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Hart County Sheriff Office emblem
On Nov. 17, a bond hearing was held for eight of the 11 individuals arrested in Hart County last month in connection to gang-related activity.
Senior judge Thomas L. Hodges of the Northern Judicial Circuit presided over bond hearings for Tyrickus Miller, Deandre Watford, Lendarrius Keese, Kimothy Brown Jr., Trenton Shoemaker, Larjarvis Rucker, Quentin Simpson and Laterrell Alexander.
The bonds of Miller, Watford, Keese, and Brown were denied due to the court’s belief that they “posed a significant risk of fleeing the court’s jurisdiction; failing to appear when required in court; threats to persons, property, or community; committing a felony pending a trail of these charges, intimidating witnesses, otherwise obstructing justice.”
Rucker’s and Shoemaker’s bonds were set at $50,000 apiece. Simpson’s and Alexander’s bond hearing was set for a later date due to their lawyer not being able to be present.
Bond hearings for Jarvis Settles, Ayana Curry, and Jaquavious Waller will be held at a later date.
The group of 11 were arrested on Oct. 27, after a joint investigation spearheaded by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) with 15 other agencies involved. All of the individuals except Settles were charged with Georgia’s Street Gang Act, a law which states, “It shall be unlawful for any person to cause, encourage, solicit, recruit, or coerce another to become a member or associate of a criminal street gang, to participate in a criminal street gang, or to conduct or participate in criminal gang activity.”
The gang affiliation that Hart County investigator Michael Davis suspects the 10 to be associated with is the Bloods gang.
“We have documentation over the period of the investigation through the investigation of the GBI, and they’re pretty open booked on social media, and they claim to be affiliated as Bloods members through what is known as the Sex, Money, Murda gang, which is also called OTG and it stands for Only The Gang,” Davis said. “So they advertise themselves well that they’re associated with [the Bloods].”
The Bloods gang is an international street gang that originated in Los Angeles, California, but operates through smaller gangs like Sex, Money, Murda, which operates as its primary eastcoast operation.
“It is a local gang but it is an affiliate of the larger Blood gang,” Davis said. “They are a local gang but they belong to the international gang [the] Bloods.”
According to Davis, the GBI is working on indictments for the 11 arrested and could potentially present their findings at the beginning of 2023.
“If [the Grand Jury] true bill’s it, it will determine if indictments are coming down,” Davis said. “Until they do, the GBI is still working on the investigation.”
According to Hart County lead investigator Chris Carroll, among the arrests, at least two were made in connection to the shooting death of Mericus Scott, who was found shot to death in a retention pond on Jan. 20, 2020 in Anderson County, S.C. Waller and Keese, both from Hartwell, were charged by the Georgia Bureau of Investigations with conspiracy to commit a crime (murder) in connection to Scott’s death, Carroll said.