Faced with the dilemma of devoting their lives to their religion or firebombing the homes of rivals, Mormon gangbangers decided they could do both.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, youngsters in Salt Lake City engaged in vicious beatdowns, stabbings, and drive-by shootings over drug-trade turf and in solidarity with members of their crews.
Some of these hooligans did so while carrying pocket-size copies of The Book of Mormon in their pockets.
How did Utah’s capital city — known for snow-capped mountains, Karl Malone and John Stockton pick-and-rolls and being a hub of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — become a hotbed for criminality?
When Ron Stallworth arrived there in 1986 to launch and lead an anti-gang police unit, he saw the answer clear as day: Southern California Crips and Bloods were trekking nearly 700 miles to sell crack cocaine to the Beehive State’s devout, mostly white inhabitants and recruit followers into their gangs.