A Blood gang member in Cleveland has had enough.
When 3-year-old Major Howard took a bullet the member believes was intended for him, the “gangbanger” described simply as RJ decided that, while his time could be running out, he can at least stand up and speak out about the “coward s***” street violence claiming too many innocent lives.
In a new report by Brandon Blackwell of the Cleveland website, the now ex-gang member — formerly one part of a group called “the Benham Boys,” associated with the nationally-recognized Blood gang — is abandoning “the street’s code of silence.”
“This gangbanging needs to stop… You don’t do it where kids are going to be at. That’s coward s***…. That baby died for no reason. I don’t want to die for no reason too. I’m going to do something right before I leave.”
Major Howard was in the back seat of a parked car with an unidentified 24-year-old woman and a male driver when the shooting began.
RJ, who was sitting on his front porch at the time of the attack, ran to the car after the violence was over and the shooter(s) had fled the scene. He told the site that he believed he was the target of the shooter, since he’d been shot in the arm in August. He believed the attackers had returned to finish the job, and the child died instead.
The woman and the baby were flown to MetroHealth Medical Center. Major died later from his injuries, while the male driver and the woman’s conditions were unclear. RJ hopes to find the baby’s killer before what he believes will be his eventual death.
“I’m done,” he said. “I know I’m done.”
According to the FBI 2013 National Gang Report , the Blood gang is the “most prolific organization, recruiting 25 percent of the total number of NBGs [neighborhood-based gangs, like the Benham Boys] absorbed by national gangs.”
Law enforcement officials in 38 jurisdictions report that groups like the “Bloods, Crips, Gangster Disciples, DMI, Latin Kings, Sureños, and OMG groups such as the Bandidos, HAMC, Pagans, Untamed Rebels, Vagos, Warlocks, and Wolf Pack MCs” are encouraging members without criminal records to enlist in the military to obtain weapons expertise, combat training, or access to sensitive information.
The report continued.
“Gang members in the military engage in a host of criminal activities both on and off military installations. Gang members in the military, like their civilian counterparts, commit crimes, to include: drug trafficking, assaults, threats, intimidation, weapons trafficking, robberies, thefts, burglaries, fencing stolen goods, vandalism, and homicides.”
Do you think groups like the Blood gang are a bigger threat to average citizens than foreign terrorists? Sound off in the comments section.
[Image of memorial for 3-year-old Major Howard via Cleveland website video, linked above]