A violent gang recruited children with ice cream trucks and neighborhood cookouts while its leader directed operations from a Georgia prison cell.
What’s Happening: Attorney General Chris Carr announced that his Gang Prosecution Unit convicted all 16 members of the 1-8 Trey Gangster Bloods following a three-year investigation. The gang actively targeted children for recruitment between January 2019 and October 2022.
What’s Important: Gang leader Jamar Ramsay pushed members to focus on recruiting youth, telling them in messages that “We want youth because it’s a youth movement.” He encouraged the gang to “start breeding like crazy” and “start snatching everything up.”
How They Did It: Nicholas Wiseman texted Ramsay in May 2022 about his recruitment strategy. “I’m working on it I be buying the neighborhood kids ice cream when the truck come out there And im planning to put together a big cookout for the hood Once I get this bread back up,” Wiseman wrote.
Two other members, Kenneth Searcy and Akeem Lanier, used Instagram to advertise a “Metter Block Party” specifically designed to recruit children into the gang.
Between the Lines: Ramsay ran the operation from Hays State Prison using contraband cell phones. He was already serving a life sentence for murder but continued directing crimes including the recruitment of minors, drug trafficking and violence.
Federal law currently stops states from jamming contraband cell phones in prisons. The Federal Communications Commission recently proposed changing this policy.
The Big Picture: One gang member, Brantavious Sims, murdered Lane Bullard in Barrow County in April 2022. He received life in prison without parole. Ramsay got an additional 60 years on top of his life sentence.
The 1-8 Trey Gangster Bloods originated in the Bronx and joined the national Bloods Gang in 1994. The group committed 136 criminal acts across 10 Georgia counties and California.
Carr created Georgia’s first statewide Gang Prosecution Unit in 2022. The unit has secured more than 120 convictions across 19 counties.
The Sources: Georgia Attorney General’s Office, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia Department of Corrections.
