Who are the Four Corner Hustlers?

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Gang territories in Austin, bordering Oak Park

Updated: March 3, 2012 8:33AM

As local, state and federal law enforcement sharpen their focus on Chicago’s many criminal street gangs, they are more frequently identifying some gangs by name.

One of Chicago’s largest and most violent street gangs, the Four Corner Hustlers, dominates the sprawling Austin neighborhood adjacent to Oak Park.

Also known as 4CH, the Four Corner Hustlers gang was founded in the Garfield Park area in the early 1970s and quickly moved into Austin. The Hustlers were an off-spring of the Vice Lord gang, which was formed inside the St. Charles Boy Reform School in the late 1950s.

The Hustlers battled early on to separate from the Vice Lords, but for the past 20 years have maintained a mutually beneficial alliance with the Vice Lords, whose eight factions in Chicago and the suburbs total 13,850 members.

Strength estimated at 6,500 members

The Hustlers’ strength is estimated at “at least 6,500” members. Though less widespread than the Vice Lords, they operate in over 30 suburbs, including Oak Park, River Forest, Forest Park, Elmwood Park, and heavily in Maywood and throughout west suburban Proviso Township.

The third gang on West Side, the Black P Stones, evolved from the Blackstone Rangers street gang that morphed into the El Rukns under infamous 1960s gang leader Jeff Fort. With estimated membership of at least 13,000 and 122 factions, the gang’s reach is powerful.

Local and federal authorities have focused on the gangs for decades. In 2010 alone, Chicago police made 6,452 arrests of Hustler, Vice Lord and Black P Stone gang members.

The past three years, Chicago police have arrested 113 members from those three gangs for murder.

“In 2011, 290 murders directly or indirectly were a result of gang activity,” said Chicago Crime Commission President and former Chicago police superintendent, Jody Weiss.

As if to underscore Weis’s talking points, 12 people were shot Friday night and into Saturday morning. They included a 10-year old girl who was struck by a bullet that came through the window of her home on the 1100 block of N. Keystone in the K-Town neighborhood, just east of the Austin neighborhood.

Key to the Four Corner Hustler’s success, besides their readiness to use lethal violence, is a cooperative attitude with other gangs. For at least 10 years, the historic divide between “Folks” and “People” has been set aside whenever the Hustlers see the opportunity for profit.

Ties to Vice Lords

“The Hustlers still recognize their strong ties to the Vice Lords, but maintain a certain partiality toward independence, so that they are free to work with other gangs when they have the opportunity to make money,” the Gang Book notes.

That includes renting out drug turf. In North Austin, a four-square block area on Chicago Avenue east of Laramie is operated by a small, unaffiliated group called “Dirty Us.”

The crime commission said one faction of the Hustlers, “The Goon Squad,” joined forces with members of the Gangster Disciples to conduct a wide range of lucrative criminal activities.

“They are involved extensively in… assault, murder, graffiti, armed robbery, extortion, drug trafficking, prostitution, fire arms ales, renting drug turf to independent dealers, and laundering money through businesses owned by the gang,” it states.

Another Hustler faction, the Body Snatchers, led by Shawn Beets was the gang’s feared enforcement arm, routinely using beatings and shootings to maintain control of gang drug turf.

‘Diversified’

“They’ve diversified, if you will,” said River Forest Detective Sgt. Marty Grill, who also functions as a commander with the multi-jurisdictional WEDGE gang and drug task force. “Organized burglary rings, catalytic converter thefts, copper theft, anything that will bring extra cash to the gang, they’re going to engage in.”

Numerous police sweeps of street corner drug operations have sent scores of gang members to prison the past decade.

Betts and another high profile Four Corner Hustler leader, Ray Longstreet, have both been targets of major drug investigations.

In 2006, Longstreet, then living in Forest Park, was caught up in Street Sweeper. Sentenced to 37 years, won’t be released until 2031, when he’s 76 years old.

Betts was arrested in Operation Capital Hill, in May 2008. He cannot be located on state or federal prison websites.

In 2004 a federal, a large state and local task force took down a sprawling Austin drug operation run by Mafia Insane Vice Lord leader Troy Martin. Martin, one of 56 people prosecuted, is serving a life sentence at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind..

Despite frequent death and long prison sentences, the gangs endure, due to an endless stream of young, hungry black men willing to take on the risks associated with lucrative street operations.

That drug business in turn continues to flourish due to an endless stream of mostly white suburban youth who trek to the West Side to feed their 365 day a year heroin habits.