Gang Initiation by Chase Down

Claim:   Gang initiates are attempting to force cars off roads in order to murder the occupants.

FALSE

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, 2007]

Origins:   This e-mailed warning about a purported gang initiation by murder of a random victim in South Carolina began arriving in the snopes.com inbox in March 2007. Although something like the incident described did occur, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department told us that it apparently was a case of spur-of-the-moment "road rage," rather than a premeditated action:

The story's "gang initiation by murder of randomly-chosen victim" premise is the theme of a number of scares documented on this site, all of them baseless (e.g., drivers who flash their headlights at a darkened car (as a way of alerting those being flashed at that their vehicle's headlights are not on), motorists lured into pulling off to the side of the road by gangbangers who flash their headlights at him (as a way of indicating there's something wrong with the targeted victims' vehicles), women refueling their vehicles at gas stations having prospective

gang members hide themselves in their cars so as to kidnap, rape and murder the women when they get back in and drive off, and women and children in Wal-Mart parking lots being picked off as they leave or make their way back to their vehicles).

South Carolina is in the throes of recognizing it has an escalating gang problem, and some folks in that area are only now starting to shake off their "We're too rural for that to happen here" mentality and wake up to what has been going on around them. While gangs of various stripe have been growing in number and membership in that region for some time, only recently has their presence come to be viewed as anything other than restricted to isolated pockets of activity.

But that is changing. Of this awakening. said the Charleston Post and Courier in February 2007:

Part of that awakening process may well be the spread of wild tales about ruthless gangs that induct new members by having them murder victims chosen on a whim.

Yet the murder of haphazardly-chosen victims isn't a common gang induction ritual, in South Carolina or elsewhere in the U.S. While each troop has its own rites of passage, the usual mode of induction remains being "jumped in" — that is, initiates are beaten by full-fledged gang members for a specified length of time, with recruits who withstand the battering being admitted to the gang.

There have been instances of initiations into street gangs that led to the murder of random victims, but they are rare. Generally, they don't involve gang hopefuls being clearly commanded by their overlords to take the lives of the haphazardly-selected but are rather instances of killings that occur incidentally during the course of criminal tasks that prospective initiates had been sent to accomplish by their

handlers.

For instance, as part of his initiation into the Bloods in December 2004 in Harford County, Maryland, 18-year-old Wayne Lavon Bond, Jr. and 21-year-old Darrell Levon Miller were ordered by their superiors to summon a cab to a remote location and rob its driver. While it is not clear from a reading of news accounts whether either of the pair had been ordered to murder the man they were to rob, after getting in the taxi with the cabdriver, 37-year-old Derald Howard Guess, and relieving him of $20, Bond shot Guess once in the temple, killing him. Bond was sentenced to life plus 60 years. In return for his testimony against Bond, Miller was sentenced to life in prison with all but 45 years of his term suspended.

Similarly, in February 2004 in New York, when 18-year-old Charles (C-Murder) Bryant expressed interest in joining a Bloods faction called the Gun Squad, he was told he would have to rob the Chinese food deliveryman then on the way to the apartment with an order. The robbery of 18-year-old Huang Chen by Bryant, 19-year-old Nayquan Miller, and 19-year-old William (Hitz) Capehart quickly turned into a savage assault on the food deliverer, who was beaten to death with a hammer. Bryant received a sentence of 51-1/3 years for the crime, and Capehart received a 50+ years sentence. In return for his testimony against the others, Miller was given a reduced prison term of 20 years to life.

However, there has been at least one documented case of initiation into a gang being effected by way of the murder of randomly-selected strangers. On 17 August 1998, Tracy Lambert and Susan Moore were abducted by prospective Crips ("baby gangsters" or "BGs") in Linden, North Carolina, forced into the trunk of Moore's car, driven to a field outside town, and executed by being shot in the head. Earlier that evening, Debra Cheeseborough had been similarly abducted by the group and forced into the trunk of her car, taken to Smith Lake on Fort Bragg, and shot seven times in the back. Cheeseborough was left for dead but survived to testify against her abductors.

The two gang leaders who ordered the abductions, Francisco Tirado and Eric Devon Queen, were found guilty of all charges against them, including first-degree murder, burglary, kidnapping, robbery with a dangerous weapon, conspiracy, attempted first-degree murder, and assault with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury. Queen told police he shot Lambert in the head while the others watched. Eventually, all nine participants in the murders were charged and convicted.

Barbara "gang planked" Mikkelson

Last updated:   12 July 2011

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