Riff Lorton (died 1957) was an American criminal and leader of the "Jets" street gang in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City during the 1950s. He was killed in a "rumble" with the Puerto Rican "Sharks" gang in 1957.
Biography[]
Riff Lorton was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York to a working-class Irish-American family; he had an unstable home life with an abusive father. Lorton spent most of his childhood on the streets with other working-class white youths, who formed the "Jets" street gang during the 1950s. The Jets brawled with gangs of rival ethnicities, including the Black "Egyptian Kings", the Irish "Emeralds" and "Bishops", and the Puerto Rican "Sharks"; by 1957, only the Sharks remained. Lorton led his gang in vandalizing Puerto Rican businesses and murals in the San Juan Hill neighborhood, and, at a local dance, Lorton accepted Sharks leader Bernardo Nunez's challenge to a rumble, hoping to decide ownership of the San Juan Hill turf. Lorton brought his friend Tony Wyzek back into the Jets, even though Wyzek was on parole and secretly in love with Bernardo's sister Maria Nunez, and Wyzek repeatedly attempted to avert a rumble, especially after Lorton bought a pistol from the weapons dealers Rory Harris and Abe Cook. Nevertheless, the two gangs met in battle at a salt shed, where a fistfight devolved into a knife fight between Riff and Bernardo. Wyzek's attempts to stop the knife fight inadvertently resulted in Lorton being distracted and stabbed dead by Nunez, resulting in Wyzek taking Riff's knife and stabbing Bernardo dead.
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