Atlanta Gangs Face Second Racketeering Case

Music-industry-connected gang violence appears to be driving the homicide rate up in Atlanta.

When Atlanta police arrested Wayne Alford and Tenquarious “Nard” Mender last year as part of Operation Phoenix, they had hoped violence in the city would fall. That was … ambitious … it turns out. But the blocks are starting to fall into place.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis uncorked a second racketeering indictment against Atlanta street gangs last week, this time targeting a Rolling 60s Neighborhood Crip set. The 92-count-indictment handed up from the Fulton County grand jury provides a snapshot on Atlanta’s gang history and how gangs operate as prosecutors try to rein in explosive violence in Atlanta.

Tyreeze Keonta Alford, Wayne Christopher Alford, Joshua Harry Capers, Tenquarious Trenard Mender, Derrius Laquita McLester and Marquis Quannard Brinkley face charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapons, drug trafficking, theft, illegal possession of firearms and other charges related to organized crime. Some, like Wayne Alford, also face serious federal charges as part of the multi-agency Operation Phoenix effort to target the city’s most violent criminals.

The idea behind Operation Phoenix is kind of like some of the social services philosophy guiding homelessness — identify the “frequent flyers” who create the most cost and target them with intense services. It applies the 80-20 rule to crime; 80 percent of problems are caused by 20 percent of the troublemakers.

I don’t think that’s quite how things worked out in Atlanta, however. Crime fell a bit after Operation Phoenix netted 12 arrests, but not much and not for long. I think social conditions right now are more complex than the 80-20 rule and its the conditions creating crime. Removing serious bad actors, in my observation, simply created a void to be filled by someone else. Systems have to change.

That’s why the RICO indictment is interesting to me. It’s a systemic approach, uprooting the structure underpinning some of the violence. The indictment provides some local context for the RICO charges.

Violence erupted between a Bloods set — also under indictment — and these alleged Crips over the 2015 murder of Donovan Thomas, a Crip gang leader in the Inglewood Family. The two groups have been shooting at each other ever since, even as they pursued other criminal activities.

The Bloods under indictment include the rappers YFN Lucci and Bloody Jay. This Crips indictment notes that the crew operating first in Thomasville Heights and then the Forest Cove Apartments is called the Young Gunna Click. Gunna is the stage name of Sergio Kitchens, a high-profile and successful rapper in Atlanta.

“Also in the city of Atlanta, the NHC60s are associated with associates of the Young Slime Life (hereinafter ‘YSL’) gang, which formed in late 2012 in the Cleveland Avenue area of Atlanta. YSL began as a local set of the national street gang Sex, Money, Murder. In 2014, YSL merged with the Atlanta Blood Gang … which hails from the Summerhill Community in Atlanta.”

Gunna, along with the rapper Young Thug, both belong to a label first called Young Slime Life, and now called Young Stoner Life. Their social media still refers to “slime” regularly.

Neither have been accused of crimes here, and none of the defendants appear to be label-signed rappers this time. But, like the Bloods indictment last month, it tangentially connects their alleged violence to Atlanta’s music scene.