{"id":718308,"date":"2022-06-26T11:00:52","date_gmt":"2022-06-26T11:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=395010"},"modified":"2022-06-26T11:00:52","modified_gmt":"2022-06-26T11:00:52","slug":"atlantas-gang-indictment-takes-on-an-institution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/06\/26\/atlantas-gang-indictment-takes-on-an-institution\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlanta’s Gang Indictment Takes On an Institution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeffery Lamar Williams<\/u>\u00a0\u2014 the celebrated Atlanta trap recording artist better known as Young Thug\u00a0\u2014 walked into Fulton County Jail in May to a standing ovation.<\/p>\n

The arrest was an event. The jail, on Rice Street, shut down the intake of other arrestees to process him in. Atlanta\u2019s city-contracted wrecker service diverted all its trucks to haul his many cars out of the rented property in Buckhead where police found him May 9. The entire city paused to take inventory on the massive gang arrest, with 27 other people\u00a0\u2014 including a second superstar rapper, Sergio \u201cGunna\u201d Kitchens.<\/p>\n

Previous Fulton County prosecutors have been reluctant to invoke the law, concerned about the abuses of mass incarceration and its power to stigmatize Black defendants. But Atlanta today faces a rash of violence that distorts policies and murders good intentions.<\/p>\n

While official claims about gang culpability for street violence ought to be taken with a grain of salt\u00a0\u2014 such figures are often pulled out of thin air \u2014 Young Slime Life, the gang Williams is alleged to lead, left a trail of very real bodies, the victims of a seven-year gang feud.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Rising violent crime and the abuses attendant to gang prosecutions have received national attention amid the push for criminal justice reform following George Floyd\u2019s murder. Local dynamics in Atlanta make discussions of such reforms \u2014 and of the abuses they target \u2014 especially fraught. On the one hand, a Black mayor and a Black prosecutor\u00a0are charged with protecting poor Black people in Black neighborhoods, while white conservatives use Atlanta violence as a political punching bag. On the other hand, the machinery of rap music in Atlanta increasingly exploits real-world violence to promote the street \u201cauthenticity\u201d of Atlanta trap, primarily to white audiences.<\/p>\n

In the middle are austere jail cells, where Young Thug and many others now wait for their trials.<\/p>\n\n

Violence is on<\/u> the rise in Atlanta. The homicide rate is up by about one-third year-to-date and about 60 percent over pre-pandemic levels. The city is on pace for roughly 170 murders\u00a0this year, compared\u00a0with\u00a099 in 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The problem, as can be gleaned from police reports, appears to be terrifyingly basic: The cops increasingly describe killings as targeted. A small subset of shooters want to make sure their victims aren\u2019t just bleeding but dead.<\/p>\n

Sometimes that can look like the casually brutal murder of Anthony Frazier, a security guard at a seafood restaurant on Cleveland Avenue who took a bullet point-blank in the back of the head last month. Or it can be a plain hit, like the murder of Shymel Drinks, whose body was found beneath an\u00a0overpass just south of downtown in March. Police described him as a member of a gang, allegedly killed by rivals in Young Slime Life as an act of reprisal.<\/p>\n

This is what Atlanta\u2019s gang war looks like. It has been raging in varying forms since 2015 and went into overdrive during the pandemic, reversing more than a decade of the city\u2019s gains against violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe murder rate in Atlanta is over the murder rate in Chicago!\u201d bellowed Republican former Sen. David Perdue in a gubernatorial candidates\u2019 debate in April. \u201cWhat we have in Georgia is a runaway crime situation that the governor is burying his head about. … We have the highest murder rate in the country!\u201d<\/p>\n

Atlanta\u2019s murder rate over the last 12 months is higher than Chicago\u2019s: 36 per 100,000 people killed to Chicago\u2019s 27 per 100,000. None of the rest of what Perdue said is true. Atlanta doesn\u2019t crack the top 20 cities over 100,000 residents for murders. Georgia isn\u2019t in the top\u00a010 states for murder rates. Kemp still engaged in a bidding war for \u201ctough-on-crime\u201d credentials.<\/p>\n

The rhetoric from white conservatives has had one of its intended effects: blunting reform efforts. Atlanta\u2019s relatively progressive, Black political leadership has incrementally turned away from talk about reform and toward whatever can get the body count down, now.
\n

\n\"Fulton\n

Fulton County Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis in her office on Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2022.<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: Ben Gray\/AP<\/p><\/div>
\nFani Willis,<\/u> the Fulton County district attorney, sees gang prosecutions and state RICO charges as the answer to the uptick in violence. RICO\u00a0\u2014 short for the\u00a0<\/strong>Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act \u2014 is a law meant to take down drug cartels and mafia syndicates by piecing together individual crimes to argue that they\u2019re part of a larger criminal enterprise. RICO cases\u00a0\u2014 state or federal \u2014 are hard to beat.<\/p>\n

The Young Slime Life, or YSL, indictment has 28 defendants, only a handful of whom can pay for a robust defense out of pocket. The wide net of the charges is designed to get people to fold and offer testimony to save their own skin.<\/p>\n

Not everyone is convinced that it\u2019s a good tactic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis sweeping indictment will come at a great expense to taxpayers and all Atlantans who would prefer violence intervention and thoughtful investment in solutions proven to be effective,\u201d said Devin Franklin, an attorney at the Southern Center for Human Rights. \u201cThe Fulton County District Attorney\u2019s Office has invested tremendously in crafting a narrative of dangerousness in Atlanta without providing data to the public substantiating the contention that so-called repeat offenders are primarily to blame for harm in Atlanta.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some critics hold that the targets in this case are Black people who have risen from poverty, that perhaps the charges are a prosecutorial overreach in the face of political pressure to act. These critics would\u00a0argue that RICO cases should be reserved for people with institutional power, like transnational criminal cartels, mafia crews, and corporate malefactors.<\/p>\n

Should Black criminal enterprises be immune to drawing a RICO charge? The idea is fundamentally insulting.<\/blockquote>\n

There might be something to it, but to make that argument one must overlook the role of the music industry in Atlanta \u2014 an institution, one might say \u2014 and its intertwined relationship\u00a0with the gang violence. Should Black criminal enterprises be immune to drawing a RICO charge? The idea is fundamentally insulting. Poor Black people\u2019s lives lost in street warfare deserve the protection of the law.<\/p>\n

When looking at the problem of street violence and its connection to Atlanta\u2019s music industry as a question of racism, consider the corporate parentage of Young Thug\u2019s label. Len Blavatnik is the\u00a0owner of Warner Music Group, which owns the 300 Entertainment label\u00a0that distributes the music of Young Thug on his YSL label. Blavatnik is a Russian oligarch who helped other oligarchs under sanctions divest their holdings. He donated $1 million to former President Donald Trump’s slush fund\/inaugural committee.<\/p>\n

If Atlanta\u2019s musical infrastructure is cancerous because of the way street gangs are using their connection to music studios and recording executives to recruit new members into acts of violence, a RICO prosecution is an attack on structural power.<\/p>\n

Young Thug\u2019s rise<\/u> to stardom ran in parallel with a gang war between feuding sets of Bloods. The conflict erupted in 2015, following the assassination of Bloods gang leader Donovan \u201cPeanut\u201d Thomas. Prosecutors allege that Williams \u2014 Young Thug \u2014 rented the car used by five gang members, including rising rap star Yak Gotti, to conduct\u00a0the drive-by shooting that killed Thomas.<\/p>\n

According to the indictment, Williams spoke with Kyle Oree, the leader of the cultlike gang Sex Money Murda, shortly after Thomas\u2019s death. Prosecutors appear to have captured a call to Oree in jail,\u00a0in which the hit is purportedly discussed. A few days after talking to Oree, Young Thug went on social media to argue that people who \u201cget right into the courtroom and tell the God\u2019s honest truth don\u2019t get it, y\u2019all n****s\u00a0need to get fucking killed, bro, from me and YSL.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bringing charges against a group like the Young Slime Life gang proved challenging. Prosecutors had to disentangle YSL the music label, which is an imprint of Warner Music, from YSL the street gang, an outgrowth of South Atlanta organized crime around Cleveland Avenue, the latest iteration of previous gangs like Raised on Cleveland and 30 Deep.<\/p>\n

Thomas\u2019s murder divided Atlanta into two warring camps: YSL and YFN,\u00a0another Blood gang in Atlanta loyal to Thomas. YFN is fronted by another popular rapper, Rayshawn Bennett, known as YFN Lucci.<\/p>\n

The conflict only accelerated during the pandemic, though violence appears to have slowed down since the May 9 indictment and arrests.<\/p>\n

Lucci is in Fulton County Jail \u2014 somewhere carefully isolated from Young Thug \u2014 awaiting trial on gang charges and a felony murder charge from a botched 2021 drive-by shooting on YSL gang members. Lucci allegedly drove the car. When their targets killed the triggerman in return fire, Lucci ditched the body in the middle of the street and sped away, the YFN gang indictment said.
\n

\n\"Rapper\n

Rapper YFN Lucci performs on Jan.\u00a05, 2021, in Atlanta.<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: Paras Griffin\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>
\nThe arrest of alleged YSL gang member Christian \u201cBig Bhris\u201d Eppinger on February 7 ended in a bloody affair, with Eppinger allegedly firing six shots into an Atlanta cop during the arrest. Eppinger\u2019s arrest started a 90-day clock ticking, with court rules demanding an indictment before then to continue to hold him. Willis, the district attorney, used it to build the broader YSL gang case.<\/p>\n

The cases are sure to leverage Georgia\u2019s unique gang law. Normally, prosecutors can\u2019t use rap lyrics or Instagram photos of men holding guns while throwing up gang signs as evidence of a crime in an armed robbery case or an assault, because alone these things have nothing to do with those crimes. A judge would consider it improperly prejudicial.<\/p>\n

But in a gang terrorism case under Georgia law, the prosecution has to prove that other crimes were committed as part of gang activity. So all evidence of gang activity becomes admissible, and that evidence can be used in the trials of all the other alleged gang members charged under the same statute. The Georgia law can be devastating for the defense: Juries see mountains of evidence from a wide array of crimes, along with testimony about gang signs and initiations.<\/p>\n

Police and civic<\/u> leaders began 2022 with calls for Atlantans to engage in nonviolent conflict resolution, because the city\u2019s murders appeared to be driven by inexplicable spontaneous rage and not, say, the more statistically predictable drug deal gone bad or robbery attempt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, folks are going to the finality of any argument, like the end of the argument is to end you, to end your life,\u201d said Andre Dickens, Atlanta\u2019s newly elected mayor, at a \u201cClippers and Cops\u201d barbershop forum in January. \u201cWe\u2019re finding that the person that\u2019s dead also had a gun. So the person that shot was thinking, \u2018I\u2019ve got to shoot you before you shoot me,\u2019 because so many people have guns right now.\u201d He added, \u201cA lot of times I\u2019m seeing these things happening because people just don\u2019t know how to settle a dispute \u2014 without going to a gun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Historically, Atlanta voters have picked their mayors based on issues of housing, transportation, and city service problems. A poll ahead of the Atlanta mayor\u2019s race last year, though, showed that 48 percent of people considered crime to be the most important problem in the city, with about 61 percent of respondents saying they live within a mile of an area where they\u2019d be afraid to walk alone at night.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

On the campaign trail, Dickens took a balanced approach to fighting Atlanta\u2019s growing crime problem. \u201cWhile arrests for violent criminals are of course necessary, we simply cannot arrest our way out of a crime wave,\u201d he said in his crime policy platform. \u201cWe need a comprehensive approach. Diversion and police alternatives are an integral part of managing Atlanta\u2019s criminal justice system.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city is pursuing an expansion of its pre-arrest diversion initiative, ramping up its new Office of Violence Reduction, and planning to create a hospital-based violence intervention program at Grady Memorial. The early days of Dickens\u2019s term, however, have largely focused on enforcement.<\/p>\n

After three months in office, Dickens announced the creation of a repeat offenders unit in the police department to identify people most likely to commit an act of violence and get them off the street. The unit will direct citizen reviewers to follow the cases of recidivists, documenting the trials and reporting on the outcomes.<\/p>\n

The worries about creating a stigma had been overcome by the politics of the crime surge.<\/p>\n

Rap is still art,<\/u> and artistic freedom is a hallmark of the First Amendment, said Devin Rafus, a criminal defense\u00a0attorney at Arora Law. \u201cYoung men use lyrics and rap as a way to express their feelings, or how the community is growing up, or what they see on the street, and how to sort of break free from it,\u201d he said. \u201cTo use that against someone in the future, and try and say, \u2018Hey, you must be bad, or you must have committed this crime,\u2019 because you talked about either committing a crime that\u2019s similar or something totally different that’s bad as well. It\u2019s just very prejudicial to a jury and to the defendant when they hear that information.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe statutes are stacked against us,\u201d Rafus said. \u201cI don’t think that just because someone writes a song, that that necessarily makes it true either then or in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe statutes are stacked against us.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n

That argument, though, has so far fallen flat in court. Deamonte \u201cYak Gotti\u201d Kendrick\u2019s lawyer made the connection between the case and the music plain in his ultimately unsuccessful argument for bond.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re sending a message to every young kid today in the city who hopes to grow up and become a successful musician that whenever you go on YouTube and the internet and create as your art form, you\u2019re going to have that used against you later,\u201d Jay Abt, Kendrick\u2019s lawyer, said. \u201cAnd that is a shame on them. That is one of the greatest things that has blessed our city and our community and our state in the last two decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defense insists that this prosecution means to put rap on trial, and the aspirations of poor Black people who see music as the only way out of poverty along with it. They are arguing that Willis would prefer not to face the same fate as Chesa Boudin<\/a> in San Francisco, cast out amid a perceived failure to be tough on crime.<\/p>\n

The larger question is whether gang prosecutions tied to the music industry ultimately begin looking for targets in the music industry\u2019s corporate penthouses. There are rich people at the top of this pyramid who are white, not from Atlanta, and profiting from Black misery, arguably being cultivated by these artists, in the name of selling records.<\/p>\n

At some point, we must ask if the major labels are deliberately looking to promote artists who are themselves promoting violent street gangs because, in a fractured media landscape, \u201cauthentic\u201d trap musicians are more reliably profitable.<\/p>\n

The post Atlanta’s Gang Indictment Takes On an Institution<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The argument that RICO prosecution should be reserved for cartels and corporations ignores the power of Atlanta’s music industry.<\/p>\n

The post Atlanta\u2019s Gang Indictment Takes On an Institution<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718308"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":720204,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718308\/revisions\/720204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}