ATLANTA – An Athens-Clarke County grand jury has indicted four members of a local street gang in the fatal shooting of a 3-year-old boy, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced Wednesday.
Kyron Santino Zarco Smith was shot in the chest in March when a bullet came through his home at the Hallmark Mobile Home Park while he was watching television. His 9-year-old brother was wounded.
The indictment charges Julian Cubillos, Jayden Brown, Dakious Echols, and Desmontrez Mathis with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and violation of the Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act.
The four are members of the gang “Everybody Eats,” or “EBE.” They are accused of going to the mobile home park to target a rival gang in order to maintain and increase their status within EBE.
Gang violence in Georgia is disproportionately victimizing lower-income minorities, Carr said Wednesday during a news conference at the state Capitol.
“All Georgians, no matter where they live, deserve to be safe,” he said.
The attorney general’s Gang Prosecution Unit worked on the case in partnership with the Athens-Clarke County Police Department, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), the FBI’s Atlanta office and the bureau’s Athens-area Middle Georgia Safe Streets Gang Task Force.
“Criminal street gangs continue to devastate communities and harm innocent victims,” GBI Director Chris Hosey said. “The GBI is dedicated to holding dangerous gang members accountable for their crimes.”
Since its creation nearly two years ago, Carr’s Gang Prosecution Unit has worked with Athens-Clarke police to indict 21 suspects in nine separate cases. Most are believed to involve an ongoing conflict between EBE and the Red Tape Gang.
The defendants are charged in connection with five shootings that took place in Athens between April 2022 and March of this year, four of which were fatal.
ATLANTA – Five Georgia school districts have been awarded federal grants to buy electric school buses.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will allocate $29.4 million in grant funding to the school districts in Brooks, Clayton, DeKalb, Douglas, and Jeff Davis counties through the agency’s Clean School Bus Rebate Program.
“Electric school buses produce zero tailpipe emissions, which means students and drivers are protected from the dangerous air pollution emitted by diesel or propane-burning buses,” said Dory Larsen, manager of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy’s Electric Transportation Program.
“This is vital for communities in Georgia, which are on the front lines of rising heat, sea levels, and catastrophic hurricanes. Reducing carbon pollution from our transportation sector is a double benefit for our environment and public health.”
In addition to the grants for electric school buses, school districts in five other Georgia counties – Atkinson, Baldwin, Hall, Madison, and Oglethorpe – will receive EPA grants to buy propane buses. While still dependent on the burning of fossil fuels, propane buses will help reduce air pollution in those communities compared to their current diesel buses.
The electric school buses also will also mean long-term savings for the grant recipients because the lifetime cost of operating them is significantly less than with diesel buses.
ATLANTA – The state is awarding more than $200,000 in grants to help 15 school districts improve the alignment of their technical education programs with local industry needs.
The districts will use the one-time-only grants to conduct in-depth reviews of workforce needs in their communities, working with the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government, and work to address gaps between those needs and their Career, Technical, and Agricultural Education (CTAE) programs.
“Preparing the next generation of hardworking Georgians to lead successful careers in all parts of our state is one of our top priorities,” Gov. Brian Kemp said. “These grants will help schools connect their students with the thousands of opportunities available to them in fast-growing fields.”
“It’s our goal that every student in Georgia will graduate ready for their next step after high school,” State School Superintendent Richard Woods added. “The Georgia Works Alignment Grant will help us ensure graduates can pursue fulfilling, high-paying careers without having to leave home.”
The grants will go to the school districts in Chatham, Clarke, Clayton, Crisp, Effingham, Fulton, Harris, Jackson, Murray, Muscogee, Oconee, Peach, Tattnall, and White counties. and to the Marietta City school district. The funds were awarded through a competitive allocation process.
The Georgia Department of Education and the Vinson Institute released a toolkit last fall giving schools and school districts guidance in connecting education and industry. The project was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
ATLANTA – Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take immediate action to allow cellphone jamming devices to be used inside state prisons and local jails.
The FCC currently prohibits state and local governments from using jammers, a policy that dates back to the 1990s, before prison inmates began using contraband cellphones to plan and execute dangerous criminal operations.
“Nothing in (federal law) prohibits the FCC from revising its position to allow state agencies to use cellphone jamming devices in prisons,” Carr wrote in a letter to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel dated Tuesday.
“In fact, the United States Bureau of Prisons has recognized the potential value of cellphone jammers already and is permitted to use jamming devices at several federal penitentiaries, including at least one in Georgia.”
In Georgia alone, 8,074 contraband cellphones were confiscated last year, with 5,482 confiscated so far this year.
Recently, an incarcerated leader of the infamous street gang “Yves Saint Laurent Squad” used a contraband cellphone to order a hit that resulted in the death of an 88-year-old Georgia veteran.
“There are hundreds of examples from across the country of how a contraband cellphone in the hands of an inmate can be used as a deadly weapon (to) give them the ability to continue their criminal enterprise,” Georgia Commissioner of Corrections Tyrone Oliver said.
“As attempts to infiltrate our facilities with contraband cellphones evolve, access to jamming technology is paramount in our efforts to combat those attempts.”
The General Assembly passed legislation this year stiffening penalties for smuggling prohibited items including cellphones into prisons.
ATLANTA – The state Court of Appeals won’t hear former President Donald Trump’s appeal of a lower court ruling in the Georgia election interference case until October, multiple news outlets reported Monday.
The October hearing date the appellate court has set for Trump’s attempt to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting the case all but guarantees the trial will not take place until after the Nov. 5 election.
Trump’s legal team sought Willis’ removal after she admitted a prior romantic relationship with attorney Nathan Wade, who she hired to lead the prosecution.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled in April that Willis could remain on the case but only if Wade stepped down, which he did a few hours after the decision was handed down.
A Fulton grand jury indicted Trump and 18 codefendants last August, charging the Republican with participating in a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, which saw Joe Biden become the first Democrat to carry the Peach State since 1992.
Trump also faces federal charges arising from his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and his retaining of classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida after leaving office.
Last week, the former president was convicted in New York City of 34 felonies for falsifying business records in connection with payments of hush money to ex-porn star Stormy Daniels to cover up a sexual relationship that was threatening to become public shortly before he won the presidency in 2016. Trump is schedule to be sentenced on July 11, four days before the start of the Republican National Convention.
The weeks-long trial that ended last week appears to be the only one of the four criminal cases against Trump likely to be tried before voters go the polls to decide between Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee to return to the White House, and Biden, who is seeking reelection.
