and going to gang hotspots.
It seems many people think that if this was a "gang hit" it would have went down with the sly quality of mob hits in movies and they wouldn't have left a calling card. There are a lot of identified gangs, and lesser-known factions of those gangs, and individuals from those gangs acting independently, and so on. They all have their own identity and MO --- some street gangs leave symbols or messages behind identifying themselves all the time. That's how a "turf war" works. People tend to stay out gang business, even LE. I could aboslutely see a murder occuring in a busy station. I'm sure someone would have guarded the door, and people would have known to stay away. The world isn't filled with vigilantes, and ESPECIALLY not the gen pop of the 30th St. Station in the early '90s.
And, the fact that the gun came from WI. I don't think it is a far stretch by any measure to imagine that a gang member from WI in posession of a stolen gun could have made his way into NYC or Philly and integrated with some of the larger gangs. Believe it or not, Asian street gangs are the most prominent violent organizations in WI. For example, the Menace of Destruction is a Hmong gang that thrives mostly in the mid-west, especially in MN and WI. One of their main activities is reportedly weapons trafficking. The Hmong people migrated in large number to WI in the '80s because of a war in their homeland, resulting in the Hmong becoming the largest Asian minority in the state. Young Hmong men were often recruited by larger Vietnamese gangs in bigger cities. Research has shown that American-Hmong youth in WI have been particularly prone to engaging in gang violence. Hmong people tend to have Southeast Asian and European facial features, which would account for the discrephrency between whether our UID is Asian or Hispanic.
Personally, I think it makes much more sense that Asian gang violence was involved as opposed to imagining that this guy randomly stole a gun, arrived at a bus station in Philly nearly a decade later (a ~15 hour drive and even slower by bus), put on gloves and wrote a weird cryptic note explicitly referencing a gang, then shot himself in the head.
It seems many people think that if this was a "gang hit" it would have went down with the sly quality of mob hits in movies and they wouldn't have left a calling card. There are a lot of identified gangs, and lesser-known factions of those gangs, and individuals from those gangs acting independently, and so on. They all have their own identity and MO --- some street gangs leave symbols or messages behind identifying themselves all the time. That's how a "turf war" works. People tend to stay out gang business, even LE. I could aboslutely see a murder occuring in a busy station. I'm sure someone would have guarded the door, and people would have known to stay away. The world isn't filled with vigilantes, and ESPECIALLY not the gen pop of the 30th St. Station in the early '90s.
And, the fact that the gun came from WI. I don't think it is a far stretch by any measure to imagine that a gang member from WI in posession of a stolen gun could have made his way into NYC or Philly and integrated with some of the larger gangs. Believe it or not, Asian street gangs are the most prominent violent organizations in WI. For example, the Menace of Destruction is a Hmong gang that thrives mostly in the mid-west, especially in MN and WI. One of their main activities is reportedly weapons trafficking. The Hmong people migrated in large number to WI in the '80s because of a war in their homeland, resulting in the Hmong becoming the largest Asian minority in the state. Young Hmong men were often recruited by larger Vietnamese gangs in bigger cities. Research has shown that American-Hmong youth in WI have been particularly prone to engaging in gang violence. Hmong people tend to have Southeast Asian and European facial features, which would account for the discrephrency between whether our UID is Asian or Hispanic.
Personally, I think it makes much more sense that Asian gang violence was involved as opposed to imagining that this guy randomly stole a gun, arrived at a bus station in Philly nearly a decade later (a ~15 hour drive and even slower by bus), put on gloves and wrote a weird cryptic note explicitly referencing a gang, then shot himself in the head.
