Plan B Forum

Even in a community used to blood and drugs on its streets and, from time to time, corruption in its corridors of power, the partial takeover by a street gang of the Baltimore jail system shocked the city.

Investigations have led to 13 prison staff being charged with crimes related to the activities of a prison gang known as the Black Guerilla Family. All were women, and four of them had fallen pregnant to the gang’s Baltimore leader, Tavon White. Two of them bore his name on tattoos.

Twelve inmates have been charged with conspiracy and smuggling contraband, including drugs and phones, into the jail inside body cavities or hidden in sandwiches.

Last week, a report by a special commission convened by the Maryland state government recommended the city’s main jail, the Baltimore City Detention Centre simply be scrapped and rebuilt, literally, from the ground up.

An FBI recording of one of White’s phone calls reveals how certain he was of his own power in the system.

‘‘This is my jail. You understand that? I’m dead serious ... I make every final call in this jail ... and nothing go past me, everything come to me ... Any of my brothers that deal with anybody, it’s gonna come to me.

‘‘You see what I am saying? Everything come to me. Everything. Before a motherf---er hit a n----- in the mouth, guess what they do: they gotta run it through me. I tell them whether it’s a go-ahead and they can do it or whether they hold back. Before a motherf---er stab somebody, they gotta run it through me ... Anything that get done must go through me.’’

And last month it was revealed that the BGF’s reach extended well beyond the jail walls.

Standing in a park in one the city’s blighted urban neighbourhoods, Police Commissioner Anthony Batts announced that after a three-month investigation his officers had arrested and charged 48 BGF members in relation to a string of murders, shootings and assaults, as well as criminal conspiracy.

The following day two more alleged gang members were caught and it is understood 10 to 12 more are still being sought.

Police believe collectively they are responsible for at least 13 murders and 12 shootings since 2005.



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/gangster-ta ... z2ooOwxtpe