There had to have been clashes. In some cities, like Raekwon mentioned, it was criminal element of immigrant group that BROUGHT the drug to the area. I read about Jamaican drug posses personally introducing crack to some cities in the 1980s.
Though not on the level of child soldiers...criminals from Caribbean and especially JA had a big advantage over local street guys. Guns, access to guns and use of guns was no problem because in JA, political factions were supplying and employing gunmen for decades .Literally, political parties had gunmen running the streets intimidating rivals and voters with automatic weapons. This was back when even in the hardest parts of America that guys were fist fighting to settle differences and maybe maybe somebody had a .22 .
Street culture, poverty and crime in developing countries was a different level than here.
There's a street term from Brooklyn..calling something "gully"...like the way Dick Butkus played football was gully. That slang term comes from a jamaican crew out in BK that scared the hardest street dudes here....they were from Cassava Gully or some other area....and they were so violent that the term gully entered the vocabulary as an adjective.
