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Two of the more prominent gangs operating covertly at USP-Marion during the time period of the late ’90s were the Aryan Brotherhood, composed primarily of white prisoners, and the DC Blacks, made up of mainly African-American prisoners.
The Aryan Brotherhood maintained a running oral “hit list” of black prisoners that, if encountered, should be attacked and/or killed.
In order to bolster their violent tendencies, members of the Aryan Brotherhood, and associated gangs such as the Dirty White Boys, carried weapons known as “shanks,”which the members of the gangs often carried in their rectal cavities in order to conceal them from corrections officers.
On May 18, 1999, Terry Lamar Walker, a black inmate at USP-Marion, was stabbed to death by inmate Richard McIntosh who was armed with a shank, while another inmate, Carl Knorr, held him.
The entire incident was witnessed by two correctional officers, who identified the inmates taking part in the attack as members of the Dirty White Boys gang.
Following the stabbing, corrections officers interviewed a number of inmates about the murder.
One of the inmates associated with both the Dirty White Boys and the Aryan Brotherhood agreed to cooperate on the condition of anonymity.
He informed the investigating officers that Sahakian was a “shot-caller” or leader of the Aryan Brotherhood gang at USP-Marion and had ordered Walker’s murder as a “favor” to one of the prison’s other gangs, the Mexican Mafia.
When asked about the weapons used to carry out the murder, the informant told corrections officers that at least six members of the Aryan Brotherhood contemporaneously had shanks in their possession.
According to the anonymous inmate, each member of the Aryan Brotherhood had possession of one of the six shanks for a week at a time, and would then transfer it on to another member.
He also told guards that in order to identify which member of the gang had possession of the dangerous weapons at that particular time, they would need to x-ray them-as the shanks were concealed in their rectums.
The informing inmate gave the officers a list of Aryan Brotherhood members that he suspected were carrying concealed shanks and that should be x-rayed.
United States of America v. David M. Sahakian. 453 F.3d 905 (7th Cir. 2006). US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit – 453 F.3d 905. Argued September 21, 2005. Decided July 12, 2006.
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