Black Families

Three members of the Black Guerilla Family gang were sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for the 2009 robbery, kidnapping and murder of Qonta Waddell, a convicted drug dealer who was hogtied and removed, screaming, from his mother's home in Southwest Baltimore as she watched. Peter "Petey" Miller, Derrell "Snags" Johnson and William "Jim Dog" Rhodes were each convicted of conspiracy, murder, kidnapping, robbery and weapons crimes. Miller, 20, was sentenced to life plus 60 years.

Reading your editorial "Stop the madness" (Nov. 22) got me wondering: Will Mr. Target or Ms. Wal-Mart or any of the other executives who decided to open their stores on Thanksgiving be in their offices Thursday evening? Of course not. They will be home with their families and friends enjoying the holiday. I bet they won't even be in the office on Friday. It's truly amazing how much corporate greed has trumped family time. Does anyone really believe that opening the stores a few hours earlier is going to make that much of a difference?

When she was a child growing up in Lothian, Lyndra Pratt loved spending time with her grandmother, Margaret Ann Easton, at Easton's nearby farm. Naturally, Pratt was curious about this woman she loved so dearly. What, she wondered, had her grandma's life been like? How had she become the way she was? "Who are your parents?" Pratt asked one day when she was 8. "Where did they come from?" Easton burst into tears. That was 48 years ago, long before Pratt, now Lyndra Pratt Marshall, realized black Americans of her grandmother's time rarely wanted to discuss their lineage.

A century ago, the Page family settled in Catonsville, founded a church and operated the neighborhood grocery out of the front rooms of a home on Winters Lane. Still, the family's 99-year-old matriarch, Eva Page Brooks - whose living room was once that family store - could not trace its history back more than a few generations. But thanks to the Internet and a DNA sample, the Catonsville clan has become the first black family - and the first Baltimoreans - to verify their descent from two 17th- and 18th-century settlers of Virginia and become members of a group dedicated to their legacy, the Page-Nelson Society.

Vincent Quayle knows the corrosive effect of foreclosures well, sitting as he does at the helm of a nonprofit group that helps homeowners in trouble. But he says the current foreclosure crisis is nothing compared to the damage wrought by the "blockbusting" that reshaped Baltimore and its suburbs in the 1950s and '60s. As African-American families began moving into historically white city neighborhoods, real estate investors capitalized on racial fears to persuade white homeowners to sell cheap, then rented or resold the properties for big profits to African-Americans.

Three admitted members of the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang have pleaded guilty to participating in a racketeering conspiracy, according to federal prosecutors. Eric Brown, 42, Ray Olivis, 57 and Rainbow Williams, 32, all of Baltimore, could receive up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty last week. They're scheduled for sentencing in August. A fourth defendant, Randolph Edison, could receive up to 10 years after pleading guilty to possession of a stolen firearm, according to prosecutors.

A 33-year-old man with a history of violence has been indicted in a September 2009 shooting that witnesses told police was sparked by a drug dispute among members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang. Robert Looney, of the 2500 block of Maryland Ave., has been charged with orchestrating the shooting of Devon Cooper on Sept. 13, 2009, in the 1300 block of W. Pratt St. Records show Cooper was shot in the back of the head as he stood on the street, but survived. Witnesses told detectives that Looney and Cooper were members of the Black Guerrilla Family, a prison-based gang tied to a slew of recent acts of violence and drug dealing.

A Jessup correctional officer was arrested Tuesday morning on federal drug charges, revealing a sweeping effort to wipe out one of Maryland's most notorious gangs through related racketeering indictments. Alicia Simmons, 34, is accused of smuggling cell phones and heroin into prison for incarcerated members of the powerful Black Guerrilla Family, which court documents say has used such connections for years to live luxuriously behind bars and maintain mafioso-type control of its widespread criminal organization.

Venture out into East Baltimore's McElderry Park neighborhood after a shooting and you're likely to come across Gardnel Carter, a hulking, 48-year-old man who spent two decades in prison for murder. Along with a crew of men with similar backgrounds, dressed in matching orange and black jackets, he mingles with drug dealers and gang members, discussing what went down and going over their next moves. Police cruisers often pull up, with officers barking for them to scatter. But Carter isn't one of the usual suspects.

Baltimore officials suspended more than $1 million in city funds for anti-violence programs Monday after workers at a West Baltimore community center that has received taxpayer dollars were accused of operating as a front for gang activities. Federal authorities indicted 13 people on heroin distribution charges, including at least two who were employees of Communities Organized to Improve Life Inc., or COIL, a nonprofit organization that runs adult literacy programs and other outreach services, according to court records and officials.