May 10, 2009|By Don Markus | Don Markus,don.markus@baltsun.com
On a Friday afternoon last May, according to prosecutors, a Baltimore County teenager headed from his home in Pikesville to Columbia, where his car was needed by fellow members of the Bloods gang "to do some business." A local drug dealer named Elijah Jackson had been targeted for robbery.
But as the 19-year-old, known to the Bloods as "NY," started driving toward Howard County, he realized that he needed someone more familiar with the route to get him there. So he called Daymar Wimbish, a friend and fellow Bloods member, to help navigate.
Hours later, police say, Wimbish was involved in a botched robbery that ended when Lamont Johnson shot Jason Batts, who was in the driver's seat of his sport utility vehicle after taking Jackson and Jackson's sister back to a Columbia apartment complex from a local bar.
Batts, 23, died at the scene.
Johnson, Wimbish and Ronald McConnell were all charged with first-degree murder.
Prosecutors tried to prove last month that McConnell, who lived in Columbia, ordered Jackson killed because Jackson was a prosecution witness in a gun possession case against McConnell. McConnell, prosecutors contended, supplied Johnson with a sawed-off shotgun used in Batts' killing.
It took more than a week to try the case and more than a day for a Howard County jury to reach a verdict. McConnell was acquitted of the murder charge but found guilty of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and two other gun charges. He could receive up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced May 29.
Wimbish, 19, will be tried this week, with jury selection in Circuit Court beginning Monday. At a hearing last week, Wimbish's attorney said that his client was just "along for the ride," but prosecutors contend that Wimbish became involved because he was looking to improve his low-level status as a Bloods "pup,"
Johnson, who is accused of shooting Batts when Batts tried to escape from the SUV, will be tried later.
Defense attorney Spencer Hecht said that Wimbish "did not know Ronald McConnell before this incident," and that the Bloods member known as "NY" - who asked not to have his real name used by the news media during McConnell's trial - was on his way to Columbia for the planned robbery before ever contacting Wimbish.
"NY," who, according to a source familiar with the case is in protective custody, is expected to testify against Wimbish, as he did against McConnell. So is a 16-year-old Baltimore County girl who testified in the McConnell trial that she was used to distract Jackson by asking to use his cell phone in the parking lot where Batts had driven.
Prosecutors Colleen McGuinn and Lisa Broten, who tried the case against McConnell, painted Wimbish last week as a Bloods member deep into the "38 Laws of Pirou," what they called the West Coast-based gang's "constitution,"
Police say evidence of Wimbish's involvement in the Bloods was found when they searched his Owings Mills home.
Among the items police say belonged to Wimbish was a folder with papers relating to the Bloods, and words written in the style of the Bloods (they don't use the letter C because it represents the rival Crips gang, according to Detective Cpl. Ann Giardina, a member of the Howard County gang unit) scribbled in Wimbish's handwriting on the cover of the folder.
Also found, and played in court last week, was a video from Johnson's cell phone showing Wimbish flashing various Bloods signs. Wimbish admitted to police after being arrested that he was a member of the Bloods, prosecutors say.
Being involved in violent acts such as murder and rape is how Wimbish and other "pups" work their way up the gang's hierarchy, according to Giardina, who testified as an expert witness in court last week.
Giardina said there are more than a half-dozen sets of Bloods operating in Howard County.
Defense attorney Hecht - whose motion to have Wimbish's gang affiliation stricken from testimony was dismissed by Circuit Judge Lenore Gelfman - says his client, though an admitted gang member, was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
"There's nothing related to gang activity," Hecht said.
After the hearing, Hecht added, "Being at the scene of a crime does not make you guilty of a crime."
While prosecutors do not say that Wimbish had the same motive as McConnell, they contend that he was aware of what was going to happen that night, and that taking part in it would enhance his status in the Bloods.
