LONGVIEW---When he was just 13 years old, Branden Johnson decided to join a neighborhood gang known nation-wide as the Vice Lords.

"Where I lived that was what I did to be a part of something," Johnson says.

Something, he didn't realize, that included drugs and violence.

The same two things that allegedly got 56 people in trouble with the law one week ago in Gregg County.

The gangs at the center of that drug bust were the Davis Street Gang and the Twelfth Street Crips.

Johnson says those gangs represent different neighborhoods in Longview. To show where they come from, they wear different colors.
The Davis Street Gang wears blue, those from the Twelfth Street Crips wear blue, and gangs from the South side wear red.

Johnson says these colors are based on historical rivalries.

"The red and the black and the gold also represent people in the Muslim or Islam religion," Johnson explains.

"And then the blue and gray, they fit in the more Jewish sector," he continues.

But most gang members, Johnson says, don't understand the historical context of their groups or symbols. Because now, "It stems back to money and the drugs are right there."

So where do they get these drugs?

Johnson says many of them aren't made here in East Texas, they come from overseas and are shipped here, through Mexico. He says some things like prescription medicines come from doctors or pharmacies.

Johnson says the gang "leaders" or suppliers that were named in last week's drug busts may not have even been the real big shots.

"The streets say the big time people don't even live here," he explains.

Johnson says if a gang sells drugs in another gang's neighborhood, that's when things can turn violent, like they did in Johnson's former gang when he saw a rival gang member kill his good friend.

"He got killed right in front of me."

Now Johnson helps young people avoid those situations.

"They can do better than where they are."

Because he says some are stuck in a cycle of crime and drugs that won't stop until the demand for drugs is gone.

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