Founded
1957
North Lawndale, Chicago, Illinois, United States
1957–present
28 States Chicago metropolitan area and Great Lakes region[1]
30,000-35,000[3]
Drug sales, robbery, extortion, fraud, money laundering, murder, racketeering
Symbols[edit]
Vice Lord street gangs use a variety symbols to identify themselves, including a rabbit wearing a bow tie (the Playboy logo) as well as a red/gold 5 point star. Members often have tattoos of either on their hand below the thumb to identify themselves/also a protective mechanism for members' facing possible jail time.[13] often stylized with top hat and cane as well as a champagne glass and a glove. Their colors are red and gold.
Willie Lloyd[edit]
As a teenager growing up on Chicago's West Side in the 1960s, Willie Lloyd joined the Unknown Vice Lords, a faction based along 16th Street in the Lawndale neighborhood. Lloyd soon became the faction's leader and recruited thousands of followers. Eventually he proclaimed himself "King of Kings" and stated that he was the leader of the entire Vice Lord Nation. However, his tenure was interrupted by a prison term for his part in the murder of a police officer in Iowa.[14]
Lloyd continued to lead the gang on the outside through fellow inmates and prison employees affiliated with the gang. While incarcerated, Lloyd wrote The Amalgamated Order of Lordism, a 61-page manifesto on the Vice Lord command structure in the prisons and on the streets. He was incarcerated in 1971 until his release on parole in 1986, then was back in prison a year later on a weapons conviction until another parole in 1992. When he left prison in 1992, he was picked up by fellow gang members dressed in furs who were driving a convoy of five limousines.[15]
Later in 1992, he was involved in a protracted gang war over control of the Vice Lord Nation, involving kidnapping and the murder of rival members' children. Law enforcement intensified its efforts to remove Lloyd from the street, and from 1994 to 2001, he was again incarcerated for weapons violations.[16]
Lloyd publicly quit the Vice Lords after his release from prison, and became an outspoken critic of gang life.[17] Lloyd attempted to earn a living as a gang mediator, and he became affiliated with a non-profit organization. He was briefly a guest lecturer for a class called "Street Gangs in Chicago" at DePaul University, which was controversial, in part due to field trips in which Lloyd took the students to the West Side.[18][19]
In August 2003, Lloyd was shot four times in Garfield Park. This was the third assassination attempt on Lloyd. Lloyd became paralyzed from the neck down due to injuries from the shooting. Rumors persisted that Lloyd still wanted to collect a "tax" from the Vice Lords as its leader, even though he had supposedly left gang life. Lloyd gave interviews stating that he believed his attackers included some of his former henchmen.[20] Lloyd died in 2015 aged 64.