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    2 Men Charged in Killing of 7 People in Baltimore Gang Case

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    Prosecutors said Cornell Moore and Keith Russell were involved in a murder-for-hire enterprise with a gang operating in Baltimore City and elsewhere in Maryland.Two men who prosecutors say were hired to carry out a string of killings and violence in the Baltimore area have been charged with murdering at least seven people, including a woman who was seven months pregnant, the authorities said Tuesday.Since October 2020, Cornell Moore and Keith Russell, both 39, were involved in a murder-for-hire scheme with a criminal enterprise operating in Baltimore City and elsewhere in Maryland that intimidated its rivals through violence, the State’s Attorney for Baltimore City, Ivan J. Bates, said at a news conference.The indictments allege that Mr. Moore and Mr. Russell killed seven people, including Angel Smith, who was seven months pregnant, and her fiancé, Yahmell Montague, who were gunned down in May 2022 outside Ms. Smith’s home. The baby survived, according to the police.They also attempted to murder three other people, the indictments say. According to the documents, the two men used carjacked and stolen vehicles to carry out their crimes.Mr. Moore has been indicted on 41 counts, and Mr. Russell has been indicted on 37 counts. Those counts include participation in a criminal gang, first-degree murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence, felony possession of a firearm, attempted first-degree murder and conspiracy, among other charges.“The ongoing multiyear investigation into this violent criminal enterprise has been one of our office’s most significant efforts in our continued fight to bring justice to Baltimore,” Mr. Bates said. “This represents the devastating impact a small number of violent perpetrators can have on our communities.”Prosecutors have yet to charge anyone with hiring Mr. Moore and Mr. Russell, and the size and scope of the criminal enterprise was unclear on Tuesday evening. Mr. Bates declined to name the gang or say how many more arrests the authorities expect to make, citing the ongoing investigation.“We’re not finished,” Mr. Bates said. “We’re coming for all those individuals involved.”The charges are the first step in a yearslong, multiagency investigation with Baltimore Police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.According to Mr. Bates, a gang contracted Mr. Moore and Mr. Russell as hit men to stamp out its rivals through terror and violence. Gang members were compensated for committing acts of violence to protect their its reputation and help maintain its dominance, the authorities said.In July 2021, gang members stole a person’s identity to buy a car in California that they then drove to Maryland, the indictment said. Mr. Moore and Mr. Russell shot and killed Shabro Meredith on or around Sept. 21, 2021, and then used that car to flee, the documents said.The indictments do not name any of the other members.Mr. Moore and Mr. Russell were also charged with the murders of David Reid, Rashad Dendy, Tyree Davis and Tayvon Scott. Mr. Scott’s murder took place just outside of Baltimore County and is being prosecuted by officials there, Mr. Bates said. More

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      Trump Rally in Aurora, Colo., Is Marked by Nativist Attacks

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      Former President Donald J. Trump escalated the nativist, anti-immigration rhetoric that has animated his political career with a speech Friday in Aurora, Colo., where he repeated false and grossly exaggerated claims about undocumented immigrants that local Republican officials have refuted.For weeks, Aurora has been fending off false rumors about the city. And its conservative Republican mayor, Mike Coffman, said in a statement on Friday that he hoped to show Mr. Trump that Aurora was “a considerably safe city.”But Mr. Trump has made debunked claims about Aurora, a Denver suburb, such a central part of his stump speech that he took a campaign detour to Colorado, which has not voted for a Republican in a presidential election since 2004, to make the case in person at a rally at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center.And during a meandering 80-minute speech Mr. Trump repeated claims, which have been debunked by local officials, that Aurora had been “invaded and conquered,” described the United States as an “occupied state,” called for the death penalty “for any migrant that kills an American citizen” and revived a promise to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport suspected members of drug cartels and criminal gangs without due process.That law allows for the summary deportation of people from nations with which the United States is at war, that have invaded the United States or that have engaged in “predatory incursions.” It was far from clear whether the law could be used in the way that Mr. Trump was proposing.The false tale that Aurora, Colorado’s third-largest city, was occupied by armed Venezuelans stemmed from a dispute over housing conditions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Gang Attack in Haiti Leaves More than 20 People Dead

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      The assault took place in a key agricultural region, which has seen a surge in gang violence.At least 20 people were killed in a gang attack in central Haiti on Thursday that sent hundreds of people running for their lives, posing another challenge for the international security force that has been deployed in Haiti since June.The attack took place at about 3 a.m. in Pont-Sondé, roughly 60 miles north of Port-au-Prince, the capital. The town is in the Artibonite department, a key agricultural region that has seen a surge in gang violence.While the gangs that the international security force has been sent to confront are mostly concentrated in Port-au-Prince, they have also spread their violence outside the capital, including the Artibonite.More than 20 people were killed, including women and children, and 50 more were injured, according to the Haitian Health Ministry. A spokesman for the multinational security force deployed to Haiti said that they had confirmed 17 victims.“This attack comes amid an upsurge in violence in the region, exacerbating an already extremely precarious security situation,” the health ministry said in a statement. “This violence disrupts the daily lives of residents, limiting their access to basic services, particularly health care. Persistent insecurity also prevents humanitarian interventions in certain localities, making the situation increasingly critical.”While the ministry was attempting to use United Nations resources to respond by air, “direct intervention capacities are severely limited, due to the almost impossible access to the affected area,” the ministry said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      New Haitian Leader Visits Washington Seeking Additional Support

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      Haiti’s newly selected prime minister, Garry Conille, met with Democrats on Capitol Hill as well as Biden administration officials, seeking more help to combat the unrest in his country.Top Democrats in Congress met on Tuesday with Haiti’s newly installed prime minister, Garry Conille, and pledged to push for additional American assistance days after a U.S.-backed international police mission arrived on the Caribbean island to restore stability to a country that for months has been under siege by criminal gangs.The Biden administration is planning to release $100 million for the mission, of which the United States is the largest financial backer, doing so over Republican opposition. But Mr. Conille told the Democrats on Tuesday that more money would be needed, and soon.“This is a critical point,” Mr. Conille said in an interview on Tuesday afternoon following meetings with lawmakers and officials at international financial institutions, where he shared appreciation for the support that has already been committed and stressed the dire need for continued investment.“I need to have the funding necessary to quickly implement basic infrastructure, repair basic infrastructure, and make sure that the services are available to people,” he said.“The issues in Haiti are such huge issues and we are making sure that we know what his priorities are and how we can address security and also the economic needs and to make sure the funding is really present,” Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, Democrat of Florida and the only Haitian American member of Congress, said in an interview. “We’ve been wrestling here in Congress since October to make sure the funding is available, because we have a short window for success.”Eight months after the United Nations authorized the use of international forces to be deployed to Haiti, the first wave of forces in the Multinational Security Support Mission, led by Kenya, arrived on June 25 to try to stamp out the violence and regain control of the country.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kenyan-Led Forces Arrive in Haiti After Months of Gang Violence

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      The first wave of a 2,500-member international force sent to restore order in the gang-plagued Caribbean nation has arrived, but critics worry the plan will fail.Foreign law enforcement officers began arriving in Haiti on Tuesday, more than year and a half after the prime minister there issued a plea to other countries for help to stop the rampant gang violence that has upended the Caribbean nation.Since that appeal went out in October 2022, more than 7,500 people have been killed by violence — more than 2,500 people so far this year alone, the United Nations said.With the presidency vacant and a weakened national government, dozens of gangs took over much of the capital, Port-au-Prince, putting up roadblocks, kidnapping and killing civilians and attacking entire neighborhoods. About 200,000 people were forced out of their homes between March and May, according to the U.N.Now an initial group of 400 Kenyan police officers are arriving in Haiti to take on the gangs, an effort largely organized by the Biden administration. The Kenyans are the first to deploy of an expected 2,500-member force of international police officers and soldiers from eight countries.“You are undertaking a vital mission that transcends borders and cultures,” President William Ruto of Kenya told the officers on Monday. “Your presence in Haiti will bring hope and relief to communities torn apart by violence and ravaged by disorder.”The Kenyan officers are expected to tackle a long list of priorities, among them retaking control of the country’s main port, as well as freeing major highways from criminal groups that demand drivers for money.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ex-Haitian Gang Leader Is Sentenced to 35 Years in Prison in Gunrunning Scheme

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      Prosecutors said Joly Germine, 31, who had led the 400 Mawozo gang, was involved in a conspiracy that used ransom money that had been paid for the release of American hostages to buy and smuggle guns into Haiti.The former leader of a Haitian street gang was sentenced on Monday to 35 years in prison for his role in directing a gunrunning scheme that smuggled guns to Haiti using ransom money that had been paid for the release of American hostages, prosecutors said.Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia sentenced the former gang leader, Joly Germine, 31, of Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti, in a Washington courtroom.Mr. Germine, who was known as Yonyon as the leader of the 400 Mawozo gang in Haiti, pleaded guilty on Jan. 31 to a 48-count indictment that charged him with several crimes, including money laundering, smuggling and conspiracy to defraud the United States, the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia said in a statement on Monday. The 35-year sentence does not address other charges of conspiracy to commit hostage taking that Mr. Germine also faces after the 400 Mawozo gang claimed responsibility in 2021 for taking 16 American hostages and one Canadian. The hostage-taking case, which Judge Bates is also overseeing, is to go to trial next year, court records show. After the 400 Mawozo gang took the 17 hostages in the fall of 2021, the gang sought a ransom of $1 million for each hostage, prosecutors said. (The hostages, who were part of a missionary group visiting an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, were all released or managed to escape by December.) The gang had also taken three Americans hostage in the summer of 2021, prosecutors said. It used some of the ransom money obtained in that scheme to buy at least 24 guns, including AR-15s and AK-47s, which were smuggled from the United States into Haiti, prosecutors said.Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement on Monday that the money used in the gunrunning scheme had been “extorted from kidnapping American citizens.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      18 Charged in Gang Violence That Killed Two 16-Year-Old Boys

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      The authorities said those charged were as young as 15 when they committed crimes around Brooklyn that included murder.Eighteen teenagers and young men who the authorities said belonged to street gangs were charged on Wednesday with unleashing a wave of gun violence in Brooklyn that killed two 16-year-old boys and injured 10 others over a three-year period.Fifteen of those charged belonged to two gangs, made up of people from Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant, that formed an alliance against other gangs in the same neighborhoods, as well as in Brownsville and Flatbush, the authorities said. The rivalry led to a rash of shootings between August 2021 and May 2024, with gang members shooting at each other on streets populated with pedestrians, cyclists and families, according to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.Some of the people charged were as young as 14 when they committed crimes that included firing guns at people, according to prosecutors. During a news conference, Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, played a series of surveillance videos that showed young men and boys, wearing hoods or masks, opening fire on busy streets, often in broad daylight.One video showed a young couple walking with a stroller on a sidewalk just before shooting erupted. In another clip, people could be seen scattering, running into stores or ducking behind garbage cans to avoid bullets.“All these videos make one thing clear: These defendants simply don’t care,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “They fire indiscriminately whenever they think that a member of an opposing gang is in the area, not thinking for a minute of the damage and trauma they’re causing to their own community.”The rivalry led to the deaths of two boys: Jaquan Gause, who was shot to death as he sat behind the wheel of a car on Aug. 16, 2021; and Nayshawn Campbell, who was shot on June 25, 2022, at about 3 a.m. as he walked in his neighborhood in Brownsville. The boys, both 16, were considered rivals of the gang alliance and were targeted by the group, according to the indictment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Do Aid Groups Stay in Lawless Haiti?

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      Two American missionaries and a Haitian aid director were killed, the latest gang violence against aid groups in Haiti’s capital.Haiti’s bleak humanitarian situation is once again in the spotlight after gangs on Thursday attacked an Oklahoma-based missionary group working in the capital, Port-au-Prince, killing two Americans and the Haitian director of the organization, Missions in Haiti.The attack left many asking why American missionaries are still working in Haiti considering the immense violence that has paralyzed the country and the grip gangs have over most of Port-au-Prince. Thursday’s incident follows the 2021 kidnapping of 17 missionaries who were working in Haiti with Christian Aid Ministries. A Haitian gang kidnapped 16 Americans and a Canadian in that attack; weeks later, 12 of the hostages escaped and the others were freed.While Haiti is no stranger to violence and instability, the situation has worsened considerably since the 2021 assassination of the country’s president, Jovenel Moïse. Since then, the state has collapsed and gangs have proliferated, filling the vacuum.The killings this week come as Kenyan-led forces are set to arrive in Haiti in the next few weeks to confront the gangs and help stabilize the country. They are being funded by the United States and other members of the international community.The gangs now control much of the capital, including vital infrastructure, like national highways and seaports. They are able to hold up imports of basic food items and other necessities for a country that produces very little and relies heavily on foreign goods.What is the current humanitarian situation?Gangs now control or can exert their influence over about 90 percent of the capital, according to research groups. In many respects, Port-au-Prince is a giant, open-air prison, with much of the population of six million unable to move freely, gang violence dictating their everyday lives.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Haiti gang kills US politician’s missionary daughter and her husband

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      The daughter and son-in-law of a US Republican politician are among three Christian missionaries who have been killed by gang members in Haiti as it emerged that the long-awaited deployment of an multinational security force tasked with rescuing the Caribbean country from months of bloodshed had been delayed.Ben Baker, a Republican state representative from Missouri, announced the news of the couple’s murder on Facebook late on Thursday, writing: “My heart is broken in a thousand pieces. I’ve never felt this kind of pain.”Baker said his daughter Natalie Lloyd and her husband, Davy – both Christian missionaries in Haiti – “were attacked by gangs this evening and were both killed. They went to Heaven together.”Their group, Missions in Haiti Inc, said the couple and another member of the group named only as Jude had been “ambushed by a gang of 3 trucks full of guys” while leaving church and were “shot and killed” at about 9pm on Thursday. “We all are devastated,” the group posted on Facebook.A spokesperson for the White House national security council said the Biden administration was aware of reports of the deaths of the US citizens, saying: “Our hearts go out to the families of those killed as they experience unimaginable grief.”The killings came just hours after Joe Biden voiced optimism that Haiti’s security crisis – which began spiraling out of control in late February after a coordinated gang insurrection – could soon be solved with the arrival of a 2,500-strong Kenya-led multinational policing force.“We’re not talking about a thousand-person army that is made up of trained [personnel],” Biden said of the Haitian gangs who have plunged the country into mayhem and forced the country’s previous prime minister, Ariel Henry, from power. “This is a crisis that is able to be dealt with.”The first Kenyan members of that force were supposed to land in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, this week to spearhead the operation, with their arrival timed to coincide with a state visit the Kenyan president, William Ruto, is making to the US.Speaking alongside Biden on Thursday, Ruto also voiced confidence that the US-backed policing mission could “break the back of the gangs and the criminals that have visited untold suffering” on Haiti since the start of a coordinated criminal insurrection in late February. Armed criminals would be dealt with “firmly, decisively [and] within the parameters of the law”, Ruto vowed.But the first contingent of Kenyan officers did not arrive as planned this week, with confusion surrounding the reasons for the postponement.One source with knowledge of the mission told Reuters the Kenyan officers were given no explanation for the last-minute delay but ordered to remain on standby. A second source said “conditions were not in place in Port-au-Prince to receive the officers”.Other sources in Kenya’s interior ministry told the Geneva-based civil society group Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime that an advance team sent by Kenya had found Haiti “ill-prepared for the deployment”.Some observers suspect the delay could be related to security concerns over giving the heavily armed gangs advance warning of the mission’s arrival – something which might allow criminals to launch surprise attacks on incoming planes.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDiego Da Rin, a Haiti specialist from the International Crisis Group, said that if and when it arrived, the multinational force would face a huge task trying to subdue an estimated 5,000 gang members who control more than 80% of the capital.“The gangs have never controlled so much territory in Haiti. They have expanded their armies and their arsenals and they have established strongholds in areas the police have not been able to access, sometimes for years,” he said.In recent days, armed groups have intensified their attacks, completely or partly demolishing at least four police stations in a striking show of strength seemingly designed to coincide with the anticipated arrival of Kenyan forces.“That’s a message and it is not a veiled message … The message is: ‘Don’t come here, because if you come … you will be treated as invaders and enemies,’” Da Rin said. More