Wilmjax News

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - The North Carolina Senate is prepared to move forward on legislation that would toughen penalties against gang members who commit crimes.

The Senate is expected to debate two gang-related bills Wednesday. Lawmakers have talked for three years about how best to respond to expanding gang membership.

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The civil rights group fears police will engage in racial profiling.

Greensboro, NC — The NAACP is taking aim at Greensboro’s new gang task force.

Members of the civil rights group fear police officers will focus more on putting minority youth in jail.

They would rather see a gang prevention plan.

The NAACP wants to deal with causes of gang activity such as poverty and the drop out rate.

NAACP member Deena Hayes said, “One thing, I think we need an analysis here. What happened here in Guilford County? How have we gone from gangs in the single digits to gangs in the double digits? What’s happened around economic development? We’ve had major employment losses in this county for some time.”

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A Mississippi man with a history of selling merchandise illegally has been charged with selling goods in Camden County without a permit.

Douglas Glenn Jarrell, 25, of 500E Fifth St., Gulfport, Miss., was arrested Wednesday and charged with violating the county’s peddlers ordinance, which requires solicitors to have a permit to conduct business in the county.

According to a press release from Sheriff Tony Perry, Jarrell was attempting to sell magazines and would become pushy when customers refused to buy them.

“These solicitors prey on anyone that they can convince to give them money, checks and even credit card numbers that could be used illegally,” Perry said in the release.

Jarrell was released on a $2,000 unsecured bond and warned not to continue soliciting without a license.

According to the sheriff’s office, Jarrell is tied to a street gang, though it is unclear which gang, and has gang-related tattoos on his knuckles, neck and forearms. He also has a criminal history of selling products illegally and felony cocaine possession, the release states.

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LUMBERTON — If Lumberton and other towns in Robeson County receive the grant money they are requesting, the county would have its first gang task force unit.

Councilmen gave Lumberton Police Chief Mike McNeill permission on Wednesday to apply for money from the Governor’s Crime Commission to hire two new police officers.

The state legislature designated $4.76 million this summer to fight gang activity in 34 counties, including Robeson. McNeill said that if Lumberton and other towns receive a share of the money, the county could have as many as eight to 10 officers to prevent and suppress gangs.

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ASHEVILLE — Police arrested a 14-year-old boy Friday whom they identified as a gang member, charging him with shooting another child and two teenage girls.

Investigators said the boy is a member of the Shiloh neighborhood Black Out Mafia gang in South Asheville and that he shot at members of a rival gang, the Southside Squad.

The bullets missed the intended targets and inadvertently struck two 17-year-old girls and a 12-year-old boy. He has been in critical condition since the early Sunday morning shooting at a birthday party that grew to include about 150 people.

“It was all because of a gang fight, and someone who was part of his group, another person from Shiloh, was being assaulted and beaten,” Asheville police Capt. Tim Splain said. “Probably, he was using that gun toward the people who were assaulting his buddy from Shiloh.”

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COLUMBUS COUNTY — Police in Whiteville have made a big break in last week’s shooting. Two teens have been arrested, and authorities are looking for a third.

The teens are charged with stealing the car used in last Friday’s drive by shooting.

Whiteville police say 17-year-olds Justin Wright and Connail Reeves broke into an auto center in Whiteville in the early morning hours of Friday, September 21 and stole a silver Ford Taurus and a .25 caliber handgun.

Less than 24 hours later authorities say that same Ford Taurus was caught on surveillance at Sam’s Pit Stop in Lake Waccamaw, firing shots into a crowd of people after the East Columbus and Whiteville football game.

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Chapel Hill — Police and area business owners are worried that a shooting at a Chapel Hill nightclub that left six people injured might be gang related.

Hundreds of people were inside Visions Nite Club, at 136 E. Rosemary St., around 1 a.m. Monday, police said. An argument got out of control, and the shooter, who might have used a 9 mm handgun, fired six rounds, injuring two security workers and four patrons.

“Everyone tried to get out at the same time, so it was mass hysteria,” Lt. Kevin Gunter, with the Chapel Hill Police Department said.

In the low lighting and the confusion, the shooter managed to leave the club shortly after firing, Gunter said.

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PLEASANT GARDEN, N.C. (WGHP) — Teachers at Pleasant Garden Elementary School have become the first students in a new gang-awareness program being run by the Guilford County Sheriff’s office.

The goal of the program is to teach teachers how to spot signs of trouble, including the colors, clothing and tattoos gangs use to communicate.

“We’re trying to help teachers identify what they’re looking at and maybe help us get a handle on the situation,” explained Sheriff B.J. Barnes.

Teachers can act as eyes and ears for the community in a way parents cannot. “A lot of times, a young person at home may  not show signs recognized by parents, but may show it at school,” explained Corporal Larry Lambeth.

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GASTONIA –Jamond Rashad Burney told his mom he wanted to be a Crip. He’d been wearing the gang’s navy blue color, hanging out with older guys and getting himself into trouble.

Now 18-year-old Burney and two 15-year-olds are charged with murder in the June 26 stabbing death of a homeless man. Gastonia police say they’ve determined why Royce Dean Mathis was targeted but wouldn’t reveal the motive.

The latest arrest came Saturday, when police charged a second 15-year-old.

Twice now in the past two months, teenagers have been charged in the slaying of a homeless person in the Charlotte region. Advocates for the homeless say assaults on the group have risen at an alarming rate in recent years and young people are responsible for a large portion of the attacks.

Sgt. Dean Conner, who is overseeing the Gastonia investigation, won’t say what led police to the teenagers, but late last week said they were trying to figure out whether the slaying was gang-related.

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(09/15/07 — GASTONIA) - Two teenagers have been charged in the stabbing death of a homeless man, and investigators are looking at whether the killing was gang motivated, authorities said.

Royce Dean Mathis, 49, was found dead June 26 less than an hour after he told co-workers he was headed to a convenience store to get something to eat, authorities said.

An 18-year-old has been in the Gaston County jail on murder charges since Monday. On Thursday, authorities charged a 15-year-old with murder in Mathis’ death.

The case is the second in western North Carolina this summer in which teens are accused of killing homeless men. In July, three teens were charged with murder and robbery in the beating death of 45-year-old Terry Turner in Statesville.

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Francisco “Paco” Tirado, one of nine people convicted for Cumberland County’s notorious 1998 gang-initiation killings, had his two death sentences converted to life without parole Thursday.

The sentences were converted because under a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Tirado was too young when he participated in the murders to qualify for the death sentence. He was 17 at the time.

The Supreme Court decided that people must be at least 18 at the time of their crimes to receive the death sentence.

Tirado is now 26.

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Last September, Corporal L.G. Welch was attending a presentation at Ragsdale High School. He walked into one of the school’s bathrooms and immediately caught sight of the graffiti on the walls and in the stalls. In a simpler day and time it may have been a “Kilroy was here” drawing, but in 2006 it wasn’t Kilroy who’d been there but three gang members representing three different gangs. To the untrained eye, the symbols may have meant little more than youthful petty vandalism, but Welch’s eye is anything but untrained. He knew all too well what the symbols meant and who had spray-painted them there.

“It was the Latin Kings, the Black Gangsters Disciples and the Bloods,” he said. “Three active gangs that had marked their territory in that one boy’s bathroom.”

That one episode only confirmed what Welch already knew - has known for years - that gang activity has pervaded literally every high school in Guilford County. More alarming, it has filtered down to the middle schools and has even made inroads into some of the elementary schools. Welch has been sounding the alarm for a full decade, and has been monitoring gang activity even longer, but only in the past year or so has he been able to cut through the wall of denial.

“I’ve been preaching to them and doing gang classes for teachers, administrators, neighborhood-watch groups and churches since 1997,” he said, “showing them the identifiers, what to look for in the schools and neighborhoods. I told them it’s going to be a problem if we don’t get a handle on it and I’ve been trying to get the schools to look at the issue. They were saying back then that we don’t have gangs in our schools.”

But, with few exceptions, they’re not saying it anymore.

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A gang code name for murder was written on the handle of a gun found in a book bag seized from an E.E. Smith High School student last week, lawmen said.

“187 murder man” was written on one side of the 9 mm and “Bloods” — the name of a violent street gang — was written on the other side, said Capt. LaRue Windham of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. “187” is the penal code section for homicide in California.

The student, Hakeem Trion Essa McKoy, 17, of the 2200 block of Nicky Avenue, was charged with bringing a gun on school property and misdemeanor altering or removing a serial number from a gun. He was released to the custody of his aunt on a $5,000 secured bond, according to court documents.

The gun was found when a teacher saw the book bag being passed among several students in the lunchroom Friday, Windham said.

The teacher notified the school resource officer, and the student was taken to the principal’s office.

“The gun wasn’t loaded, the clip didn’t have any rounds in it,” said Principal Clinton Robinson.

Lawmen found a magazine containing live rounds hidden in the crotch of McKoy’s pants, Windham said. They also found a red bandana in the waistband of McKoy’s pants, Windham said. The practice is known among gangs as “hiding the colors,” he said.

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A gang code name for murder was written on the handle of a gun found in a book bag seized from an E.E. Smith High School student last week, lawmen said.

“187 murder man” was written on one side of the 9 mm and “Bloods” — the name of a violent street gang — was written on the other side, said Capt. LaRue Windham of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. “187” is the penal code for homicide in California.

The student’s name was not immediately available.

The gun was found when a teacher saw the book bag being passed among several students in the lunchroom Friday, Windham said.

The teacher notified the school resource officer, and the student was taken to the principal’s office.

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Police have made one new arrest in the shooting death of a suspected drug dealer earlier this month.

Authorities in Newport News, Va., arrested Kelvin Devon Harrison, 21, on Friday in connection with the Aug. 28 murder of 20-year-old Matthew Parker, said Rocky Mount police Capt. Martin McCoy.

Harrison is being held in Virginia on a warrant fugitive charge and is awaiting extradition to Edgecombe County, where he will be charged with aiding and abetting first-degree murder, McCoy said.

Harrison, who is believed to have been at the scene of the murder, was named as a suspect in the case on Sept. 4. McCoy said police believe Harrison had family in the Newport News area and presumably fled there when it became public that he was wanted.

“He knew we were seeking him here,” McCoy said.

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