Columbus courts to try two alleged gang murders at once

It seems Columbus can’t finish one gang murder trial before starting another.

On Monday, as an altered jury restarts deliberations in the trial of three alleged Crips accused of a vengeance killing last year at Columbus’ Peachtree Mall, another court starts jury selection for the trial of three suspects in a fatal 2015 biker gang shootout.

Going into a third week, the trial of the suspected Crips charged with killing Anthony Meredith to avenge the death of his former Hardaway High School classmate and Crip leader Christopher Twitty will restart its deliberations with a new juror.

The foreperson last week was dismissed for impeding the discussion, accused of intimidating other jurors and refusing to vote on some of the charges. An alternate will take her place.

So, with the mall trial dragging and the biker trial just beginning, Government Center security has to guard two courtrooms for six suspects accused of gang violence.

The first trial

A dozen sheriff’s deputies were in Judge Frank Jordan’s court Friday as he announced a woman who had volunteered to be the jury foreperson in the mall murder trial was to be replaced by an alternate.

He made that ruling after first questioning the entire jury, then individually questioning four who said they felt the foreperson was intimidating others. After that, he called the foreperson in.

Prosecutors alleged she was biased because the district attorney’s office indicted her for aggravated assault in 2008, though that later was reduced to misdemeanor battery. She told Jordan she was sentenced to probation.

Because it was a misdemeanor, she did not disclose this during jury selection, as she was asked whether she’d ever been convicted of a felony, she said.

Other jurors told Jordan the woman refused to participate in deliberations, threatened to “snap” while saying she didn’t want to get anyone arrested, and insulted another juror by saying she “sounded like Dr. Phil” and calling her “Phil” thereafter.

“I know she’s capable of being physical,” said one juror, who during deliberations was speaking when the foreperson “interrupted and said she was about to snap on someone,” looking at her, the juror said.

Defense attorneys moving for a mistrial based on a hung jury objected to replacing the foreperson.

Mark Shelnutt, who with co-counsel William Kendrick represents Young, objected to removing the foreperson, saying a “heated disagreement” is not unusual.

“That’s part of deliberations,” he said, later adding, “’Dr. Phil’ is not an insult.”

The foreperson told Jordan the other jurors made up their minds too quickly: “Clearly they had disagreements with me … Before we got into the box, it was already ‘guilty,’ ” she said, adding she had expected more conclusive evidence in the case: “Maybe I watch too much TV, I don’t know.”

The case is the March 26, 2016 fatal shooting of Anthony Meredith. The defendants are Xzavaien Trevon Jones, 19; his sister Tekoa Chantrell Young, 24; and Terell Raquez McFarland, 26.

Prosecutors claim they killed Meredith in retaliation for Christopher Twitty’s Nov. 21, 2015, fatal shooting. Twitty was Young’s boyfriend and the father of her child.

Jones is accused of shooting Meredith 10 times outside the entrance to the mall’s food court about 7:30 p.m. the Saturday before Easter. Authorities said Young tracked Meredith outside the mall before meeting the other two, and they walked together to where Meredith was gunned down.

The second trial

A DNA test delayed the trial of three bikers charged with murder and gang terrorism in a bar shootout that left one man dead and three others wounded on an Oct. 9, 2015.

The trial was to start March 6, but was postponed to await test results from blood found on the gun used to kill Dominic Mitchell at the 4th Quarter Sports Bar.

Michell died from two gunshot wounds to the chest after rival gangs fired 63 shots around 11:20 p.m. at the 6969 Macon Road bar. Three wounded people went to the emergency room at St. Francis Hospital. One of them faces charges in the shootout.

Demark Ponder of LaGrange had a gunshot wound to the right leg when he arrived at the hospital with James Daniel Jr. of Pine Mountain, police said. Both were dressed in all black and riding white Harley-Davidson motorcycles, authorities said.

Also charged is Daginald Wheeler of Columbus, allegedly a gang leader.

Detectives said surveillance video from the bar showed the “Strikers” motorcycle gang was meeting there when the black-clad “Outcast” gang arrived on eight motorcycles traveling single-file.

Then the shootout began.

Police said witnesses identified Ponder, Daniel and Wheeler as Outcast members involved in the gun battle, and alleged Wheeler was an Outcast leader. Ponder is accused of firing the fatal shots.

Police later searched Wheeler’s property, finding a black Harley-Davidson with Outcast logos, investigators said. The bike appeared to match one detectives saw on the bar’s surveillance video, they said.

Each defendant is charged with murder, robbery, aggravated assault, using a gun to commit a crime and three counts of violating Georgia’s Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act. Wheeler faces an additional count of violating the gang act, and Ponder is charged also with lying to police about his gunshot wound.

Gangs, laws and video

The three alleged Crips accused of killing Anthony Meredith also are charged under the gang act.

Like the bikers police say were recorded on bar surveillance video, they were caught on security cameras at Peachtree Mall, prosecutors claim.

But that mall video turned out to be less-than-damning evidence, because the cameras scanning the parking lot and mall entrance were mounted high and far away – too far away to identify faces.

The prosecution could point out the distant figures on the courtroom flatscreen and say they were Young, Jones and McFarland, and prove their cell phone calls went through the nearest transmission tower, and have a witness testify he recognized Jones. But jurors could not see for themselves who the people on video were.

To try to prove the three suspects are Crips, prosecutors called in a gang expert.

Ray Ham of the Georgia Gang Investigators Association said the United States in 2011 had 33,000 gangs with 1.4 million members, and today that likely has increased to 35,000 gangs with about 2 million members.

The Atlanta area now has about 30,000 gang members, and 96 percent of Georgia counties have some gang activity, he said.

Ham said a gang is a group of three or more who indicate their association through signs, symbols, graffiti and attire, and commit crimes for the good of the gang.

He said the Crips began in Los Angeles in the 1960s and spread, incorporating once less-organized street gangs into a nationwide network.

The gang adopted the blue color of the LA Dodgers baseball team, and often uses the wheelchair symbol commonly used to mark handicapped access, because in gang parlance “Crip” can mean “cripple,” Ham said.

Because the Crips battle a rival gang called the Bloods, whose color is red, they will not use red in their communications, he said, testifying that Young’s Facebook postings employing blue heart symbols instead of red ones indicate gang affiliation.

Prosecutor Pete Temesgen asked Ham about other gang characteristics, such as members’ use of the term “loco,” Spanish for “crazy.” Ham said gangs use the shortened term “loc” to mean a member who typically is available to “put in work,” meaning to commit a crime or perform some other task for the gang.

Temesgen showed a Muscogee County Jail photo of Young’s co-defendant and brother, Xzavaien Jones, whose chest was tattooed with “LOC,” the last letter of which was inked to replicate a wheelchair symbol. Jurors also saw photos of Jones flashing hand signals Ham said were Crips gang signs.

“I believe Xzavaien Jones not only exemplifies a Crip, he’s proud of it, given the tattoo on his chest,” Ham testified.

He outlined the factors necessary for a conviction under Georgia’s gang violence law:

Prosecutors must establish a defendant is affiliated with gang, the defendant committed an act prohibited by law, and the defendant committed that crime to further the gang’s interests.

Avenging Twitty by gunning down Meredith in so public a place would be consistent with gang culture, and send “a signal” to the rest of Columbus, Ham told the court:

“That signal would be, ‘We’re here to stay. Don’t mess with us.’ ”

This story was originally published April 30, 2017 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Columbus courts to try two alleged gang murders at once."