Chicago Police Blame Gangster Disciples

As Chicago struggles with its highest homicide rate in years, the role of a single street gang stands out: more than a quarter of the city's nearly 400 slaying victims through Sept. 25 were affiliated with the Gangster Disciples, according to Chicago police statistics obtained by the Tribune.

Long the city's largest gang, the Gangster Disciples have dominated significant swaths of the South Side for decades. But now authorities say the gang is eating itself from within, riven by feuding factions with names like the Killa Ward and The Hit Squad that engage in bloody conflicts over turf they once shared.

The spike in slayings this year in Chicago has drawn national attention and proven a knotty problem for Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Gang violence has played a major role in the mounting toll, and police say their job is complicated by a new generation of gangbangers more willing to strike out on their own without respect for traditional hierarchies.

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