Gang

Of the various city homicides attributed by federal authorities to the violent East Baltimore gang known as the Hot Boys, the death of Darrin "D-Nice" Griffin on Sept. 16, 2000, was among the least noticed. A friend of some of the gang's leaders, Griffin was shot to death in a wooded area off Clifton Road because they believed he had stolen drugs and money from a stash house they controlled. To Griffin's mother, who helped raise and often cooked meals for some of the young men eventually implicated in her son's death, it was a loss that crystallized the senselessness of Baltimore's violent street culture, in which victims frequently know their killers well and the smallest slights can prove deadly.

Only people who know where to look would be able to pay respects to Norman Chaney, who is buried in an unmarked grave in Baltimore. But if fans of the chubby "Our Gang" star have their way, he'll soon have the headstone he's done so long without. Chaney, the son of a Baltimore electrical worker, won a national contest in 1929 to become "Chubby," the new "fat kid" in the popular film series, replacing the original Chubby, who had grown out of the role. But with his impossibly round face and impish charm, Chaney eclipsed his predecessor - becoming the fat kid people remembered.

The shooting of 12 people outside a party in East Baltimore last week likely resulted from a gang war that has been brewing for months, according to court records made public yesterday. Agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spell out a lengthy feud between the "Hot Boys" and the "North Avenue/Harford Road Boys" and possible reasons for the May 28 shooting in an eight-page affidavit. Police are still hunting for witnesses to the shooting, which took place as about 60 people were gathered outside 2032 E. North Ave. to remember Keith E. "Bone" Hamlet, a member of one of the gangs who was shot to death late last year at the house.

A 23 r d suspect has been charged in an indictment against the Maryland-based prison gang Dead Man Inc., according to documents recently unsealed in federal court. Kevin Bales, whose age and address are not listed in court documents, was arrested and charged in a recent superseding indictment with participating in a racketeering conspiracy including murder for hire, extortion and drug dealing. Authorities say Dead Man Inc. is an offshoot of the Black Guerilla Family gang that was formed for white inmates in Maryland prisons, and later spread into the streets and other states.

Police identified a man who was shot and killed Friday afternoon in Charles Village as Donatello Fenner, a 22-year-old who has long been on law enforcement radar as a leader of a North Baltimore gang. Police found Fenner with several gunshot wounds about 4:20 p.m. in an alley in the 2600 block of N. Calvert St. Fenner was said to be a ranking member of the Young Gorilla Family gang, and that group has been linked to much of the violence recently in the Barclay neighborhood, just south of where Fenner was found wounded, according to police.

A Baltimore man accused of ordering several murders as a leader in a high-profile gang was sentenced in federal court Tuesday to two life terms. Terrence "Squeaky" Richardson, 30, was convicted by a jury in March of racketeering and conspiring to sell drugs, as a leader of the Pasadena Denver Lanes set of the Bloods. Prosecutors also allege that Richardson ordered several murders, including the execution-style shooting of Brandon Everline in July 2008, incidents U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles heavily relied on in handing down his sentence.

An inmate who was a member of a violent gang run from a state penitentiary in Western Maryland has been sentenced to life in federal prison, and an accomplice has been sent away for 20 years, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office. The two men, sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, are the second and third of more than two dozen members of a Bloods gang subset called Tree Top Pirus set to be jailed as a result of a sweeping indictment filed in early 2008.

When a group of gang members, affiliates of the Bloods, discovered that one of their own had sent text messages on his cell phone "that were gay in nature," a prosecutor said, they decided to kill him. The body of Steven Parrish was found May 29, 2008, in a wooded area behind his home on Thornhurst Court in Randallstown. He had been stabbed and beaten, and a red bandana covered his face. His MP3 player, digital camera and pocket knife, items he always carried, were gone. He had turned 18 four days earlier.

Imagine the trauma involved when you take one of the most sadistic groups of human beings and put them in the most evil place on earth. The Gang visited the Jersey Shore this week. Please, allow me to digress: As a Towson alum who was born in Philadelphia, I have an eternal bias against all things Jersey. While the regular "Jersey Shore" cast is plaguing Italy, the Paddy's gang visits the east coast's armpit. This week's "Sunny" was much truer to the form fans missed in last week's C+ premiere.

A federal jury convicted two Maryland gang leaders, one of whom produced the infamous "Stop Snitching" videos, of racketeering Thursday evening, after two days of deliberation. Sherman Pride (also known as "Dark Black" and "DB"), 35, of Salisbury and Ronnie Thomas ("Skinny Suge" and "Tall Vialz"), 36, of Baltimore face a maximum of 20 years in prison for the racketeering conspiracy. Thomas also faces a maximum of life in prison for an additional drug conviction. According to trial testimony, the men were members of the Bloods' violent Tree Top Piru set, which dealt drugs throughout the state and conspired to commit murder and robbery.

The recent guilty plea of a man accused of being part of the far-reaching South Side Brims Bloods gang reveals an Eastern Shore meeting between members of at least three gangs - a reminder that while gangs and drug organizations make news for warring over turf and debts, they also sometimes work together.  The meeting, according to the plea agreement, took place inQueen Anne's Countyin 2008 and included members of the Latin Kings, the Thunderguards (characterzied...

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.

A woman accused of helping oversee the prison-based Black Guerilla Family gang was sentenced to five years in federal prison, federal authorities announced Thursday. Kimberly McIntosh, 43, of Baltimore, enforced gang discipline, helped oversee drug trafficking, and hosted meetings of high-ranking members at her home, where leaders discussed drug-dealing, robberies and retaliation against rivals. Prosecutors allege she came up with a plan to have street commanders of the BGF raise $3,000 from lower-level members, with the funds transferred into a central "treasury.

Murder charges against Perry Roark, a reputed co-founder of the violent Dead Man Inc. gang, were dropped Monday by Anne Arundel County prosecutors, according to a spokeswoman for the State's Attorney's Office. However, Roark, 42, still faces federal charges. Last year, Roark was close to completing his prison stint for a lumber store robbery. However, an accusation that Roark killed a prisoner in 1994 at the Maryland House of Correction kept him incarcerated. In November, Roark was among nearly two dozen alleged members of the gang — which started in Maryland prisons and spread to prisons around the country — who were indicted on federal racketeering charges.

A Baltimore City Circuit Court judge sentenced a Bloods gang leader to life plus 20 years for his role in the kidnapping and fatal shooting of a rival gang leader three years ago. Dajuan Marshall, leader of the Spider Gang, a subset of the Bounty Hunter Bloods in Baltimore, was convicted earlier this month of first-degree murder in the slaying in of Kenneth Jones. Jones was the leader of the Pasadena Denver Lanes Bloods gang in Baltimore. Marshall and an accomplice, who was also convicted this month, kidnapped Jones at gunpoint in June 2008 in downtown Baltimore, and shoved him into the trunk of a car. Jones was shot multiple times in the head with a .45 caliber handgun, and police found his body in the trunk of the car less than an hour later in Northwest Baltimore.

A second gang leader has been convicted of abducting a rival from Baltimore's Block in 2008, executing him and dumping his body near Gwynns Falls Park, according to the city State's Attorney's Office. A Circuit Court jury this week convicted Kedar Anderson of first-degree murder in the June 8, 2008 killing of Kenneth "Cash" Jones, who was forced into the trunk of a car while standing at Custom House Avenue and Water Street. His body was found less than 40 minutes later in the 4500 block of Bonner Road, shot several times in the head with a .45 caliber handgun, according to Baltimore State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein.

Christopher Ian Murray was every inch the gentleman. Soft-spoken with a lilting island accent, the oldest of the three Murray brothers from Jamaica had a courtly manner and confident grace.But for the bullet scar over his right eye, he might have been mistaken for a diplomat or college professor."Sweetest guy you'd ever want to meet," says Officer Ed Bochniak of Baltimore's Eastern District. "Nothing you ever heard about him could prepare you for the first time you met him. If I didn't know his history, I never would have guessed he was a cold-blooded killer."

Organized crime was once synonymous with the Mafia. Not anymore, and there's no better example of what law enforcement is up against today than the alleged criminal enterprise described in a federal indictment unsealed Monday in Baltimore. The membership of the Bloods' Tree Top Piru may differ by race, locale and ethnicity from La Cosa Nostra, but criminal activity, violence and murder are their shared pursuits. The indictment against 28 alleged Bloods members is a primer on gang culture, its origins and its prevalence in state prisons.

The Harford County Sheriff's Office arrested three people Friday and charged two of them in connection with the murder of a man found shot to death in a car in Edgewood Thursday morning. Both men charged in the murder had been previously identified by police as being active in a gang, as was the third man arrested with them who faces unrelated charges. Sheriff's deputies had responded to a call of shots fired in the wee hours of Thursday morning, but couldn't find anything, in part, according to police, because of the tinted windows in the car where the victim was found.

Remember the "Gang of 14"? That was the bipartisan group of senators who six years ago agreed not to filibuster judicial nominees except under "extraordinary circumstances. " Well, looks like some people have decided to redefine "extraordinary" to include "politically convenient. " Surely that's the only way to explain Tuesday's filibuster of Caitlin Halligan, who was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The insufficient 54 to 45 vote end cut off debate included a yea from just one Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.