On a beautiful Easter Sunday in Birmingham’s W.C. Patton Park, hundreds gathered to mark the holiday with friends and family.
It was in the early-evening hours of April 4, 2021, when gunfire shattered the celebrations, leaving innocent bystander Areyelle Yarbrough dead, and five others – ages 5 to 21 – injured.
The 5-year-old, Justice Holness, was shot in the lungs and the bullet also fractured his collarbone.
The shooting outraged the community.
It also put a Birmingham street gang – H2K or Hard to Kill – high up on the radar of Birmingham area law enforcement officers.
Investigators believe H2K members were behind the dozens of bullets fired in the park that day.
“H2K became very prevalent with the Patton Park shooting,’’ said Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond. “We attribute them to a fair number of homicides – maybe as many as nine or 10.”
Later that month, federal authorities joined law enforcement leaders in Jefferson County at a joint press conference, declaring the uptick in violent crime in Birmingham and beyond intolerable and vowing to band together to stamp out gun violence.
The renewed effort to work together wasn’t just because of Patton Park, but the horrific shooting and H2K seemed like a good place for them to start.
“We were looking at the homicides in Birmingham and how we could change that for 2022,’’ Thurmond said.
“When you start looking at different causes, and you have one group that you believe is responsible for a number of them, that’s something we could look at to combat homicides in 2022.”
“We wanted a manageable plan,’’ said Northern District of Alabama U.S. Attorney Prim Escalona. “We started looking at trigger pullers and the natural fit was H2K and their association with Patton Park.”
“Do I think that’s the only criminal gang in town? Obviously not,’’ Escalona said. “It is a gang that is very vocal on social media, a very prominent gang.”
Just over a year later, authorities say they’ve kept their promise to work together to identify the most prolific trigger pullers in the Birmingham area.
Once a week, investigators from more than a dozen law enforcement agencies meet to analyze violent criminal activity and crime trends.
The idea is to identify the dangerous offenders and then use whatever tool in their toolbox might be available to take them off the streets by whatever means available.
Some call it the Al Capone method.
Someone may be guilty of murder, but if you can put the person away on tax evasion charges, you do just that.
As a result of the violent crime group, the U.S. Attorney’s Office since December has indicted eight people on gun or drug charges, many of whom have had previous arrests on state charges for violent crimes including murder.
Since February, when the law enforcement group started meeting more regularly – Birmingham police have made 27 felony arrests with 50 total felony charges and nine misdemeanor charges from information and strategies brought forth in the group meetings.
“We’re in a really good place,’’ Escalona said.
“This is in its infancy, but I’m extremely excited about the direction we’re going,’’ Thurmond said.
Hard to Kill
Under the U.S. Department of Justice’s Project Safe Neighborhoods, federal, state and local authorities work together to find ways to curb crime.
Community safety and security is the priority, not just numbers of arrests or prosecutions.
The violent crime group includes the Birmingham Police Department, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office, the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Parole, ATF, FBI, DEA, Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Secret Service, the Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Marshals Service and the IRS. Additionally, UAB’s Department of Criminal Justice helps with research and data.
Initially, the group set its sights on H2K, a gang that’s based out of the city’s eastside and is well-known on the streets of Birmingham.
Thurmond said he believes H2K is a spinoff from the GTO gang – Goons Taking Over – that operated in the eastern Birmingham and Jefferson County around 2015 through 2018 and was involved in burglaries, robberies, drug deals and car break-ins.
“They somewhat dismantled and then got reorganized and are pretty well organized for a local gang,’’ Thurmond said.
“There’s no national affiliation. They use different ways to make money whether it’s through drugs, automobiles, there are a number of things.”
Thurmond estimates H2K has been involved in nine to 10 homicides, but there could likely be more. He declined to identify which homicides investigators believe involved H2K members.
He said it’s hard to say how many people are actually H2K members. He estimates less than 100.
“They have a lot of firepower and just the way they carry themselves is dangerous,’’ the chief said.
“They’re aware that law enforcement is taking a big interest in them and their activities. That’s a telltale sign that we’re doing something right.”
He said the group has been able to take down some H2K leaders.
“There have been several leaders throughout the course of their time,’’ Thurmond said. “It’s changed. As you take the top off an organization, a new leader has to come up and that’s what we’re seeing.”
“We want the public to know that somebody’s really doing something and taking it seriously to dismantle this group, and then look at other groups moving forward.”
Of the eight federal indictments announced by the Northern District of Alabama U.S. Attorney’s Office in connection with the violent crime group so far, six of them had ties to H2K.
In late February, Darius Emale Craig Jr., 23, pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and two counts of distribution of methamphetamine.
His brother, 25-year-old Horace Dantai Burgess Jr. pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and one count of possession with intent to distribute heroin.
Craig on Wednesday was sentenced to five years in federal prison. Burgess is set to be sentenced on July 20. The FBI investigated the cases.
“Both men are linked to the Hard to Kill gang,’’ authorities said in a U.S. Attorney’s Office press release.
“This gang operates in the Birmingham area and is known to be involved in acts of violence, illegal drug distribution and illegal firearm possession.”
Craig was previously indicted in state court on four counts of attempted murder in a 2017 shooting at a Birmingham park that left two high school senior girls with gunshot wounds during an unofficial Senior Skip Day. Those charges were ultimately dismissed.
Others indicted by the feds in connection with the violent group are:
– Fredrick Leonard Temple Jr., 32, possession of a machine gun (a Glock with a Glock switch) and possession of an unregistered weapon. ATF investigated the case. Temple in 2017 was charged with capital murder in which 60 shots were fired, but those charges were later dismissed.
– Eric Leman Ashley Jr. 26, possession with intent to distribute fentanyl. ATF investigated the case. Ashley has multiple criminal arrests dating back to 2015 including a robbery and shooting in Hoover, but those charges were dismissed.
– Deontra Lamar Austin, 24, felon in possession of a firearm. He was convicted in 2021 of robbery and burglary. Court records show he was charged with capital murder in 2019, but a grand jury declined to issue indictments on the case.
– Demarcus Marshall, 27, three counts of felon in possession of a firearm. ATF and FBI investigated the case. He was previously convicted of robbery in Jefferson County in 2015.
– Kobe Solomon Waters, 21, felon in possession of a firearm. ATF investigated the case. He was convicted of robbery in Jefferson County in 2018.
– Tavoris Moore, 19, two counts of possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and two counts of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. ATF investigated the case.
“It was because of the intelligence we had from the Patton Park shooting because they were a known entity and prolific on social media, H2K was an easy place to start,’’ Escalona said.
“A lot of the initial (violent crime group) work was focused on H2K but it’s expanded beyond that at this point.”
No arrests have been made in the Patton Park shooting.
“Like in many Birmingham homicides, we often know who is responsible, but we just can’t prove it,’’ Thurmond said.
“But it puts those suspects on our radar and that’s what happened in that particular case.”
“We’re not going to be able to solve every case or win every case unfortunately, but we know that there are other ways,’’ he said.
“When they are involved in nefarious activities, we can catch them doing other things and prosecute them.”
Authorities said H2K obviously hasn’t been dismantled yet, but they believe it has definitely been disrupted.
“I wouldn’t say it’s been dismantled but I would certainly say it’s been disrupted,’’ said U.S. Marshal Marty Keely. “And as it becomes public, it’s going to make an impression. We’ve got to continue to keep this push going.”
How it works
Birmingham Police Deputy Chief Michael Pickett leads the violent crime group meetings, where they talk about what they’re hearing, the intelligence they’re getting on the ground, who is driving violent crime, and who the shooters are wreaking havoc on the community.
They talk about ways to disrupt some of the criminal elements and loosely affiliated gangs running in the area, each agency offering whatever took might help with that particular “target” whether it be cell phone forensics, gun tracing, pole cameras and even the mail service.
For example, said U.S. Secret Service Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ron McCormick, one of the “targets” might be committing financial crimes to enable their violent crimes.
That’s where the Secret Service would come in.
“One of our targets might be using a PPP Loan (Paycheck Protection Program) to get money to buy guns or do other things within the gang,’’ McCormick said.
“By going after them on those acts – the paper crimes – you have the money trail and are able to target them.”
With cell phone forensics, he said, investigators can see where the targets have been and with whom they’ve been speaking or texting.
“We see how these gangs work,’’ he said.
Through the joint effort, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has provided training to Birmingham officers at each precinct during roll call, focusing on domestic violence and criminal investigations.
Grant funding has also been made available to BPD, the sheriff’s office and the district attorney offices in both Birmingham and Bessemer for crime fighting tools and for programs, such as the Innovation in Prosecution grant for the creation of a domestic violence unit in the Birmingham DA’s Office.
ATF and FBI have also provided training on crime gun intelligence resources, such as eTrace (gun tracing) and the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network – better known as NIBIN – which is one of the ways they are identifying the shooters, Thurmond said.
Much like fingerprints, the characteristics from shell casings from crime scenes are entered into a database, which can be searched and compared by other law enforcement agencies.
It’s the way to determine whether the gun was used in another crime.
“That helps us connect the dots on a lot of these shootings,’’ Thurmond said.
A man was killed and a woman injured in a shooting Monday, June 6, 2022, on 40th Street in Ensley. (Carol Robinson)
In Alabama, there are seven police agencies currently using NIBIN, with four others in the process of obtaining the system.
There are 264 NIBIN sites across the country, which is up from just 150 in 2015.
“People started seeing it was a valuable tool in the tool belt,’’ said ATF Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ashley Lightner.
“Our criminals are not going to just stay in Birmingham. They’re going to go to different jurisdictions, so this allows investigators from Hoover and Birmingham or Birmingham and Tuscaloosa to talk and collaborate.”
Not every agency that has NIBIN has access to ATF’s National Correlation and Training Center, which conducts ballistics image correlations and returns investigative leads to its participating agencies.
Basically, it takes a bulk of bullet identification workload off local police officers so they can focus on investigations.
There are 60 law enforcement agencies on the waiting list to join the center.
Homicides aren’t the only crimes getting the NIBIN attention.
Almost daily, homes or cars are shot into where nobody is hit but “the message is being sent.”
“We’re collecting the shell casings and we can find out who those people are so we can get them charged, get them off the street and give our citizens some peace,’’ Thurmond said.
“That’s the ultimate goal.”
It’s no secret that today’s criminals are well-armed.
“You’re seeing a lot of high-capacity weapons this day and age, and Glock switches, and a lot more of the long guns and rapid firepower,’’ Thurmond said.
“When you have two or three people shooting with an extended magazine with 50 to 100 rounds, the odds of someone getting hit are very high.”
Keely, who is in his 53rd year of working in law enforcement, said it’s far more dangerous now.
“We rarely encountered people on the streets with guns like you see today – Glock switches, automatic rifles,’’ he said. “The Marshals Service encounters that every day.”
In the case of Fredrick Temple, he was indicted for having a Glock switch.
A Glock switch is an after-market device which is designed to illegally convert a semi-automatic Glock pistol into a fully automatic machine gun.
Across the country, from California to Texas and in between, federal prosecutors are indicting more suspects for possession of the switches.
“When you can get the trigger pullers off the streets, the people who are purchasing these weapons, over time you’re going to be able to make a difference,’’ Thurmond said.
“It’s identifying the trigger pullers and dealing them accordingly.”
Here for the ‘long haul’
As of June 15, Birmingham had 62nd homicides so far in 2022.
Of those, five have been ruled justifiable and therefore aren’t deemed criminal. On that date in 2021, there 57 homicides.
In all of Jefferson County, there have been 81 homicides, including the 62 in Birmingham.
For the same time period last year, there were 100 homicides.
While homicides are slightly up, Thurmond said overall violent crime is down.
As of June 7, there had been 134 non-fatal shootings in the city, which is a 32 percent decrease from the 197 by June 7, 2021.
With the onset of summer, authorities said they will continue to focus on the evolving drivers of violent crime, beyond any single violent gang.
Some of the emerging threats, besides Glock switches, are gang violence, carjackings, car thefts, ghost guns (untraceable firearms that can be bought online and assembled at home), robberies, gun trafficking and straw purchases.
“The commitment was we’re not going to come in and do some flash and bang operation and then leave. We’re here for the long haul,’’ Escalona said.
“It takes time and commitment, and it doesn’t happen overnight. We want to ensure the community that we’re getting the right people off the streets.”
Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr called the work being done by the violent crime group “huge.”
“Nobody cares who gets the glory. Everybody here just wants the neighborhoods to be safer and to get the individuals off the streets,’’ Carr said.
“All of these people are doing what needs to be done. That sends a strong message that we’re not playing, this is not a game. Things like that are the true game changers.”
“We have the right people at the table and everybody in this group plays well together,’’ Thurmond said. “My hope is this will be a best practice for other areas around the country.”
