A white supremacist gang leader was slain by fellow inmates at a California prison, law enforcement and watchdog groups said Friday.
Devlin “Gazoo” Stringfellow, 48, was a kingpin in the Public Enemy Number 1 street gang, which emerged from the southern California punk scene in the late 1980s and became what the Southern Poverty Law Center described as a hybrid racist skinhead group and criminal street gang.
"The group’s mercenary and criminal nature, coupled with a white supremacist ideology and a subculture of violence, makes it a triple threat, both to law enforcement and to the public at large," according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Stringfellow was stabbed to death by two prisoners using weapons made by inmates in the exercise yard of Folsom Prison, spokesman Lt. L.A. Quinn told media outlets.
He identified those believed to be responsible for the stabbing as Jacob Kober, 29, and Stephen Dunckhurst, 49, and said no charges had yet been filed.
Stringfellow was transferred to the prison from Los Angeles County in 2014. He was serving a six-year prison sentence for possession of a controlled substance for sale, carrying a concealed dagger and assault with force, reported SF Gate.
All members of PENI were previously made members of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, Matthew Buechner, a former gang investigator with the California corrections department told the Associated Press.
He said that Stringfellow had long been a target for fellow gang members.
“He was a loud mouth and (the Aryan Brotherhood) does not want attention,” Buechner said in an email. Its members lure targets into thinking they are safe, “then strike as violently as possible to send a message to enemies and membership to stay in line.”
Stringfellow was the second high profile gang leader slain at the facility slain at the high security facility in recent years, with Hugo “Yogi” Pinell, 71, a purported member of the Black Guerrilla Family, slain in 2015 after spending decades in isolation after a violent failed escape attempt.
Post a Comment