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European Kindred or EK is a white supremacist prison and street gang that began in the Oregon prison system. They are affiliated with the Aryan Brotherhood and the Ku Klux Klan. Their allies are Sureños and Volksfront. Their main rivals are the American Mafia, the Bloods, the Crips, Los Zetas, the Israeli mafia, Mara Salvatrucha, Norteños, and the Russian Mafia.

Parole and probation officers report the gang may have swelled from a handful of members less than a decade ago to around 350 now. EK members have a propensity for violence and are one of the most powerful gangs within the Oregon Department of Corrections.

The group was founded in 1998 by David Patrick Kennedy and another inmate of Eastern Oregon's Snake River Correctional Institution Membership in the EK is nearly exclusively male, and membership is restricted to those with no more than one-sixteenth Native American ancestry. The group has a formal structure, rules, and ritual. It is highly secretive.^[1]

The gang has a reputation for extortion, assaults, moving contraband goods throughout the Oregon correctional institutions, and dog fighting. New members are encouraged to "earn their bones" their membership through hostile action consistent with the group's cause. ^[2] There is no documented information indicating EK members attack prison guards. On the street EK members appear to be involved in the distribution and possibly manufacture of methamphetamine.

EK members mark their membership with the initials EK in a shield on their right calf or on other parts of their bodies. Women are associated with the group, but are marked with the initials FW. The initials represent prison slang: F stands for "feather", prison slang for female, and W stands for "wood", prison slang for a caucasian.^[1] Released members are attempting to recruit new young members both in prisons, jails and on the street. According to the Portland Tribune, EK members claim that they use high schools in the Portland, Oregon area to find new recruits.^[1]

References

External links

• Inside the EK
• EK Prison gang is rapidly growing
• Police are investigating the murder of a black man as a potential hate crime

References