Jerry Mitchell

The Clarion-Ledger

Federal authorities are investigating the Aryan Brotherhood, a prison gang whose violence is spilling onto the streets of Mississippi.

Behind bars, the gang has carried out drug trafficking, gambling, extortion, killings and other crimes. On the streets, members have been responsible for killings, arsons, armed robberies, meth manufacturing and other crimes.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell has blamed the gang for "murderous and racist ideology" in prisons that "unleashed a violent crime wave that jumped the prison walls and spread like a virus."

On Aug. 27, member Dennis Simpson pleaded guilty to aggravated assault for shooting Brodie Murphy in Iuka.

On July 12, a Jones County jury sentenced Justin Blakeney to death for the 2010 death of his former girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter, Victoria Viner. An informant testified Blakeney said he killed the mixed race child so he could join the Aryan Brotherhood.

Blakeney's mother said she believes her son is innocent.

On June 24, 2012, Aryan Brotherhood member Gerald John Wagner of Picayune was reportedly on the way to carry out a gang hit when a state trooper attempted to pull him over in Monroe County.

A high-speed chase ensued on U.S. 45. While fleeing troopers, Wagner ran over a spike strip and lost control of his GMC Suburban near the Green Street exit in Tupelo. He fired four times at officers before a trooper shot him dead, authorities said.

A recent Justice Department investigation into the neo-Nazi prison gang in Texas and Oklahoma led to 73 convictions there as well as 21 new arrests in connection with a meth ring.

Formed in 1964 in California, Aryan Brotherhood is the nation's oldest major neo-Nazi prison gang with an estimated 20,000 members on the streets or in prisons.

Although the gang makes up one tenth of 1 percent of the prison population, it is responsible for 18 percent of all prison killings, including fellow gang members and prison staff members, according to the Justice Department.

"The Aryan Brotherhood is without question one of the very largest and most frightening prison gangs in America," said Mark Potok, editor of Hatewatch, which tracks white supremacist groups.

Potential recruits into the violent gang are typically required to "'make their bones' by attacking or even murdering a rival gang member or attacking a guard," he said. "In the same way, members are told the only way they can quit the gang is via 'blood out,' which is to say, by dying."

Contact Jerry Mitchell at jmitchell@jackson.gannett.com or (601) 961-7064. Follow @jmitchellnews on Twitter.