He Translates the Scribbles from Bloods and Crips

Nick Cotto speaks gang. His story was featured on Masslive on Sunday, this former military man who can read the writing on the wall. The writing scrawled by gang members, that he says warns of bad things to come and battles to be waged.

He took a reporter on a tour of graffitti scared walls, in seedy back alleys in Springfield. He pointed to the words that meant one gang was after another. "BK" for example, means Blood Killer. The two gangs around the city are the Crips and the Bloods, so someone here was praising a killer of the other guys.

Then the big dis....a writer crossed out blood and wrote 'slob.' The reverse would be if a blood crossed out crip and wrote 'crab.' That's a big diss, and to some of these guys, that is a reason to shoot.

Celtic Paul Pierce recently flashed a gang symbol across the Boston Garden to the opposing bench, according to Cotto. He held his index finger and thumb forming a circle with the other fingers straight out. That meant 'blood up.' said the gang expert.

The photo in the story shows a six-point star, and nearby, the number 5 is written upside down. That's another diss. Both of these mean that someone is being threatened, says Cotto. When you see gang graffiti, you don't have to run the other way...just be warned that there might be trouble coming soon.