‘The Savage Skulls were the most dangerous gang in the Bronx’: Jean-Pierre Laffont’s best photograph

‘I’d read stories about gangs killing drug-pushers who targeted young people. Police would find their bodies at the bottom of five-storey buildings. I didn’t want to go looking for them alone’ The late 1960s and most of the 1970s were a difficult time for New York. I’d moved ther

‘I’d read stories about gangs killing drug-pushers who targeted young people. Police would find their bodies at the bottom of five-storey buildings. I didn’t want to go looking for them alone’ The late 1960s and most of the 1970s were a difficult time for New York.

I’d moved there from France in 1965 with a reporter friend and a plan to start a little agency, but soon found myself working alone. It could be a dangerous city, especially at night, but I enjoyed taking pictures of everyday life around me. In 1969, I became the first foreign correspondent for the Paris-based Gamma Agency, but always insisted on working on personal projects rather than assignments.

Reading the New York Times in 1972, I would see stories about gangs in the Bronx that were killing drug-pushers who targeted young people in the area. The police would find their bodies on the kerb at the bottom of five-storey buildings they’d been thrown off. The gangs included the Savage Nomads and the Dirty Dozen, but the one I was most interested in was the most dangerous: the Savage Skulls.

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