Getting feds into fight put gangs on the run in Portsmouth

PORTSMOUTH

A photographer captured the look on James Alexander Mack's face the moment police took him down.

He seemed stunned - like he never thought the day would come.

That was how he and other members of the Bounty Hunter Bloods and Nine Tech Gangsters had lived.

The city had other gangs, but members of these two groups of Bloods were oblivious to a special status they had achieved: the unwavering attention of police.

Many of the Bloods lived in Cradock, but their tentacles reached to other Portsmouth neighborhoods and crossed into Chesapeake and Suffolk.

Often the two Bloods gangs worked together. They were more violent than others in the city and becoming more organized.

In the end, that criminal collaboration helped police and federal authorities dismantle them, as they arrested more than 30 and took gang leaders like Mack to federal court under racketeering law.

Kenneth L. Gavin, the Portsmouth Police Department's veteran gang detective, knows there are still Bloods in the city. But he also knows their lifestyles may not seem as appealing to some now.

The leaders are either facing life sentences or already doing hard time.

The loyalty oaths in the Bloods' rule books pretty much evaporated with the arrests. From top to bottom, information flowed freely, Gavin recalls.

They all were out to save themselves.

The investigation continues, but already it is a triumph for Portsmouth.

Overall violent crime is down 13 percent from last year and shootings have declined by 41 percent, said Police Chief Edward G. Hargis.

The victory was especially felt in Cradock.

The Bloods had terrorized the historic neighborhood, splitting it between them and pegging their territories the Westside and the Eastside.

Burglaries, robberies and assaults plagued what had once been a quaint community of World War I-era homes.

Ted Lamb, the Neighborhood Watch coordinator, remembers that things got so bad, it spurred Cradock residents to help police. So while officers conducted surveillance, residents watched, too, Lamb said.

The Bloods were never hard to find. They flaunted their power, hanging out on the streets, flashing gang signs and wearing gang colors, beads and bandanas.

They plastered it in cyberspace on their My Space pages, sometimes displaying guns or posting messages about gang activity.

Their brazenness paid dividends for police, who two years ago sent to the Bloods what should have been the first signal that law enforcement was coming.

In August 2008, police executed an early morning raid on five Cradock homes, where they confiscated papers, suspected stolen goods and a shotgun.

At least three juveniles were arrested along with a bigger catch - Arous J. Phillips, a "general" in the Bounty Hunter Bloods.

Phillips grew up with Mack, the "original gangster" or leader of the Bounty Hunter Bloods, Gavin said. They hung out in the College Square area of Suffolk when they were younger.

When Phillips moved to Cradock to live with his grandmother, he controlled gang activity there for Mack, Gavin said.

Meanwhile, Jamel Spaights, who had lived in New York, brought the Nine Tech Gangsters subset to the same neighborhood.

Spaights had gotten into drug distribution. He took guns to New York and exchanged them for drugs to sell here, Gavin said.

Also living in Cradock was James Martin Harris, a "lieutenant" under Spaights.

The link between the Bounty Hunter Bloods and the Nine Tech Gangsters was strengthened by Phillips' and Harris' friendship, Gavin said.

Those two also did much of the recruiting.

When Hargis showed up from New Jersey as the new police chief in early 2009, he steered the fight against gangs in a new direction.

He wanted the U.S. Attorney's Office and FBI involved so they could go after a larger-scale racketeering case.

Federal authorities had resources and surveillance techniques that could help move a local investigation along, he said. To prosecute under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, they had to prove that the gangs affected interstate commerce.

Their drug distribution and commercial robberies achieved that.

Gang members' crimes included the 2006 beating death of Darius Powell, a Cradock man police believe was mistaken for someone else the Bloods were after.

They included the 2007 shooting and wounding of a food mart owner during an attempted robbery.

And they included a 2007 home invasion in Chesapeake's upscale River Bend neighborhood.

Sandra Krouse, the victim, remembers gang members holding her by her hair, and pistol whipping her as she fought and screamed for her life. They fled empty-handed when her cries roused neighbors.

By September of last year, 18 gang members had been arrested.

That same month, police made their long-awaited move on Mack, who was selling drugs in a deal that had been set up by police.

Mack thought he would face only a state drug charge and would be back on the streets soon, Gavin said.

Mack and others were surprised when served with federal warrants, the detective said.

"We got everything from crying to screaming and yelling," he said. "They knew what federal meant."

The cockiness and the unwillingness to cooperate went away too.

Gavin said the gang members' approach became "What can I do to help myself - I don't want to go to jail for the rest of my life."

Portsmouth Commonwealth's Attorney Earle C. Mobley said the police work was remarkable.

"I don't think there's any doubt this has sent a message," he said.

Gavin hopes to get funding to do a billboard with photos of all of the convicted gang members and the prison time they are serving.

Mack received 35 years in the state system for drug charges in Portsmouth and Suffolk. He faces life on federal charges when he is sentenced Thursday. He declined to be interviewed.

Spaights was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison. He could not be reached. A federal correctional facility website listed the Nine Tech Gangsters leader as "in transit."

In all, eight members of the gang pleaded guilty in federal court.

Phillips and Harris face the potential of life sentences. An additional 23 members are being routed through state courts. In a federal court filing, Mack's attorney wrote that it was not necessary to give his client more time on top of the years he got in state courts.

"He was not as ruthless or as heartless as it may appear," wrote James S. Ellenson. "Co-conspirators followed him based on his charisma and leadership qualities."

Gavin doesn't see the attorney's logic.

Mack "was the main backbone behind it and created a large portion of our criminal issues for several years," he said.

Janie Bryant, (757) 446-2453, janie.bryant@pilotonline.com