(05-26) 04:55 PDT LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Plastic figurines of bandanna-wearing ``Homies'' were removed from supermarkets after police and prosecutors complained that they glorified gang life.
``I'm very pleased. I think the store did the responsible thing,'' said Detective P.J. Morris, a member of the police gang detail in the San Fernando Valley who began crusading against the figurines last week.
Vallarta Supermarkets, which operates 12 stores in Los Angeles County, had been selling Homies until they were removed Monday and Tuesday.
``The Vallarta Supermarkets Family wishes everyone to know that it DOES NOT support violence or toys depicting violence and regrets this incident,'' the company said in a statement Tuesday.
Vallarta said it wasn't aware Homies were in its stores until this week.
A million Homies have been sold since they went on the market four months ago. They are sold as keychain figures and in gumball machines.
Six figures -- Droopy, Smiley, Sapo, Mr. Raza, Big Loco and Eight Ball -- are the first to become toys. They are dressed in white T-shirts, baggy pants, bandannas and knit caps.
Critics of the toys say they glorify gang culture and perpetrate a negative stereotype of Hispanics.
But David Gonzales, the Northern California graphic artist who created Homies, said the toys were supposed to be cartoonish caricatures of ``low-rider Chicano kids'' he knew in Mexican-American barrios and that he didn't intend to glamorize gang life.
``I accept their right to discontinue this product if it doesn't fit their company image,'' said Gonzales, 39. ``But it's also my right as a businessman to make a product I think is OK.''
Homies are made in Taiwan by A&ACompany/Parkway Machine Corp., which is based in Maryland. Orders for the figurines have come from California, Texas, New Mexico, Florida and New York, which have large Hispanic populations, as well as from Utah, North Carolina, Georgia and Iowa.
