Old articles

5-21-1985

LOS ANGELES -- A series of violent crimes, including two murders at the Nickerson Gardens housing project, has aroused fears that the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang is moving into the city's urban drug trade.

"They are apparently learning that controlling cell blocks is not nearly as much fun as controlling blocks in the city," said Bob Carter, a former police lieutenant who now serves as a member of the Board of Prison Terms. "They are doing everything they can to lay low in the prison and get involved in the action back on the outside."

Carter helped organize a recent meeting with the prison board and detectives specializing in prison gang activities after a Black Guerrilla Family member and two associates were charged with the killings in March of two Nickerson Gardens residents.

Police arrested Michael Dorrough, 31, a gang member, and Andre Mathews, 30, and Herman Coleman, 29, on April 4. The three recent parolees, who lived at Nickerson Gardens, all are awaiting trial in Compton Superior Court.

Although their arrest prompted the meeting between prison board members and police, detectives also have become alarmed by violence and widespread rumors that gang members are stockpiling weapons.

Despite the arrests, Nickerson Gardens residents believe that the Black Guerilla Family still is behind much of the drug trafficking in the sprawling housing complex, according to an account published in today's Los Angeles Times.

The Times quoted one unidentified resident of the project, who said she was paid $300 a week to allow the prison gang 's members to sell rock cocaine from her apartment.

"They pay very well, as long as they're making money themselves," the woman said. "They were bringing in three grand ($3,000) a night at my place."

The woman said Black Guerrilla Family members do not hesitate to use violence against individuals they suspect of crossing them in drug deals or cooperating with the police.

"They'll smile in your face and kill you with a grin," she said. "They'll kill you like nothing."

The Black Guerrilla Family was organized in California prisons during the 1960s and early '70s at a time when white and Hispanic prisoners also were forming gangs . Officials estimate that the Black Guerrilla Family numbers about 400 in California prisons and about 200 on the streets of Los Angeles.


GANG MAY PUNISH SUSPECTED SLAYER
San Jose Mercury News (CA) - Sunday, August 27, 1989
Readability: >12 grade level (Lexile: 1360L)
Author: MICHAEL DORGAN, Mercury News Oakland Bureau

Tyrone Robinson, the 25-year-old ex-convict accused of killing former Black Panther leader Huey Newton, may have more to worry about than a murder charge. Robinson, who allegedly has told police he is a soldier in the notorious Black Guerrilla Family prison gang , could suffer swifter and harsher punishment from gang members than from the law, according to informed sources.

If Robinson is a member of the BGF, then he apparently has violated one of the organization's most sacred rules: that members remain "invisible," telling no one -- especially not police -- of their affiliation. And if he is not a member of the BGF, he could face equally dire consequences for posing as one. In either case, his penalty could be death. Law enforcement officials and others say the BGF's leadership routinely hands out death sentences that are swiftly executed by loyal soldiers within the state's prison system and on the streets.

''When he gets to the joint, he could be in deep" trouble, said a source in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office who asked not to be identified because of previous death threats from BGF members. "Unless, that is, the BGF is so happy he took out Newton that they forgive him."

Newton's former Black Panther Party and the Black Guerrilla Family at one time were almost indistinguishable. Founded by prison revolutionary George Jackson, who also was a member of the Panthers, the BGF surrounded itself with much of the same Maoist political theory adopted by the Panthers and, like the Panthers, advocated armed revolution by America's blacks .

The main difference between the groups was that most Panthers were outside prison -- and most BGF members were not.

BGF has grown

Now the Panther Party has dissolved, while the BGF apparently has grown. In 1981, the state Department of Justice estimated that the BGF had 200 members statewide. The source in the district attorney's office, who has prosecuted many BGF cases, estimates that membership now may be as high as 450.

According to a secret BGF manual, the organization has a military structure, with ranks ranging from "soldier" to "supreme commander." Members, who are given Swahili names to replace their "slave names," may move up or down in rank, but the only way out is death.

In a 1987 court hearing in Oakland, a member who "rolled over" and testified for the prosecution in an alleged BGF murder case was asked, "How do dropouts get out of the BGF?"

''As long as you can stay away from the BGF, then assumingly you are OK," said the lapsed member, according to a transcript of the hearing. "But the thing is, the first chance any BGF member have at getting to a dropout, he is supposed to kill him."

The BGF still has a rigid code of conduct and retains its program of preparation for armed revolution. The secret manual includes a list of offenses, including heroin use and "cowardice in battle," that are punishable by death. And a set of "standards and procedures" urges members to cultivate selfless devotion and to "submit totally to the guidance, rules and policies of the organization."

''These Standards and Procedures on recruitment are to ensure that we meet with maximum success in our endeavors to construct an effective and highly sophisticated organizing and fighting force capable of sustaining the forward motion of our War effort," the manual says.

But the effort has not stayed intact.

The BGF suffered a deep division about seven years ago over whether members should be involved in drug trafficking, sources said. They said there were a lot of shootouts among BGF members on the streets of Oakland, and that the drug-dealing faction apparently won.

Hostile takeover

Court records indicated that several BGF members worked as enforcers for local drug rings, including Harvey Whisenton's "Funktown" outfit, which controlled a sizable turf in East Oakland. The source in the district attorney's office said court testimony from several criminal cases indicated that the BGF tried to take control of drug dealing in Oakland several years ago by infiltrating Whisenton's gang .

''They wanted to find out who his source was, and then they planned to kill him," he said, adding that the alleged plot collapsed when Whisenton was arrested on drug charges and sent to prison .

The source said the local BGF lacked the strength to take on such major dealers as Darryl Reed, who was arrested earlier this year while allegedly cooking up a 44-pound batch of "crack" cocaine -- the largest ever confiscated in the United States.

''Reed had 40 to 50 guys; they'd shoot back," he said.

Retreat to West Oakland

Abandoning the attempt to take over the city's entire drug market, the BGF retreated to West Oakland, where its members controlled a modest turf and made forays into to East Oakland to rob and extort other dealers, the source said. Robinson allegedly complained that Newton had robbed and stolen drugs and money from various BGF dealers, leading police to speculate that Robinson considered the slaying a way of advancing in the drug-dealing organization run by the BGF.

It apparently was within BGF turf that Newton was killed with three bullets to the head from a 9mm semiautomatic an hour before dawn last week.

Police said the shooting followed a demand by Newton, who apparently had been smoking crack through the night, that Robinson give him some drugs. Robinson, who apparently refused, told police that Newton had robbed him of 14 "rocks" of crack and $160 a few months ago, and also had robbed or stolen drugs from other BGF dealers.

Sgt. Robert Chenault said Friday that Robinson has admitted shooting Newton, but claims to have done so in self-defense after the former Panther leader pulled a gun. Chenault said, however, there is no evidence to support that claim.

Police said that rather than defend himself, Robinson shot Newton to advance himself within the ranks of the BGF. As Robinson pulled the trigger, they said, he reportedly boasted, "I'll make rank, man; I'll make rank."
Black Guerrilla Family history

(box)1971: BGF Founder George Jackson is killed, along with three guards and two prison trusties, in what authorities say was a escape attempt from San Quentin and Jackson admirers say was an assassination.

(box)1980: A state attorney general's report links the 1979 shooting of Jackson lawyer Faye Stender to a BGF prisonbreak plot that allegedly involved plans to kidnap foreign consulate officials in San Francisco. Stender was shot six times after being forced to write a note saying she had "betrayed" Jackson. She survived but later committed suicide.

(box)1981: Arrests in San Jose and Berkeley allegedly break up a BGF plot to kill three prison officials. Two BGF members were taken into custody at the home of Harold Lloyd Brice, an alleged BGF "general" living in San Jose.

(box)1986: The President's Commission on Organized Crime ties the BGF to organized crime.

(box)1988: Six inmates of Alameda County's Santa Rita Jail are injured in a brawl after several BGF members invade barracks occupied by white inmates. Jail officials say the fight resulted from a bungled drug delivery.

(box)1989: Johnny Spain, a Black Panther who was convicted of two counts of murder in connection with Jackson's attempted San Quentin breakout, is granted a new trial because a federal appeals court rules the shackles he was forced to wear in court hurt his defense. The ruling is announced Tuesday, the day Huey Newton is gunned down in Oakland.