In Maryland's Prince George's County, just outside of Washington,
D.C., GUN CRIMES are almost on a par with those in your "Nation's
Capital," better known as Dysfunction Junction.
But the NRA's touted firearms "education" and "training" programs have
never addressed HOW your gun-crazy "United" States can hope to cope
with a future in which INCREASED FIREARMS POSSESSION AND USE are
destroying efforts to re-create and maintain a civil society.
--------------------------
"Prince George's Police Face Trend of Killings 'for Nothing'"
"Officials Cite Crimes by Young Men Who Routinely Carry Guns"
By Avis Thomas-Lester
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 11, 2008; C01
Tron S. Johnson and Terrance L. Sneed were the same age, grew up in
the same neighborhood, attended the same high school and, police said,
became crime statistics on opposite sides of the same handgun after a
fight at a pizza restaurant one night.
Sneed is dead. Johnson, 22, is in the Prince George's County jail,
accused of killing him and two of Sneed's friends that night.
Johnson, a slight man who was training to be a barber, by all accounts
did little to provoke the Feb. 3 fight. But when trash talk during the
Super Bowl turned to fisticuffs, police said, he pulled a handgun from
his jacket and fired at his attackers in the restaurant.
The triple slaying is part of a trend that county law enforcement
officials call "wear and carry" killings: callous acts committed on
little provocation, often in public settings by young men who carry
guns as casually as they do pocket change.
The crimes are called wear-and-carry killings based on the statute
outlining the penalties for wearing and carrying a weapon, authorities
said.
Police statistics show that 1,739 guns were confiscated from suspects
in the county last year, 407 more than five years ago. Most of the
illegal-gun charges filed involve men ages 18 to 24, said county
State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey.
"Some of the guys, if they are drug dealers . . . feel like they have
to have a gun to protect themselves and their quote-unquote business
transactions," Ivey said. "But there is a growing number who carry
because there are no consequences. Some feel it is a status thing.
Some say it's for protection."
A friend of Johnson's put it more simply: "If anybody ever tried to
hurt me, I would shoot them. I'd rather be in prison than dead."
Most homicide victims in Prince George's are ages 18 to 24, as well.
Of the 1,141 homicides from 1998 to 2007, 90 percent of the victims
were black men, officials said, and 75 percent of those were in that
age range.
National crime statistics also reflect that young black men are
victims and suspects in homicides more than any other demographic
group.
In December, Antonio Lonelle McGhee, 20, of the District was convicted
of fatally shooting a 24-year-old Capitol Heights man who refused to
give him a cigarette while standing in line at a restaurant. In
February 2007, Ramsey N. "Ham" Bush, 24, of Oxon Hill was convicted of
fatally shooting a 23-year-old friend who owed him $25. After the
shooting, Bush took the money from the dying man's pocket.
"Everybody's got a gun," said Joseph J. Vince Jr., former chief of the
Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives crime gun analysis
branch. "Instead of getting upset and fighting or beating each other
up, they're shooting each other."
From Taunts to Fisticuffs to Shots
Johnson came with his gun to the Uno Chicago Grill in Largo on Feb. 3,
police said. He was there for the Super Bowl, not to fight, he said
through his attorney Stephen Gensemer.
That night, dozens of people milled about the pizzeria at the
Boulevard at the Capital Centre as they took in the game. The
restaurant drew a lot of young men from the neighborhood.
There was Johnson, a Mitchellville resident who had grown up in the
Landover area and graduated from Charles Herbert Flowers High School.
He had had a few brushes with the law but no violent offenses, court
records show. He had recently started barber school and dreamed of
opening a chain of shops, his attorney said.
There also was Sneed, a Flowers dropout looking for a job and trying
to find ways to spend more time with his 3-year-old daughter, said
Sandra Sneed, his mother. That afternoon, he had stopped by his
mother's apartment. He had told her he planned to go to Uno for the
game. The Landover resident arrived at the restaurant with two
friends: Charles D. Harrison, 25, of Landover and Curtis L. Poston,
26, of Temple Hills.
At some point, witnesses said, Poston began throwing barbs at Johnson.
"He tried ignoring them," Gensemer said of his client. "He tried
reasoning with them. He tried joking around with them. He tried just
verbally saying, 'Stop. Get away. Knock it off.' "
By the game's fourth quarter, witnesses said, Poston was taunting
Johnson more aggressively.
At one point, Poston approached Johnson's table, with Sneed and
Harrison in tow. There was an argument, then a fight. Tables were
upended. Glasses and plates flew. As the brawl escalated, Johnson
reached into his jacket. Shots rang out, sending screaming patrons
running for the door; Poston and Sneed fell in the bar, witnesses
said. Harrison bolted for the exit, but Johnson followed and shot him
in the parking lot, authorities and witnesses said.
In a written statement released by his attorney, Johnson did not say
whether he had a gun or whether he fired one.
"He verified accounts that he was not the one to throw the first punch
and that it was members of the other group that initiated the fight,"
Gensemer said, referring to Johnson's statement to The Washington
Post.
Johnson's friend said Johnson never would have fired if he hadn't felt
threatened. "They jumped Tron, basically," he said. "That's when Tron
pulled out the gun."
The friend, 21, admitted to a reporter that he was armed. "I'm telling
you now, I would have done the same thing," said the man, who declined
to be named for fear of retaliation. "There are people out here who
want to hurt you. I carry a gun for that very reason."
'Senseless Acts,' and the Way Out
The prevalence of guns in young hands takes away the opportunity for
reason to prevail in such confrontations, said Vernon R. Herron,
public safety director for Prince George's.
"All of these killings that we are seeing are just senseless acts," he
said. "There hasn't been a homicide recently on the streets of Prince
George's County that could not have been prevented if the perpetrator
had just thought through what they were doing."
Former D.C. police chief Isaac Fulwood Jr., a member of the U.S.
Parole Commission, said the "thug culture" portrayed in some music,
music videos and movies has fanned interest in carrying guns. "And now
with this thug mentality, we're seeing all these young people being
killed by other young people, for nothing," he said.
Court records show that some of those involved in the Uno killings had
been mixed up with guns before. Poston served no jail time after
pleading guilty in 2004 to illegal possession of a handgun after he
threatened to shoot men he had argued with over a football game in a
Bowie park. Sneed served three days after pleading guilty to a handgun
violation in 2003. Johnson, who was arrested three times on marijuana
charges last year, was at a Landover rooming house where police
conducting a raid found an illegal handgun in April 2007. He was not
charged because authorities could not determine whether the gun was
his.
Authorities said the number of youths carrying guns has increased
because of lax penalties. Laws meant to curtail gun possession "have
been watered down" to the point that they are rendered ineffective,
said Vince, the former ATF agent who is a partner in Crime Gun
Solutions, a Frederick-based company that collects and interprets gun-
crimes data.
Because many of the gun cases are first offenses, officials said, they
are often not prosecuted. When they are, judges are hesitant to impose
stiff penalties, even as the number of young people caught with
firearms increases, officials said.
"These guys do a cost-analysis thing," Ivey said. "And if the price of
getting caught with a gun is relatively low -- they are not looking at
any kind of jail sentence -- their concerns about getting caught can
be outweighed by what they think are the benefits of carrying:
sometimes to commit crimes, sometimes for status, sometimes for peer
pressure."
To reduce gun crimes, some communities such as the District have
instituted gun buyback programs, in which owners are paid to turn over
guns. Prince George's, Baltimore and Richmond have handed over repeat
gun offenders to federal court, where they often receive stiffer
sentences and out-of-state prison time. Ivey asked judges last year to
order a mandatory one-year jail sentence for anyone convicted of
illegal possession of a handgun, even first-time offenders.
Herron said the answer is not only to impose strict penalties but also
to encourage the community to turn in offenders. Fulwood said parents,
too, need to be involved.
"If my son has a gun and he's living in my house, at some point I
should know because I should be looking around," he said. "I guarantee
you if the kids have guns, they have them in their homes."
Sandra Sneed said she does not think her son was involved with guns.
Even as she mourned him, she bemoaned the gun violence that is taking
so many young black men's lives.
"They were both so young," she said of her son and Johnson. "What
could happen that would lead somebody to do this? Nothing could have
been that bad."
[Staff researchers Rena Kirsch and Meg Smith contributed to this
report.]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/10/AR200...
