9 Oakland ‘Ghost Town’ gang members sentenced for 2022 robbery spree

It was some of the violent years in Oakland in a long time. In 2022, town was mired in a three-year spike in violent crime that coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic.

A handful of teams had been behind an inordinate quantity of the violence.

Considered one of them, in line with police, was the Ghost City gang, a community of East Bay residents with shut ties the Oakland neighborhood of the identical title, situated simply southwest of the MacArthur Maze.

Monday by a federal decide imposed a prison sentence for the ninth and last defendant within the federal authorities’s case in opposition to the Ghost City crew. Eight males and one lady had been sentenced to 60 years in jail for a collection of takeover robberies concentrating on jewellery shops and hashish firms. A number of the suspects are suspected of different robberies and shootings.

The boys on the middle of the robberies posed an undue risk to public security in Oakland, prosecutors argued. They had been among the many small variety of individuals – about 0.03% of the city populationin line with the Division of Violence Prevention – which was accountable for many of the metropolis’s gun violence on the time.

Demarco Barnett, 36; Jakari Jenkins, 34; Danny Garcia, 41; Slinger Rabon, 30; Aramiya Burrell, 35; Lester Garnett, 34; Darrin Hutchinson, 39; and Ricky Joseph, 37, every pleaded responsible to at least one depend of conspiracy to commit theft and a number of other counts of theft. Keanna Smith-Stewart, 33, pleaded responsible to conspiracy for her function in planning the crimes and promoting stolen items.

The U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace Violent Crime Strike Drive prosecuted the case with the help of paralegal Yenni Weinberg. The FBI and Oakland police investigated the crimes. Police and FBI brokers used license plate readers, mobile phone location knowledge, DNA and different proof to strengthen the case.

“Ghost City is a violent avenue gang primarily based in Oakland that engages in shootings, murders, robberies, burglaries, and narcotics trafficking,” prosecutors wrote in a courtroom temporary. They cited instances involving different alleged Ghost City gang members for homicide, gun assaults and narcotics distribution over the previous seven years.

This was hardly the primary main regulation enforcement operation concentrating on members of the Ghost City gang. Teams of primarily younger males concerned in violent crimes have banded collectively beneath the title ‘Ghost City’ because the early Nineteen Nineties.

The gang performed a serious function within the spikes in gun violence within the mid-2000s and from 2010 to 2012. An OPD operation referred to as “Ghostbustersled to the arrest of 26 suspected gang members in 2010, after which an OPD deputy chief declared, “We are going to by no means let these Ghost City gang members take again the realm once more.”

Protection attorneys didn’t excuse the crimes, however did observe childhood trauma and PTSD

The collection of robberies started on March 18, 2022, when 4 of the boys broke right into a coin and stamp store in San Francisco, tied the house owners’ arms behind their backs and pistol-whipped one in every of them. They left with greater than $300,000 in jewellery, cash and forex.

In August, the crew allegedly broke right into a hashish dispensary in Oakland, taking not less than $100,000 value of product.

On November 12, 5 of the boys wore masks after they stormed a jewellery retailer within the metropolis of San Pablo, holding an worker at gunpoint, raiding the trunks and secure, stealing between $300,000 and $500,000 in gold and different gadgets, and fleeing in Dodge Chargers with stolen license plates.

Later that month, on Thanksgiving, three of the Ghost City gang members allegedly broke into an Audi dealership in Oakland, making off with a secure containing $30,000 in money. Three days earlier, crew member Smith-Stewart had bought a automotive from the dealership and made a $9,500 money down cost. The automotive was later utilized in not less than one theft.

In December, six of the boys broke right into a hashish grower’s warehouse in West Oakland, hitting an worker within the head with the butt of a gun and demanding “weed with buds” and cash.

When Oakland police searched Barnett’s dwelling for his suspected involvement within the hashish robberies in January 2023, they discovered jewellery from the San Pablo retailer theft.

The boys additionally confirmed off a few of the stolen jewellery and money in Instagram posts and YouTube videos. Federal prosecutors used the social media photographs as proof to show their case.

Earlier than Barnett’s sentencing, his lawyer, Joanna Sheridan, requested the decide to think about a 72-month jail sentence, lower than the potential most of 126 months.

“Within the context of trauma and poverty, he made the regrettable option to steal to outlive,” she wrote in a courtroom memo. When he was a toddler, Barnett’s father was an alcoholic who terrorized the household. Studies to have found hyperlinks between childhood trauma and prison habits later in life.

“He remembers his father hitting his head on the wall of their residence, giving his mom a black eye on Christmas Eve, stealing the youngsters’s Christmas presents and unleashing his assault canine on Demarco and his sister,” wrote Sheridan, who added that Barnett has been recognized with post-traumatic stress dysfunction.

“He’s ashamed of his function within the violence of the accused robberies as a result of he is aware of firsthand what it’s prefer to be a sufferer of violence,” Sheridan argued.

Barnett pleaded guilty for conspiracy and three counts of theft final yr and was given the harshest sentence of the 9 defendants by Decide Araceli Martínez-Olguín: 114 months.