rates of felony assault and robbery, the sixteenth-highest rate of rape, and the highest rate of murder out of the New York Police Department's 77 precincts. Chinatown The early days of Chinatown were dominated by Chinese "tongs" (now sometimes referred to as "associations")a mix of clan associations, landsman's associations, political alliances (Kuomintang vs. Chinese Communist Party), and (more secretly) crime syndicates. The associations started to give protection from harassment due to anti-Chinese sentiment. Each of these associations was aligned with a street gang. The associations were a source of assistance to new immigrants, doing things such as giving out loans and helping to start businesses. Until the 1980s, the portion of Chinatown east of the Bowery, considered part of the Lower East Side, had a higher proportion of non-Chinese residents than in Chinatown's western section. During the 1970s and 1980s, this area had deteriorating building conditions, including vacant lots and storefronts, with fewer businesses. It suffered from many violent crimes such as gang activities, robberies, burglaries and rape, as well as racial tensions with other ethnic groups. Female Chinese garment workers were especially targets of robbery and rape, with many leaving work together in groups to protect each other as they were heading home. Similarly, crime in Chinatown increased due to the poor relations between Cantonese and Fuzhouese immigrants when the latter group started moving into the area in the 1980s and 1990s. Due to the Fuzhou immigrants having no legal status and an inability to speak Cantonese, many were denied jobs in Chinatown, and instead became criminals to make a living. There was a large amount of Cantonese resentment against Fuzhou immigrants arriving into Chinatown. During the mid-to-late 1980s, Chinatown began to experience an influx of Vietnamese refugees from the Vietnam War. Since most of the Vietnamese could not speak Mandarin or Cantonese, which was solely used for most social services, they struggled to survive and lived on the fringes of the community. Eventually, many Vietnamese youth within the city started to form gang factions. Under the leadership of a wealthy Vietnamese immigrant named David Thai, who combined many separate gangs into one known as Born to Kill, Vietnamese youths began a violent crime spree in Chinatown robbing, extorting, and racketeering drawing much resentment from the Chinese community. Washington Heights and Inwood Washington Heights and Inwood, neighborhoods in Upper Manhattan, recorded a total of 103 murders in 1990. The