Even the lawyers get it! Why can’t the Pentagon act NOW?

With more than 1,000,000 criminal street gang members in the United States, communities everywhere are experiencing the negative effects of street gangs (National Gang Intelligence Center [NGIC], 2009). As a result, government officials are searching for innovative and effective ways to restrict the negative impact of gang-related activity on the community. One way of reducing gang-related activity is through gang prevention legislation.

In 1992, Knox (2006) surveyed members of a National Guard unit and found they estimated gang membership in the military from zero to 75%. To date, no follow up research of this nature has been conducted.

On December 12, 1995, following racially-motivated homicides at Fort Bragg, NC, the Secretary of the Army established an investigative task force to “assess the influence of extremist groups in the Army and examine the effect of those groups on the Army’s human relations environment.” The task force reported: “Gang-related activities appear to be more pervasive than extremist activities as defined in Army Regulation 600-20″ (U.S. Department of Defense, 1996, ¶ 16).

Following the homicides at Fort Bragg, members of the Department of Defense concluded that gang members adversely affected the military in a variety of distinct ways. The authors noted there was no official accounting of the scope and nature of the problem; however, the individual branches of the military thought the problem was significant enough to publish gang identification manuals (Flacks & Wiskoff, 1998). To date, no follow up research of this nature has been conducted .

A 2006 Gang Activity Threat Assessment (GATA) by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Command (CID) reported an increase in both gang-related investigations and incidents in 2006 over previous years. The most common gang-related crimes involved drug-trafficking (CID, 2006), though assaults, homicides, and robberies were also reported.

In 2007, the National Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC), a multi-agency effort of the U.S. Department of Justice, distributed an unclassified report that identified incidents of gang activity by military and military-affiliated personnel, similar to the findings of Flacks and Wiskoff (1998) and Knox (2006), and identified gang-related crimes such as murder, racketeering, and drug distribution.

As noted in Can you prevent membership in organized criminal groups if you are the SecDef?, H.R. 4986: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 Section 544 – became law (Public Law 110-181), and requires the Secretary of Defense to prescribe regulations to prohibit the active participation of military personnel in street gangs (National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA], 2008, Sec. 544). The bill was passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President back in January 2008, yet here we are, more than 14 months later, with no changes to military policy on gang membership.

Gustav Eyler, Gangs in the Military, 118 Yale L. J. 696 (2009) recently concluded:

While the threat and presence of military gang members has intensified over the past decade, the military has done little to improve its existing policies. It is time for this to change. The military needs to overhaul its recruitment process, draft new regulations to detect and prevent gang influences, and improve its removal procedures. The various military services should
accomplish this by coordinating with other agencies and adopting the best practices of civilian law enforcement groups. By seizing the opportunity provided by Congress, the military may realize its goal of sustaining a robust fighting force that is free from the influence of criminal street gangs.

So what’s it going to take?

References:
Eyler, G. (2009). Gangs in the Military, 118 Yale L. J. 696. (thanks to Court-Martial Trial Practice for the link)

Flacks, M., & Wiskoff, M. F. (1999). Gangs, Extremists Groups, and the Military: Screening for Service . Retrieved November 19, 2008, from http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai

Knox, G. W. (2006). An introduction to gangs (6th ed.). Peotone, IL: New Chicago School Press.

National Defense Authorization Act. (2008). (Pub. L. No. 110-181. 122 Stat. 117). Retrieved September 30, 2008, from http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-4986

National Gang Intelligence Center. (2007). Intelligence assessment: Gang-related activity in the US armed forces increasing. Crystal City, VA: National Gang Intelligence Center.

National Gang Intelligence Center. (2009). National gang threat assessment – 2009. Washington D.C.: National Gang Intelligence Center.

U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Command [CID]. (2006). Summary Report Gang Activity Threat Assessment: A review of gang activity affecting the Army. Retrieved January 26, 2009, from http://militarytimes.com/static/projects/pages/2006_CID_Report.pdf

U.S. Department of Defense. (1996, March 21). Army task force report on extremist activity. Retrieved January 19, 2009, from http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=793

G.I. Crip – The Oregon National Guard wants to send this convicted gangbanger to Iraq.

BY JAMES PITKIN

[March 4th, 2009]

More than two years ago, a well-publicized FBI report warned of gang members infiltrating the U.S. military. And while gang violence was spreading on bases, cops say returning gangsters are putting their new combat skills to deadly use in their old neighborhoods.

Now, as the military continues to suffer low recruitment approaching the sixth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, a first lieutenant in the Oregon National Guard says he wants to take a convicted gangbanger off Portland’s streets and send him into a new combat zone—Iraq.

Police describe Levell Peters—who grew up in Northeast Portland but now lives in Vancouver, Wash.—as a longtime gang associate who’s affiliated with both the Rolling 60s and the Kerby Blocc Crips.

He’s also a private first class in the Oregon National Guard set to deploy this year with the 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team, according to a letter by Lt. Michael Davis, a lawyer with the Oregon Military Department.

But the Guard faces a hurdle in deploying Peters, 22: He was convicted this year of a felony in connection with a drive-by shooting last year in North Portland. And his probation forbids him to carry a weapon—even if he’s armed by the U.S. military.

In a Feb. 10 letter to Peters’ probation officer, Davis asked that Peters’ probation be modified so he can begin training in April and deploy with his unit this summer. Multnomah County Circuit Judge Marshall Amiton is expected to rule on that request later this month.

Davis’ letter says that in Iraq, Peters will be “under the supervision of the U.S. Army and subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” and that he’ll be “completely removed from negative community influences, to wit, gang members.”

But three nationally recognized experts on gangs and the military tell WW it’s a lousy idea to send people with Peters’ history into combat.

“People are under some terrible misunderstanding that the military will change gangbangers,” says Hunter Glass, a retired police detective and private consultant. “You can’t beat blueprinted behavior out.”

Davis did not reply to repeated emails and phone calls, and Peters declined to comment.

“This is a young man who is trying to improve his life,” says Peters’ attorney, Gary Bertoni. “Certainly I would disabuse anyone of the notion that he entered the Army so he could receive training and go back to the neighborhoods.”

Portland Police Sgt. Pete Simpson, who investigated last year’s shooting, says Peters is known to police as a Crips associate previously involved in a drive-by outside Benson High School. Court records show convictions arrests for assault, harassment, disorderly conduct, reckless driving and other misdemeanors.

“This is not a guy you want serving in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere,” Simpson says. “He can’t be trusted.”

On Feb. 24, 2008, Simpson says, a house on North Commercial Avenue where Peters’ infant son was staying got shot up. The next day, Simpson says, Peters and three friends went out seeking revenge.

According to Simpson, they climbed into a 2008 Chrysler Sebring with Peters behind the wheel and drove through North Portland. They began chasing a Ford Taurus, and Peters gave his gun to a friend who opened fire, Simpson says. The Taurus returned fire and was joined by a Ford Explorer also taking shots at Peters’ Chrysler, Simpson says. The three cars drove several blocks firing on each other until police arrived.

No one was injured. But Simpson says that could change if the shooters had combat training.

“The spray-and-pray stuff they’re doing as gangbangers—that’s not what they’re doing in the military,” he says. “They’re doing precision shooting and explosives.”

When the shooting occurred, Peters had already joined the Guard. A grand jury indicted him for attempted murder and other charges on July 28, 2008, and he was arrested by U.S. marshals while training at a camp near Boise, Idaho.

On Jan. 28, a judge acquitted Peters of attempted murder but found him guilty of unlawful use of a weapon. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail with credit for time served and three years of probation.

After Davis asked for changes to Peters’ probation, Peters appeared in court Feb. 26 accompanied by his mother. Bertoni asked the judge for more time to review the Guard’s request, and a hearing was set for March 11.

Along with gang members, increasing numbers of convicted felons have found their way into the military in recent years under so-called “moral waivers” when they’re recruited.

“Obviously, it’s a huge problem,” says John Hutson, president of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce Law Center and a former Navy judge advocate general.

“The military is responsible to kill people,” he says. “It is responsible for the potential of great destruction of property. So you have to ensure that those people who are involved with that kind of activity are of the highest caliber.”

FACT: The military granted 1,605 waivers for convicted felons recruited in 2006. That same year, it kicked out 612 gays and lesbians under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

http://www.wweek.com/editorial/3517/12274/

Verdict in gang-initiation death trial angers victim’s mother

By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes, European edition, Friday, February 27, 2009

Seth Robson / Stripes

Pvt. Bobby Morrissette, right, waits for the verdict during his court-martial Thursday at Vilseck, Germany.

VILSECK, Germany — Pvt. Bobby Morrissette’s acquittal on a voluntary manslaughter charge for his role in the 2005 gang initiation beating death of Sgt. Juwan Johnson makes a mockery of claims the Army is tough on gangs, the dead soldier’s mother said Thursday.

Johnson was badly beaten in a Gangster Disciples initiation, known as a jumping-in ceremony, near Kaiserslautern on July 3, 2005. He was found dead in his barracks room the next day.

Stephanie Cockrell reacted angrily Thursday after the military judge, Col. Timothy Grammel, announced his ruling in her son’s death.

“I’m angry, and I’m outraged that we have gangs in the military,” she said. “The court system is sending a message that it’s OK.”

In additional to the voluntary manslaughter charge, Morrissette was also acquitted on a charge of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault.

Grammel did find Morrissette guilty of a number of other charges, including participating in gang initiation rituals, impeding an investigation, impeding a trial by court-martial and willfully disobeying a commissioned officer. He also was convicted of committing an indecent act on a female in the presence of another person and wrongful use of a controlled substance, both stemming from a separate incident.

Morrissette was sentenced to 42 months’ confinement and a bad-conduct discharge.

During the three-day trial, Cockrell and others listened to witnesses describe how up to nine gang members hit and kicked Johnson for six minutes during the initiation. She left the court in tears during testimony on his injuries, which were listed in an autopsy report.

Cockrell has attended six trials of alleged gang members involved in her son’s death.

“In my opinion, everybody who was there is equally culpable,” she said.

Those involved have shown no remorse and are still gang members, she said. During Morrissette’s court-martial, for example, one of the witnesses, Airman Nicholas Sims, flashed a gang sign and referred to Morrissette as “my brother,” she said.

“[The Gangster Disciples] talk about family. That’s not how they treated my son,” she said.

During the court-martial, prosecutors argued that the court needed to send a message that gangs in the military would not be tolerated.

“The military rank structure meant nothing to this gang. These gang members would unquestioningly follow the orders of their governor,” prosecution lawyer Greg O’Malley told the court.

Gang members sported Gangster Disciples tattoos, wore gang clothing and started fights with local nationals and members of other gangs in Kaiserslautern, he said.

However, Morrissette’s lawyers argued that the group he associated with was not a criminal enterprise and could not be characterized as a gang. They cast doubt on the integrity of prosecution witnesses, some of whom were also gang members who had lied in past statements about the case.

Morrissette, who smiled broadly after the verdict, apologized in an unsworn statement for “whatever happened to Sergeant Johnson” but made no effort to disassociate himself from the Gangster Disciples.

Cockrell said she plans to attend the trial of former Airman Rico Williams, the alleged leader of the Kaiserslautern branch of the Gangster Disciples, who is charged with second-degree murder in relation to his involvement in Johnson’s death.

Young men should get a briefing on gang activity when they join the military, she said.

“I can’t believe what was in the mind of my son when he thought about joining this gang. This was not the guy I sent to the military,” she said.

“I’d warn mothers to tell their kids. They not only have to worry about the enemy at large. They have to worry about the enemy within,” she said.

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=61005

Prosecutor: GI returned from Iraq in gang

By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, February 25, 2009

VILSECK, Germany — A soldier charged in the 2005 gang initiation beating death of Sgt. Juwan Johnson returned from an Iraq deployment as a member of the Gangster Disciples, Army prosecutors said during Pvt. Bobby Morrissette’s court-martial Tuesday.

Morrissette — one of seven servicemembers accused in Johnson’s death — is facing charges of involuntary manslaughter; conspiracy to commit aggravated assault; conduct contrary to good order and discipline; obstruction of justice, disobeying an order, indecent acts and use of a controlled substance.

Johnson died of multiple blunt force injuries on July 4, 2005, after an alleged initiation ceremony, which took place at a gazebo in a small town near Kaiserslautern.

Similar charges against Morrissette relating to Johnson’s death were withdrawn and dismissed in June 2007 because of legal concerns. The Army refiled charges against Morrissette in June 2008.

At Tuesday’s trial, government prosecutor Capt. Derrick Grace told the court that the evidence would show that Morrissette returned from Iraq as a member of the Gangster Disciples street gang.

Grace presented the court with photographs that, he said, show Gangster Disciples’ graffiti in the barracks building that Morrissette occupied at Camp Speicher, in Tikrit, when his unit — the 66th Transportation Company — was deployed there from 2004 to 2005.

Sgt. Ronald Barnhart, a former member of the 66th who lived in the same barracks as Morrissette in Iraq, told the court he saw several soldiers beating Sgt. Rodney Howell in a latrine at Camp Speicher in April 2004. Howell, who is serving six years’ confinement for his role in Johnson’s death, was jogging on the spot and grunting each time he was hit, Barnhart said.

“I took it as horseplay and walked out of the room,” he said.

Another soldier stationed at Camp Speicher at that time, Sgt. John Koerner, described walking in on the same beating.

“There were six people in a circle. I saw a punch thrown,” he said.

Another member of the gang, Air Force Staff Sgt. Themitrios Saroglou, told the court that he was treasurer of the Kaiserslautern branch of the Gangster Disciples at the time of Johnson’s death.

Saroglou said he joined the gang in 2004, after surviving his own jumping-in ceremony.

At the time members did not refer to themselves as the Gangster Disciples, although they participated in the gang’s rituals, such as the jumping-in ceremony, which involved members beating an initiate for six minutes inside a six pointed star marked with candles, he said.

The temperament of the gang changed after Morrissette’s unit returned to Germany from Iraq in 2005, Saroglou said.

“After the guys came back from deployment … that’s when they started calling it the ‘Gangster Disciples,’ ” he said.

The gang became more violent, he said.

“We called the gang members who came back from Iraq the ‘Young ‘Uns’. Their behavior was rowdy. They would act without thinking. The entire organization just went more negative. Drugs were used frequently. Fights would start from people looking at each other wrong or flashing gang signs,” he said.

“They would say things like: ‘Aw hell no. Get up, Get the [expletive] up,’ ” Saroglou said, adding that Morrissette hit and kicked Johnson many times during the ceremony.

If convicted, Morrissette faces up to 55 years’ confinement, a dishonorable discharge, reduction to private and forfeiture of all pay and allowances. The trial was scheduled to continue Wednesday.

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60972

In New Mexico, an Airman is Arrested in the Killing of a Man on Lower Greenville

By Robert Wilonsky in Crime and Punishment

Tuesday, Feb. 24 2009 @ 9:17AM

KXAS-Channel 5

Marlon Alfaro

The Associated Press reports this morning that a man has been arrested in the death of Marlon Alfaro, the 23-year-old from Irving who was beaten and run over in a Lower Greenville Avenue club’s parking lot on January 25. Dallas police and a certain Barking Dog had speculated in a KXAS-Channel 5 story that Alfaro’s murder, which took place after an argument turned into an altercation, was gang-related. Which makes 23-year-old Frank Farias an unlikely suspect: Since August 2006, he’s been a member of the 377th Medical Support Squadron out of Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he’s being held till he’s extradited to Dallas to face first-degree murder charges following his arrest on Friday.
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/02/in_new_mexico_an_airman_is_arr.php

B.C. man sentenced in Army Rangers bank heist

By Sara Jean Green Seattle Times staff reporter

Related

• Archive | 3 Rangers charged in Tacoma bank heist
• Archive | Tacoma bank robbed to start a crime family?

A 23-year-old British Columbia man — who aspired to a leadership role in a planned Canadian crime family — was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison today for his role in the 2006 armed robbery of a Tacoma bank that was masterminded by members of an elite Army Ranger unit based at Fort Lewis.

Tigra Robertson of Peachland, B.C., is one of five men convicted of stealing $50,000 from a Bank of America branch on South Tacoma Way on Aug. 7, 2006. The robbers — three Army Rangers stationed at Fort Lewis and two Canadian nationals — wore body armor and threatened bank employees with guns, including an AK-47 machine gun, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington in Seattle.

Dressed in military garb with black masks covering their faces, the men entered the bank after 5 p.m., demanded cash and fled within 90 seconds. Robertson attempted to grab money from the bank’s vault but the team decided too much time had elapsed and so they left with only money stolen from tellers’ drawers, federal attorneys said.

A bystander saw the men leave the bank and gave the license plate number of their getaway car to police. The car was traced to Fort Lewis, “where evidence of the crime was uncovered at the men’s’ barracks,” wrote office spokeswoman Emily Langlie in a news release.

Robertson — who was convicted of armed bank robbery, conspiracy to commit armed bank robbery and brandishing a machine gun — was sentenced to 12 ½ years in prison and five years of supervised release.

He was a trusted sidekick of Army Ranger Luke Sommer, who planned the robbery and was sentenced to 24 years in federal prison in December. Fellow Ranger Chad Palmer was sentenced to 11 years in prison, also in December.

Ranger Alex Blum and Canadian national Nathan Dunmall are scheduled to be sentenced next month.

Holding up the bank was supposed to be a first step toward starting a Canadian crime family to take on the Hell’s Angels biker gang for control of the drug and firearm trade in Kelowna, about 200 miles east of Vancouver. Sommer had assigned Robertson the rank of captain in the planned criminal organization, federal attorneys said.

Robertson, who turned himself in to police six days after the robbery and later posted a $25,000 bond, was taken into custody after this morning’s hearing, Langlie said. He will remain at the federal detention center in SeaTac until Bureau of Prison officials decide where to send him to serve his time, she said.

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008767581_websoldier20m.html

Evolutions of Gangs

There’s been some suggestions that there are different evolutions of gangs

http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/pdf/wilson_sullivan_gangs_terrorism.pdf

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/apjinternational/apj-s/2008/2tri08/sullivaneng.htm

3G2 – Third Generation Gangs

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: gangs gang)

What do you think?

Airman convicted on lesser charge of assault

The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Jan 23, 2009 21:23:14 EST

JACKSONVILLE, Ark. — An Air Force sergeant was acquitted Friday of involuntary manslaughter in the beating death of an Army sergeant outside a base in Germany, but convicted of a lesser offense of aggravated assault, Little Rock Air Force Base authorities said.

Staff Sgt. Jerome A. Jones, 25, was also convicted of several other violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and acquitted of some, according to a news release from the LRAFB public affairs office.

Jones was sentenced later Friday to two years in prison, demotion to the rank of airman basic, and a dishonorable discharge, according to Tech. Sgt. Katherine Garcia, a spokeswoman for LRAFB.

Jones was charged in the July 4, 2005, beating death of Sgt. Juwan Johnson of Baltimore at a park pavilion in Kaiserslautern, Germany, where U.S. forces have a base. Prosecutors said the death was the result of a gang initiation.

Jones was a C-130 cargo plane crew chief with the 314th Airlift Wing at the Air Force base north of Little Rock.

He was acquitted of a charge accusing him of conspiring with members of a group called the Gangster Disciples to assault Johnson, and of another accusing him of being an accessory after the fact in Johnson’s death.

He was convicted of two other conspiracy charges, a charge accusing him of trying to influence witnesses, and one count each of wrongful use or possession of a controlled substance and failure to obey an order or regulation.

Garcia said guilty verdicts required guilty votes from four of the five court-martial members.

The sentence for Jones was decided in a penalty phase of the court-martial after the verdicts were rendered, Garcia said. She said Jones could have been sentenced to 17½ years in prison.

A prosecutor in the case, Capt. Peter Kezar, told the court that Jones took part in an initiation ritual used by the Gangster Disciples street gang, in which new members must endure a six-minute beating. Kezar said Johnson’s beating escalated from reckless to a free-for-all.

Capt. Jeremy Emmert, a defense lawyer, said Jones did not kill Johnson and does not belong to a violent gang. What prosecutors call a gang was a “benign” group for brotherhood, Emmert said. He also offered evidence that Jones was not at the park that night, and said government witnesses had their own motives to lie about “why they say Sergeant Jones was there.”

Others accused in Johnson’s beating are either serving sentences or facing courts-martial.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/01/airforce_arsoldierbeating012309/

Airman’s court-martial under way in 2005 death tied to gang beating

BY AMY SCHLESING

An airman at Little Rock Air Force Base is accused of involuntary manslaughter as one of at least eight suspects who investigators say fatally beat an Army sergeant in 2005 during a gang initiation at a U.S. military base in Germany.

Staff Sgt. Jerome A. Jones, 25, faces an array of charges in a court-martial at the base stemming from the death of Army Sgt. Juwan Johnson at Kaiserslaughtern, Germany. Jones, the other suspects and Johnson were stationed there at the time.

Jones’ court-martial is being held in Arkansas because it is his current duty station. The Air Force in September 2005 transferred him to the base in Jacksonville, where he has continued to work as a C-130 cargo plane crew chief with the 314th Airlift Wing.

In October, Jones was charged with six violations of military law as specified in the Uniform Code of Military Justice; some include multiple counts. In addition to involuntary manslaughter, the charges include three counts of conspiracy, two counts of obstruction of justice, one count of wrongful use or possession of a controlled substance, one count of failure to obey an order or regulation and one count of being an accessory after the fact.

Late Thursday, Jones stood before the court and pleaded innocent after two days of arguments in which his defense team sought to have the charges reduced or the case dismissed.

The day ended with opening statements. Testimony continued Saturday and is scheduled to resume Monday.

The case centers on two main questions: whether Jones participated in the beating in an initiation ritual that prosecutors believe led to Johnson’s death; and whether the initiation was into a violent gang or a nebulous group.

Capt. Peter Kezar, one of three prosecutors in the case, opened his arguments Thursday by describing a gang initiation ritual used by the street gang known as the Gangster Disciples – called a “jump-in,” in which each new member must endure a six-minute beating. He described it as escalating that night from “reckless” to a “free-for-all.”

Reports say the beating happened in a park pavilion in the woods outside Kaiserslaughtern. Johnson was alive when the group helped him back to his Army barracks at Kleber Kaserne, where he was stationed with the Army’s 66th Transportation Company, reports say. He was found dead in his room the next morning, July 4, 2005, slumped on the floor against a wall between his bed and desk.

“Each eyewitness will place the accused at that pavilion,” Kezar said, laying the groundwork against the defense team’s main argument that the witnesses are unreliable. “The government will not claim these witnesses are perfect people. … They all have their own reasons for testifying.”

Three other suspects in the case have been given prison sentences. Another suspect is headed to a court-martial in coming months. At least two suspects agreed to reduced punishment in a plea bargain in return for testifying against the others – including Jones.

Capt. Jeremy Emmert, one of Jones’ three defense attorneys, countered Kezar’s statement in his own opening before a lengthy list of witnesses began testifying Friday.

“[Staff] Sgt. Jones didn’t kill Sgt. Johnson,” he said. “Sgt. Jones doesn’t belong to a violent gang.” He said the government’s case against Jones relies on “self-preservation and stereotypes.”

What prosecutors call a gang was a “benign” group, Emmert said, “for brotherhood.”

“Each [government witness] has their own motive to lie about why they say Sgt. Jones was there,” he said, adding than he believed two witnesses were in collusion.

“And mere membership is not evidence beyond reasonable doubt,” he told the panel. “There is evidence that Sgt. Jones wasn’t there.”

The detail of charges against Jones claim that he was a member of the Gangster Disciples and was one of several military members who beat Johnson during his initiation that night. The charges further claim that he conspired with fellow gang members in the assault, that he impeded the investigation, and helped organize, raise money and recruit for the gang.

Belonging to a gang “that advocates the use of force or violence” is a violation of military law.

Court documents claim that Jones tried to persuade a witness not to testify, reporting that Jones said, “Make sure that you put the word out that everybody better shut up, don’t be talking and anybody that talks can cancel Christmas.”

Additional charges claim that he used marijuana and hindered the apprehension of a suspect by raising funds to help him hide. That suspect, believed to be a leader in the Kaiserslaughtern gang, has not been found.

The defense team made 13 pretrial motions in the week leading up to the court-martial, including requesting a mistrial based on claims that military investigators intimidated witnesses and asking for a reduction in charges, arguing that many are repetitive.

Judge Advocate General Lt. Col. Nancy Paul, the military judge presiding over the case, denied most of the motions. The charges stand as filed in October after Jones’ Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of an arraignment.

Maj. Conrad Huygen, a member of Jones’ defense team, also argued that additional security measures put in place outside the courtroom will cause prejudice among the jury members.

He said he believed it would have a “chilling effect” on the jury.

Every person entering the second floor of the building housing the base’s courtroom must go through a metal detector that was placed there specifically for the trial. Air Force security forces also scan everyone with hand-held detectors.

“I am satisfied that the measures being taken are necessary,” Paul said, adding that there have been threats against witnesses in this and other courts-martial related to the case.

Military courts-martial are separate from the civil court system. Any punishment is carried out under military code, confinement is in a military prison and the offenses are documented in a person’s military record rather than in the civilian criminal court system.

The witness list in Jones’ case is long and spans the globe.

A panel of 11 officers and enlisted airmen from the base was called for jury duty, and the opposing counsels spent most of Thursday vetting the members. Extensive questioning reduced the panel to five – three enlisted personnel and two officers. Unlike a civilian jury, members of the panel are allowed to question witnesses. The panel will determine guilt or innocence and determine a sentence if Jones is found guilty.

This trial also seeks to address whether the case is part of what is a growing trend in the U.S. military of gang involvement.

According to a 2006 report by U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division on gang-related activity, 104 suspected gang-related incidents and felony investigations were recorded from 2003 to 2006.

But the report also noted that the growth across the armed forces can be attributed to growing gang influence across the nation, not just in the military.

In 2006, gang-related crimes ranging from sexual assault to drug charges were reported at military bases in every theater of operation, from the United States to Europe and Iraq.

Asked about the situation at the air base in Jacksonville, a spokesman, Tech. Sgt. Kati Garcia, said, “Little Rock Air Force Base does not have a history of gang activity. It is fair to say that any gang involvement here is negligible at best.”

The U.S. military is a microcosm of society, she added.

“The positive and negative traits you see across the country are often mirrored in our military,” she said.

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/249815/

Oklahoma City war veteran accused of selling bombs to gang members

BY JOHNNY JOHNSON

Published: December 25, 2008

Police spent the day searching the house of a decorated, two-tour Iraq war veteran on Tuesday to investigate a tip that the former soldier was said to have been making explosive devices to sell to gang members, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Steven Andrew Jordal

Steven Andrew Jordal, 24, was an infantry tank specialist in the U.S. Army from 2002 to 2007. He received the Army’s Good Conduct medal, along with several other medals, badges and ribbons, the military confirmed.

Oklahoma City police took interest in Jordal when they received a tip he was selling improvised explosive devices to criminals.

For as little as $100, Jordal was making the same kinds of weapons he saw used against his fellow soldiers in the Iraqi deserts and selling them on the streets of Okalahoma City to gang members and known criminals, according to the document.

The police informant had seen Jordal testing explosives in an area near N. Western and 122 Street and said Jordal had custom- made a device for someone who wanted to damage the vehicle of someone who owed money on a drug deal.

With that information, police located Jordal on Monday evening and found him in possession of a device he allegedly intended to sell, and also found several concealed weapons including a loaded .38-caliber semiautomatic handgun, the affidavit said.

Police said Jordal admitted to making multiple IEDs and that he had tried to sell them. He said he was selling the device police caught him with for $100, and that he knew it would be used in the very least to cause property damage.

It was during the same interview that Jordal gave consent to search his house and vehicle, where police said they expected to find more IEDs and explosive components. Police are not disclosing what if anything they found in the search of his house.

Jordal was arrested Monday on complaints of manufacturing explosives with the intent to sell them. It is unclear if he will be facing federal or state charges.

Contributing: Staff Writer Jay Marks.