Breaking open a coded world where the police are "roscoes," a gun is "platinum" and a robbery victim is a "birthday boy," federal prosecutors announced yesterday a racketeering indictment charging 23 men and five women with participating in a Baltimore-based gang responsible for dealing drugs, beating up rivals, intimidating witnesses and killing five people.
Among those charged are one of the producers of the infamous Stop Snitching DVD and an admitted Bloods gang member who gave an extensive interview to The Sun last year about his illicit activities. The 49-page indictment reads like a primer on Baltimore gang life, starting with a glossary of terms used on the city's streets and inside its prisons where the gang's criminal exploits allegedly flourished from 2005 until this year.
Yesterday's target - a Baltimore offshoot of the Bloods' Tree Top Piru gang - was not necessarily among the city's largest or most profitable drug organizations, state prosecutors said. But the viciousness of its members, who gained entry only by committing a violent crime first, appalled experienced investigators and prompted a wide-ranging probe from Western Maryland to the Eastern Shore and combined efforts of local and federal law enforcement agencies.
"There is not an area of our state that is exempt" from gang infiltration, said Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy, describing TTP Bloods as the city's largest gang.
Although those indicted represented what federal and state officials said were the top echelon of the gang, officials could not provide a member estimate of the Baltimore-based gang.
U.S. Attorney for Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein, whose office is overseeing the federal prosecution, said the gang born inside a Maryland state prison once considered time behind bars a "temporary inconvenience," if not a rite of passage. Yesterday's indictment could bring much harsher punishment, including possible sentences of life without parole for 21 of the 28 defendants.
The potential penalties should be a warning to all gang members, Rosenstein said, that this joint law enforcement approach should have a significant impact on organized crime throughout Maryland. "We're not resting on our laurels," he added.
The detailed indictment that relies heavily on recorded surveillance once again shed light on a chronic security problem inside the state's prisons: cellular phones. Mobile phones are prohibited inside prisons because inmates can use them to coordinate criminal activities inside and outside prisons. Legislators and watchdogs have bemoaned the steady flow of such contraband into some prisons because it suggests possible corruption by prison supervisors.
Yesterday's indictment marks the second major case this month in which federal officials have alleged that criminal enterprises were being run from a prison cell. Federal prosecutors say Patrick Albert Byers Jr. used a cell phone while in jail to set up the murder of a witness, Carl Stanley Lackl, in Baltimore County in July.
According to court papers unsealed yesterday, the gang members charged are linked directly to the Bloods street gang, which originated in Los Angeles in the early 1970s.
Specifically, the Baltimore gang is based on a subset known as Tree Top Piru, based on a group of streets in the Los Angeles suburb of Compton. Now called TTP, they first became known as Trey 8 and later the Insane Red Devils inside a Maryland prison. The gang started in Washington County Detention Center in Hagerstown about nine years ago, according to federal prosecutors.
Over time, a group of female gang members formed a unit of TTP known as the Tree Top Pirettes. Five defendants in the indictment are women.
At the top of the gang, authorities said, was Steve "Kanibal Lecktor" Willock. From his prison cell, he enforced the rules, including a violent initiation process in which prospective members went on "missions" to rob, assault and carjack victims, the indictment says. The initiation process also involved being "jumped in" through a beating by other gang members. TTP members were required to commit acts of violence to maintain membership and advance through the ranks, according to prosecutors.
Specifically, the indictment alleges that TTP Bloods had a role in five murders, including three in Baltimore: the Sept. 21, 2005, stabbing death of Terrance J. Williams, 28; the Nov. 17, 2006, shooting death of Lamont Jackson; the Dec. 17, 2006, shooting death of Marquel Smith; the June 23, 2007, death of Jewels Cook, 36; and the Oct. 5, 2007, death of David Leonard Moore.
Federal prosecutors could not provide complete information about the killings.
When their members were arrested, other TTP Bloods intervened, officials said. In December 2006, federal prosecutors allege, three defendants obstructed a state murder trial by talking with a juror and intimidating a witness. Three defendants in the Williams murder case - Kevin Gary, Clyde Miller and Troy Smith - who were acquitted in the state case were indicted federally yesterday.
The connections between the gang's roots on the West Coast and Baltimore remain strong, according to the indictment.
Authorities said they obtained a letter written by Willock, the Baltimore gang leader, to a TTP leader in Compton.
"I'm working on getting a full head count and list of all the Tree Tops on this side so the T.T.P. homies on that side know the exact number of Tree Top Piru homies are on this side. ... I am working on getting the Trees focused on building a financial structure for the set, and the homies down with the set, in and out of the pen. We have about 3-4 territories in Baltimore, Md [BodyMore] and we have blocks in different counties in Md, also territories in the Eastern Shore. ...
"It's a pleasure," Willock concludes, "to connect with tha Real Gangsta's of the West."
Gang members in the indictment focused on innocent victims and those with whom they shared a grudge, court papers show.
On Aug. 27, a gang member told Kevin "Red Eyes" Gary about "a mission" a day earlier in which members had assaulted a Muslim. On Feb. 14, gang member and Stop Snitching producer Ronnie Thomas, also known as "Skinny Suge" allegedly called gang member Kevin Gary to talk about retaliating against a store owner who refused to sell the follow-up version of his witness-intimidation DVD, prosecutors said.
More than 100 federal and state law enforcement officers led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Violent Crime Impact Teams worked together to execute the search and arrest warrants yesterday. Twenty-one of those charged were arrested yesterday or were already in custody.
Gary told The Sun last year that he was a member of the Bloods. He was accused of killing a young man who wanted to leave the gang but was acquitted of the charge in state court. In his newspaper interview, he admitted that he has stabbed people in jail and that there are violent people in his Bloods group.
But he also argued that gangs are being unfairly portrayed. He thinks they provide needed structure for youth and uplift the community.
Now in his mid-20s, Gary described himself as older than most gang members, already hardened by prison, and he is perhaps more philosophical than his younger friends. He said he is not in a gang but a movement.
Yvette Pittman, Gary's grandmother, was in the house early yesterday morning when federal agents searched it. "I heard a helicopter," she said. "By the time I was halfway to the door, they had already come in the house." She said federal agents took tax records, cell phones, a computer, copies of The Sun and notebooks from the house.
The agents also searched an urn where the remains of Gary's younger brother, Shawn Tiller, are kept. "The ashes were all over the dresser," she said.
She said her grandson was in the process of starting a magazine and was supposed to begin work on a new radio show today.
matthew.dolan@baltsun.com
Sun reporters Annie Linskey and Greg Garland contributed to this article.
Bloods talk
Terms used by Bloods members:
Crab: a derogatory term for a member of the rival Crips gang
550: refers to a civilian
999 or Triple 9: cooperating with law enforcement
Platinum: a firearm
Baby love: a reference to money
Pup or peanut: a pledge
Big Homey: a leader
Stack: a reference to $1000
On the menu or labeled food: a person who has been designated as someone who is going to be eaten, meaning seriously beaten or killed
Roscoes: a term for police
To peter roll: to kill or assault
Twirl: to talk
On point: to be prepared for retaliation
Red: right or understood
Mission: a violent act
Birthday boy: a person who is to be robbed
[Source: Maryland U.S. attorney's office]