Insane Deuces

The Insane Deuces spawned out of the Morgan Deuces gang that operated out of the Pilsen neighborhood along Morgan Street.  The Morgan Deuces date all the way back to 1959 as they were founded between 16th and 18th and Morgan in Pilsen.  A short time later the Morgan Deuces opened Taylor and Morgan in the Near West Side neighborhood.

In the year 1971, “Lil Rich” of the Morgan Deuces moved from 18^th and Morgan to the Lathrop public housing projects which is located mostly in the North Center neighborhood and partially in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on Chicago’s north side.  “Lil Rich” met up with a group of kids of mixed race, white, African American and Hispanic that were all friends of his cousin Augie (also known as Baby D or Wet Back) and told them the wonderful stories of the crazy gang banging on the streets of Pilsen.  He told them the famous battles that went down along 18^th street while these kids shared their own stories of watching the Barons and Blackhawk Hoyne Outlaws dominate the projects.  The Morgan Deuces had a wicked reputation and since Richie was a member he was especially admired.  Some of these 12 kids Lil Rich met were members of the Junior Barons which was the younger members of the older Barons Street gang.  I do not know what happened to the Blackhawk Hoyne Outlaws but at some point, they died out and the Senior Barons were raising families and not as strong after their leader Gilbert Sanchez was killed on July 27, 1968.

The Barons considered the projects as theirs and protected that territory and now their younger Junior Barons were ready to gangbang as hard as or harder than the Senior Barons, but the Senior Barons were running out of gas and were not as wild anymore.  Lil Rich and guys like “Baby D,” and “Wink D” wanted to get a newer club going that could be a spinoff of both the Junior Barons and the Morgan Deuces that is when they came up with the “North Side Deuces” but that quickly changed to “Insane Deuces” and they became more independent of the Morgan Deuces.  At that point in 1971, the Barons retired and left the projects to the Deuces and Deuces agreed to protect the projects and the Barons’ families.  The original 12 Insane Deuces were mixed race reflecting on the demographic of the projects at the time.  Augie was Puerto Rican as was Lil Rich while Wink was black who just returned from Vietnam.  Keg, another founder was Irish and Humphries was Italian, all were founders.

In the early 70s a group of youths in Hamlin Park in the North Center neighborhood called “Hamlin Park” were having on and off conflicts with the Paulina Barry Community.  The two groups would fight then make up and play football together.  In the year 1973, the Paulina Barry Community original members were hippies and were starting to retire from their large party scene.  A younger group of PBCs joined the group and became full-fledged gangbanger types with colors and everything, this conflicted with Hamlin Park.  Hamlin Park then joined the ranks of the Insane Deuces becoming the notorious Hamlin Park Insane Deuces.

Almost simultaneously, the Deuces set up another section out in front of Friedrich L Jahn Public School at 3149 N Wolcott Ave (Belmont and Wolcott), this set was named the “Jahn Deuces.”  The fight was mainly against white gangs especially Simon City Royals and Paulina Barry Community.

Now the Insane Deuces had 3 factions and continued to grow throughout the 1970s reaching hundreds of members.  The Deuces would make friends with the Latin Kings around and inside the projects in the mid-1970s and allowed the Latin Kings to move into the buildings at “The Shoe Horn” which was the intersection of Leavitt and Hoyne and all the buildings in that area in the year 1975.

The Insane Deuces really got their claim to fame on July 10, 1974 when two of their members gunned down the Simon City Royals’ gang leader Rashad “Arab” Zayed on Melrose Avenue as he exited his car parked inside of a garage.  The Deuces then grabbed his body and took it to the corner of Melrose and Damen and dumped the body out in front of Man-Jo-Vins restaurant at 3224 N Damen Ave; this big murder gave the Deuces much more recognition.

In the year 1976, the Insane Deuces colonized the ripe suburb of Aurora, IL that only had local gang activity at the time that was starting to disburse.  The Aurora Insane Deuces came to be, because a high ranking Latin King by the name of Angel Luciano settled in the suburb in the mid-1970s and his son “Rican” was an Insane Deuce gang member.  The Lucianos moved from the Lathrop projects which are where the Deuces were born in 1971.  Soon other Insane Deuces joined Rican in the suburb like “Iceman” and the men hung out at the street corner of Claim and Union right in front of the old Claim Laundromat with Latin Kings (closed down sometime back in the 1990s).

The Deuces in Aurora were more a sleeper cell until about 1980 when they took in some youths in the area such as: Cuevas, Smurf, Lil Man, Grease Ball, Chatti, Albert “Psycho” Gonzalez, Duke, Bam Bam, Coco, Bugsy, Rican, Gator, Shorty D and Ghost and so began the major growth of the A-Town Deuces out in the suburbs and in the early 1980s, Albert “Psycho” Gonzalez became the leader of the younger Aurora Deuces right after he joined the gang and was known as the first Aurora Deuce leader. Aurora was in the earliest stages of becoming a rough and tough neighborhood as gangs like Black Gangster Disciples, Imperial Insane Vice Lords and Latin Disciples (MLDs) began invading the area.

In the year 1981, the Insane Deuces joined the People alliance alongside the Latin Kings and Gaylords.  The three organizations then became “Almighty.”

I am not exactly sure when Insane Deuces came to the suburb or Elgin, but it seemed to have happened in the early 1980s as Latin Kings were also settling that suburb at that time.  This began a notorious suburban chapter for the Insane Deuces.  I don’t have much more on the Elgin Deuces but will add more to this when I do.

Deuces began hanging out in the northwest area of the Chicago metro area in the mid-1980s while colonizing Portage Park and Jefferson Park.  It was at this point that Deuces reached their peak of success in the city.

In the year 1986 the Insane Deuces from Belmont and Damen moved to the Hermosa neighborhood and opened territory at Diversey and Kilbourn.  This branch was blessed by Gaylords and Stoned Freaks from the area that needed support battling Imperial Gangsters, Spanish Cobras, Latin Eagles and Maniac Latin Disciples.  This branch would last until 1992 when the Deuces flipped to the Folk alliance as they went back to Hamlin Park.

By the late 1980s the Deuces had grown to a pretty large number and were still in control of some of the Lathrop projects and where still the biggest gang in Aurora; however, an ally threatened that very existence, the Latin Kings.

Starting in 1987 Latin Kings and Insane Deuces began having some arguments at times over drug turf and other issues.  The Latin Kings where a larger gang than the Deuces and felt they should have more of a significant stake in the Insane Deuce highly successful crack distribution operation that was operating on much higher drug profit margins than the Latin Kings in the projects.  Another issue was that Latin Kings were exerting total dominance of the Lathrop projects and were now claiming most of the buildings by the late 1980s which was not part of the original agreement made in the 1970s.  Newer generations of both groups didn’t share the same ties to each other as the older groups, older members of the Deuces still active were invested in the crack cocaine game and feuding with Latin Kings.  The Latin Kings grew by aggressively in the projects recruiting many Deuces into Latin Kings.  The Kings were taking over by Diversey and Hoyne and the other side of the projects leaving the Deuces with much less territory in the buildings.

The Original street corner in Aurora at Claim and Union had become taken over by Latin Kings because Kings were flipping Deuces which disturbed older members.

In 1987, the Puerto Rican Stones, Insane Deuces and the Ghetto Brothers Organization held a meeting to consider war on the Latin Kings; however, the GBOs and Stones never ended up following through.

By 1989, the tensions were building more between Deuces and Kings. Vice Lords tried to smooth things over in Aurora, but Deuces accused the Vice Lords of being more on the Latin King’s side.  Not only this, the drug trade was swinging in favor of the Aurora Deuces over Aurora Latin Kings.

In the year 1989, Lord Gino, the incarcerated leader of the entire Latin Kings organization moved his girlfriend Bambi also known as “Lady Q” into the suburb of Aurora in order to be closer to the massive drug trade taking part in the suburb her mission was to also get connected with “Lil Man” who was a major drug dealer for the Insane Deuces. This was the beginning of a back story into a future eruption in Aurora.  In the meantime in the city, Deuces had enough of Latin King dominance in the projects and this is when the Ghetto Brothers Organization embarked in a war with Latin Kings as Deuces also engaged in war with the Kings.  It soon became prevalent in 1989 that the Latin Kings were now the Insane Deuces biggest enemies on the streets taking precedence over their ongoing conflicts with the Simon City Royals, Paulina Barry Community and the Maniac Latin Disciples.  The war became bloody in the projects in 1989 as bullets flew and bodies dropped.  War was complete in the city and was on the brink in Aurora.

Now back to the Lady Q story, In 1989, Lady Q lured Lil Man to the Lathrop projects for a drug deal for cocaine just before the war, Lil Man was taken by surprise when Latin Kings robbed him and shot him up, Lil Man somehow survived despite being shot several times.  The Insane Deuces were angered by the betrayal and kidnapped Lady Qs daughter in exchange for money.   The Latin Kings hunted down more Deuce members in Aurora and shot at them in their cars in early 1990, now this really pissed off the Deuces even though no one was killed.

On June 3, 1990 Jorge Carvajal an Insane Deuce and Alex Ramos a Latin King got into a fist fight.  This fight combined with continued animosity with the Latin Kings led 4 Insane Deuce gang members to pile into a car with 9 millimeter pistols.  There was a Latin King party going on at the corner of Beach and Liberty.  At about 10:00 P.M. the car load of Deuces pulled up with black hoodies pulled over their heads across the street from the party and fired 9 bullets into a crowd of Latin Kings.  Three Latin Kings were shot, one was shot in the ankle, another in the chest and had a collapsed lung, while the other was shot in the head and died at the scene.  That gang member that was killed was Dennis Evans, an African American Latin King (People Vs. Carvajal Feb 26, 1993) (People State Of Illlinois Vs. Jose Oscar May 5, 1994).

War was about to be in full swing and the final blow was when the Latin Kings waited until October 31^st 1990 and revenge was served for Dennis Evan’s murder when Latin Kings gunned down Albert “Pyscho” Gonzalez.  On that Halloween night Gonzalez was in his Grove Street home all by himself when Latin King gang members snuck up to being about 190 feet away from the house and fired into the walls of the house with shotguns, rifles and various other guns, the bullets struck Gonzalez in the chest right through his heart and he died at the scene instantly.  Angel Luciano was heavily suspected of ordering the death and in 2007 he was convicted of that murder (People vs. Luciano, 2013).  Lil Man then took over the leadership position after Psycho’s death.

Now we will back track in time back to 1989.  In the year 1989, several families from Aurora and Chicago moved simultaneously to the suburbs of Villa Park and Addison, this included multiple members of the Latin Kings and Insane Deuces.  Some heavy hitters in the Deuces moved to these suburbs and began recruiting instantly.  This recruitment rivaled the Latin King’s recruitment and because of tensions already brewing between the two gangs a major gang war between Latin Kings and Insane Deuces exploded in the suburb as both gangs settled in 1989.  Villa Park and Addison Insane Deuces were deep as could be and enlisted hundreds of members in both suburbs.  Deuces controlled the “D-Block” apartments in Villa Park, the Maple apartments in Villa Park and even The Townies” apartments along North Avenue.  In Addison, Deuces claimed almost all Mill Road area apartments and all down Stevens Drive.  The Deuces in these suburbs were a major force to be reckoned with and were Villa Park and Addison’s largest gangs alongside their bitter enemies the Latin Kings.  Deuces could be seen hanging out in front of these apartments day and night in large numbers.  The draw back to this hardcore activity is it caught far too much police attention.  In 1994, an Insane Deuce accidentally killed a woman holding her baby in Addison and the police reined down hard on them for killing a non-gang affiliated woman in a cross-fire.  In 1995, Villa Park and Addison police came down on the Deuces in these suburbs so hard they wiped them out permanently.  Even though Addison and Villa Park Deuces are no more, it was a hell of a legacy I needed to share.

Now war was in full swing and the shootings with Latin Kings were going back and forth in the end of 1990, this led to the accidental shooting death of a 15 year old Hispanic youth that was dressed in black and gold colors walking down the street in front of Cowherd Middle School.  The Deuces were so eager to snuff out another Latin King that they opened fire on this kid before he had a chance to represent.  It turns out the kid was a member of the Imperial Insane Vice Lords, now the Vice Lords wanted war with the Deuces.

In the meantime, the Insane Deuces in Chicago were warring with the Latin Kings over the Lathrop projects which was turning into a blood bath.  Thanks to this new gang war with the Latin Kings the Insane Deuces now had to level up on their gun supply in order to fight all these gang wars in Aurora since they now had no allies.  The Deuces then built up an arsenal of guns that they stashed under a pine tree in “Deuce Park” which was right nearby Union and Claim.  Since the Kings now owned the street corner of Union and Claim they would have to cross through the park to get home, but the Deuces owned a much bigger stake of territory in the park.  When Kings would cross through “Deuce Park” they were fired upon at all angles and even from Deuces that had climbed trees.  This operation did not last long before Aurora police found the stash and flushed Deuces out of the area.

In prison the Latin Kings and Insane Deuces were at war regardless of People Nation ties.  The Kings were a bigger gang and the Deuces found themselves outnumbered in the joint as Folks and Kings were attacking them.  In the late 1980s an Insane Deuce leader named “Blade” tried to convince his organization to turn Folks, but he lost that vote 25-1 as he was the only one to vote yes.  But now that would soon change after meeting with Spanish Cobras (Hagedorn, the Insane Chicago Way P. 71).

By 1990, the Insane Deuces were left with just two buildings in the Lathrop projects and during the years of 1990 to 1992 they fought their last battles against the Latin Kings in these buildings.  In June of 1992, 4 members of the Insane Deuces were charged with rape after one of their members allegedly raped a girl while the others assisted in keeping her confined in the apartment.  Two of the members are still doing time for the rape, however, after the rape the victim was still dating one of her alleged rapists for weeks after the attack and even wrote him over 20 love letters saying she wanted to marry him until she abruptly broke it off.  The victim also was allegedly trying to join the Deucettes and was to be initiated according to court documents (source: PEOPLE v. O’NEAL, 1996).  As you can see this case is crazy and the allegations seem sketchy from the victim, however, these men were still convicted and are currently in prison.  At the same time as this was going on in 1992 other Deuces were convicted of murder and others had to relocate to Hamlin Park causing the closing of the projects that year.

In January of 1992, the wars with Vice Lords and Latin kings were weighing heavily on the Deuces as they no longer had support from any allies, not only that there were problems in the prison system as members that committed violent crimes against the Latin Kings were now vulnerable to retaliation from Latin Kings and Vice Lords.  The People Nation was no longer a good fit for the Deuces so they came to the Spanish Cobras to join Folks and the Insane family in January 1992.

The problem was by 1992 Chicago gangs no longer respected the Folk and People alliances and wars within the alliances were rampant, so in Chicago the Deuces still really had no allies especially since the Simon City Royals were their biggest enemy and also a part of the Folk Nation.  Old friends of the Deuces became enemies such as the Gaylords and now the Stoned Freaks who had just joined the People Nation.

The Spanish Cobras attempted to smooth over relations with fellow Folks in the early months of 1992 by taking Deuces into the territories of long-time enemies.  The Cobras took Deuces to the Maniac Latin Disciples and the MLDs were not happy, however, the MLDs moved past it and made peace but only for a year until war resumed.  The Cobras also brought the Deuces before the Simon City Royals, but the Royals weren’t having it and soon Spanish Cobras were at war with the Royals later that year anyway.  The Cobras also brought the Deuces to Paulina Barry Community hood and the PBCs threatened Cobras and Deuces to leave immediately and brandished a pistol.

In the year 1992, after joining Insane Folks thanks to the Spanish Cobras, the Deuces became good allies with the Gangster Disciples in Aurora.  Now the Deuces were hanging out with many more African American youths thanks to the ties with GDs, this accompanied by the release of the movie South Central brought more African American recruits into the Deuce nation. The movie South Central featured a young 11 year old boy that had an imprisoned father that ended up in prison for murder.  The gang the father was in was the “Deuces” and now his son wanted to join the gang.  Anyway, it was said a lot of African American youths joined the Insane Deuces in Aurora in 1992 because of that movie.  With this rise in youths joining because of a movie and having to embrace the new Folk Nation caused many older members to leave the organization to either retire or flip to Latin Kings.  The Deuces that joined solely because of the movie turned out to be fake and either flipped to GDs or ended up being kicked out of the organization for being a nuisance while others would last a little longer.

In 1996 another war with Maniac Latin Disciples broke out after an earlier war had been squashed.  A fight broke out between an MLD and a Deuce named Cheerio.  Cheerio got revenge by shooting the MLD dead.  This war was uncontrollable to the point that older Insane Deuces moved into Elgin to help out with the Elgin war which was the original source of the conflict.  More problems would arise in Elgin when the Deuces shot a member of the Spanish Gangster Disciples named Gizmo in the back of the head with a .22 caliber pistol which eventually killed him.

In 2003 major Aurora police raids took down many members of the Deuces and Latin Kings, there were also 65 lives claimed between both sides during the war between the years 1990-2003, all these factors severely hurt Deuce operations state-wide but did not stop operations, the Deuces still kept all the rest of their territory in Aurora, Elgin, Roscoe Village, Portage Park and Canaryville.

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Known sections of the Insane Deuces past and present

Canaryville neighborhood 90s-present

Sections of Canaryville

43^rd to 47^th, Halsted to Union (Spade Town) 90s-present

Irving Park neighborhood

Sections of Irving Park

Keystone & Cullom

Jefferson Park neighborhood

Sections of Jefferson Park

Milwaukee & Menard

Hermosa neighborhood Established 1986-1992

Sections of Hermosa

Diversey & Kilbourn Established 1986-1992

Lincoln Park neighborhood Established 1971-1975

Clybourn/Damen to Leavitt/Hoyne Established 1971-1975 (Lathrop projects)

Lakeview neighborhood Established 1971-present years

Sections of Lakeview

Roscoe to School, Lincoln to Ravenswood Established 1971-present years

North Center neighborhood Established 1971-present years

Sections of North Center

Roscoe to George, Honore to Campbell (Hamlin Park) Established 1971-present years

Clybourn to Leavitt to Diversey (Lathrop projects) Established 1971-1992

Portage Park neighborhood 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s

Sections of Portage Park

Berteau to Belle Plaine, Milwaukee to Lavergne (Dickinson Park) 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s

Milwaukee & Montrose

River West neighborhood

Sections of River West

Milwaukee & Ohio

Southern West Town neighborhood

Sections of Southern West Town

Grand & Damen

Suburbs

Addison Established 1989-1995

Aurora Established 1980 (A-Town Deuces) Grand & Loucks, Ohio & Kane, Ohio & Century Lane, Ohio & Second, Farnsworth Park

Elgin Brook & Lovell and St. Francis Park

Montgomery

Naperville

Oswego

Villa Park Established 1989-1995