Gang

A Baltimore County jury convicted a man Wednesday of murder in the gang shooting that rocked Towson Town Center mall at the height of the Christmas shopping rush two years ago. Tyrone Chester Brown Jr., 21, was found guilty of first-degree murder for killing Rodney Pridget in a retaliatory shooting that was to help Brown gain entry to the Black Guerrilla Family gang, State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger said. He faces life in prison without parole when he is sentenced on May 7. "We feel justice has been served," said William Pridgen, Pridget's uncle.

Jury deliberations began Tuesday in the trial of a 21-year-old charged with gunning down a teen outside the Towson Town Center Mall just days before Christmas in 2011. Prosecutors say Tyrone Chester Brown Jr., 21, of Baltimore shot and killed Rodney Pridget as an initiation into the Black Guerrilla Family gang. They said Pridget and his girlfriend were followed by another member through the mall on Dec. 19 before he was shot six times. "That was a man who was on a mission and knew what he was going to do," said Deputy State's Attorney Robin Coffin.

After Black Guerrilla Family leader Naim King was killed on Halloween 2007, prosecutors say, fellow gang member David Hunter swore to avenge his death. He waited more than three years, prosecutors say. Finally, they say, in June 2011, he found Henry D. Mills and shot him in the back of the head. Two months later, a grand jury indicted Hunter on murder and handgun charges, but prosecutors continued to gather evidence in hopes that they could show that the killing was part of a larger battle taking place in the city streets.

Baltimore County police officers from several precincts were called to the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium on Saturday after the promoter of a weekend motorcycle show said he asked a gang to leave. The Pagans, a rival of the Hells Angels, were asked to leave by the organizers of the Timonium Motorcycle Show about 1 p.m., police spokeswoman Elise Armacost said in an email. She said additional police support was requested because the department was concerned about a possible confrontation after the Hells Angels were displaying their colors, which motorcycle clubs were told not to do during the event.

Sometimes, Richard "Rico" White says, parents get so strung out and desperate that they push their kids to join gangs to guarantee a supply of drugs. The kids go along, White says, but most don't want any part of the gang life. That's where he comes in. He'll catch wind of a boy or a girl in trouble - someone who joined a gang but now wants out - and he'll negotiate deals with a gang leader allowing them to leave. White, who is 44, developed a talent for this several years ago. He's the new operator of the Hollywood Diner in downtown Baltimore.

Anyone seeking to purchase a gun — even those buying weapons at a show or through a private dealer — should be required to pass a background check through a national database, according to recommendations drafted by a panel of violence reduction experts convened by the Johns Hopkins University. "It is really indefensible that we have a system where someone is able to obtain a firearm with no background check or record-keeping," said Daniel Webster, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

As a federal judge handed down a sentence that will virtually ensure Perry Roark spends the rest of his life behind bars, the founder of Maryland's largest home-grown prison gang renounced his association with the group. Roark, a hulking man known as "Rock," was sentenced to life in a prison Monday for his role in creating Dead Man Inc., an organization of white inmates that prosecutors said has since spread to other states and led to street violence throughout the Baltimore region.

Baltimore was unable in 2012 to sustain a significant milestone — the first drop below 200 homicides in a generation — but officials see reasons to remain optimistic that declines will resume. As the Police Department's leadership changed, the city recorded 217 killings, about 10 percent more than the 197 in 2011, but still the second-lowest homicide rate since the late 1980s. Police statistics released Tuesday show that total crime and most categories of gun violence continued to decline.

The number of people killed in Baltimore this year has exceeded the count from all of 2011 after a violent Wednesday that saw at least one stabbed and three shot - including two near the same corner where a 16-year-old was killed a day earlier. Less than 24 hours had passed since the fatal shooting of teenager Daniel Pearson on Greenmount Avenue when two more men were hit by gunfire in almost the same spot. Another man was killed in Northwest Baltimore, and a boy was taken to the hospital after being stabbed on his way to a school.

A Crips gang member lured a former associate and his 17-year-old girlfriend to a secluded Randallstown cul-de-sac where he and another man gunned down the couple, killing the girl. Darnell Hill, 23, testified in court about how Elrich Smith, 19, and another man drove Hill and his girlfriend, Katelyn Messina, who worked at a local pizza shop, to a housing development under construction off Chapeldale Road in Randallstown before they were shot. On Friday, Smith, of the 900 block of Joshua Tree Court in Owings Mills, was found guilty by a Baltimore County jury.