BALTIMORE, Md. — It was May of 2018 as children prepared to leave the Mary E. Rodman rec center in Southwest Baltimore when shots rang out near the basketball court killing a 16-year-old boy.
“It is a war zone, especially when you’ve got guns in the wrong people’s hands,” said one woman who raced there to pick up her children. “My son and my daughter love to come over here to the rec, and they don’t want to come back.”
Officers found 20 baggies of marijuana and a handgun on the victim, and eventually an indictment brought charges against a member of the “NFL” gang, which would protect its drug turf by any means necessary.
Now, U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur has come to the same recreation center where the teen was murdered to announce a 33-count indictment of 16 members, which has brought the gang to its knees.
“NFL gang members committed murders in furtherance of their enterprise,” said Hur. “This week’s indictment charges four murders and one attempted murder committed by NFL members.”
According to the indictment, the gang also threatened, tampered and even ordered hits on witnesses who threatened to expose them, and it dealt in drugs laced with Fentanyl that led to five fatal overdoses and nine others while supplying addicts throughout the region and even in nearby states.
“In our investigation focusing on the NFL neighborhood, so far we have seized more than 25 guns, more than two and a half kilograms of Fentanyl and heroin,” said Hur. “and just for reference purposes---that’s enough to kill more than a million people, because as little as two milligrams of Fentanyl can be lethal. We’ve also seized more than one kilogram of cocaine base.”
The gang drew its name, NFL, from three streets it claimed as part of its turf in Edmondson Village: Normandy, Franklin and Loudon.
All of the alleged gang members could face up to life in prison if convicted on some of the most serious charges.
