As Bethlehem police were investigating a stabbing last year [in 2009], they came across a backpack with an inch-thick binder stuffed inside.

The binder held the “Latin Kings Bible”, the gang’s manifesto. Stuffed inside its cover were hundreds of yellow-lined sheets of paper on which rules, codes, drawings, poems, prayers, rituals and symbols were collected.

The day after the stabbing, police returned to the home to find a large stuffed monkey with a noose around its neck dangling from a tree. The word “snitch” was scrawled on a note nearby.

The Latin Kings is a very large, highly organized, highly sophisticated Hispanic street gang thought to have originated in the 1940s in Chicago. Originally, it was created with a stated philosophy of “overcoming racial prejudice”, but it eventually evolved into a widespread criminal enterprise mostly street-level distribution of various narcotics, but also involved in other activities including money laundering, identity theft, burglary, assault, and homicide.

So, what kinds of information is contained in something like this? Here are some examples:

• Members should not sit with their legs crossed because their right leg represents the “King” and should not be crossed.
• The right hand is considered the dominant hand and is always displayed in front of the left. When members “throw” a hand sign of a crown, the Latin Kings’ symbol, they must use the right hand.
• Members are allowed to sell heroin and crack, but prohibited from using the drugs. Smoking marijuana is allowed, but only during certain hours.
• While a brother is speaking, he is to hold his crown upright until he is finished. If another brother interrupts, violations are a fine for the first violation, “physical” for the second violation.
• Any brother can urine test another brother if paid for by themselves.
• No brother is to sway or rock side to side during the prayer. Each brother is to hold a strong upright position.
• No phones are to be brought to/into meetings, also no beads, or flags.

Via Sun Sentinel for the full story.