A Beltzhoover gang leader and three top-ranking gang members killed an innocent city worker in 2014 during a violent gang war that resulted in at least six people being shot — two fatally — during a three-day span, according to criminal complaints released Thursday.
The charges stem from a years-long investigation into the Zhoove gang, according to the complaints. Nine gang members were indicted in five incidents: the city worker’s killing, two non-fatal shootings that wounded four people, a kidnapping and an aggravated assault.
All of the incidents occurred between October and December 2014, when the Zhoove gang, based in Beltzhoover, was feuding with the Darccide gang, which originated in the now-demolished St. Clair Village public housing complex, according to the complaints.
Three Zhoove gang members shot and killed Omar Hodges, a 29-year-old city sanitation worker who was sitting in his car in Carrick awaiting the start of his early morning shift on Oct. 13, because they mistook him for the leader of the Darccide gang, 41-year-old Angelo Massie, according to the complaints.
Mr. Hodges, who was not a gang member, drove a Cadillac similar to one Massie drove, and was parked in an area the gang leader was known to frequent, according to the complaints.
Chris Brown, 26, Holman Brown, 27, and Corey Cheatom, 31, all of Beltzhoover, rode together in a rented Nissan Altima from a house on Industry Street in Beltzhoover to the 1300 block of Birmingham Avenue, where they pulled alongside the parked Cadillac and fired about a dozen shots into the car, killing Mr. Hodges, according to the complaints. The shots were fired from three different weapons, the complaints said.
The leader of the Zhoove gang, Lance Gardenhire, 43, of Beltzhoover, was not in the car during the shooting but was also charged with homicide in Mr. Hodges’ death because he offered cash rewards to Zhoove gang members who shot members of the Darccide gang, according to the complaints. The promised rewards ranged from $5,000 for a non-fatal shooting of a Darccide gang member to $25,000 for killing Massie, according to the complaints.
Massie offered similar rewards to Darccide gang members to kill or wound Zhoove gang members, according to the complaints.
Mr. Hodges, 29, of Homewood had worked for the city since January 2013 and held two other jobs to help care for his two stepchildren. The day he was killed, he was scheduled to collect recyclables. His family could not be reached Thursday.
All four people charged in Mr. Hodges’ death are in custody.
Gardenhire began serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison in 2017, after he pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and laundering the proceeds, taking responsibility for selling between 30 and 90 kilograms of heroin supplied from New Jersey from 2012 to 2015. Cheatom was sentenced to 16 years in the same case.
The Drug Enforcement Administration was already investigating Gardenhire and the Zhoove gang’s heroin trafficking at the time that Mr. Hodges was killed, according to the complaints. Pittsburgh police worked with the DEA and used video footage, cell phone records, social media posts and witness accounts to build the case against Zhoove gang members, police Cmdr. Victor Joseph said Thursday. He praised the detectives who worked the case for five years.
“Even though years passed, they did not give up on Mr. Hodges,” he said.
One of the detectives on the case, Joseph Fabus, said investigators called Mr. Hodges’ mother around Christmas to let her know about the pending indictments.
“They were very patient with us,” Detective Fabus said of Mr. Hodges’ family. “They were understanding that we had a lot going on, a giant case that spiderwebbed into different things, and they knew we were making progress.”
Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich called the killing of Mr. Hodges a “senseless act,” and said the arrests show Pittsburgh police are dedicated to holding criminals responsible even years after the crime.
“The people of Pittsburgh should not have to live in a war zone,” he said. “And at the time, that South Hills neighborhood could have been considered a war zone. Police will not tolerate these types of violence.”
Mr. Hodges’ death on Oct. 13 followed two days of back-and-forth shootings between the gangs, according to police.
On Oct. 11, 2014, Massie and two other Darccide gang members, Norman Blackwell and Ronald Clayton, were each wounded during a triple shooting in the 3100 block of Cordell Place in Arlington Heights.
Officers arrived to find Massie bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound to his right upper thigh.
Blackwell had been shot in the groin, and Clayton, who tried to run from the scene, was shot twice — in the arm and shoulder.
Investigators used video footage to track two vehicles used in the shooting back to the houses on Industry Street that were connected to the Zhoove gang, and five gang members were charged with the triple shooting: Gardenhire, Cheatom, Christopher Brown, Shakeem Davis, 28, and Sheraun Davis, 34, according to the complaints.
Police believe Darccide gang members retaliated later that day by killing a man whom they mistook as Gardenhire, according to the complaint.
"...That same day, Tamiel Watson, aka 'Chicago,' was shot and killed," police wrote in the complaint. "Watson was driving the same type of car that Gardenhire was known to drive; which led Zhoove members to believe this was an attempt on Gardenhire's life."
No charges have been filed in Watson’s death, and no Darccide gang members were charged in the indictments revealed on Thursday. Asked whether Darccide members will face charges for the violence, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said, “This is what we can prove at this point.”
A day after the triple shooting and retaliatory killing, on Oct. 12, 2014, Zhoove members shot Brandon Benson, a Darccide associate, at about 3:15 p.m. in the 3000 block of Arlington Avenue, again in the Cordell Place housing complex, according to criminal complaints. He was grazed.
Seven Zhoove members are charged in that case: Gardenhire, Cheatom, Chris Brown, Holman Brown, Shakeem Davis, Sheraun Davis and Cody Duncan.
The violence perpetrated by the Zhoove gang did not end when Mr. Hodges was killed on Oct. 13, police said.
Three Zhoove gang members were charged with kidnapping and aggravated assault in connection to an Oct. 20, 2014, incident in which Hamza Altrawi told officers he was kidnapped and beaten by Holman Brown, Christopher Bradley-Bey and Gemere Bey.
That year, police said, Altrawi started selling heroin for Bradley-Bey, and would then buy it himself from both men to sell on the street. The Zhoove gang also used Altrawi to repair bullet holes in rental cars, authorities said. He regularly visited the homes they used on Industry Street.
In October 2014, Altrawi received a "bad brick" of heroin and tried to exchange it with Bradley-Bey, according to the complaint. But Bradley-Bey got mad and threatened to kill Altrawi, according to the complaint.
The next day, on Oct. 20, 2014, the complaint said, Altrawi arrived at the houses on Industry Street and Bey, Bradley-Bey and Holman Brown began kicking him and accused him of stealing $15,000 and heroin. He was stripped, beaten and repeatedly kicked. All three had guns, and they put one in his mouth and threatened to kill him, police said.
They ultimately let Altrawi go, and he was treated at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC for injuries to his head, face and body, according to the complaint.
Separately, Gardenhire is also charged with aggravated assault in connection to the shooting of Chelsey Sirmons IV about 6:30 a.m. on Dec. 22, 2014, on Allen Street in Allentown.
Sirmons, who was shot in the leg, told police that he had known Gardenhire since childhood and worked for him at a drug house on Allen Street.
In the fall of 2014, Sirmons told detectives he found 18 bricks of heroin in the kitchen cupboards of the drug house, with a street value of thousands of dollars. Sirmons hid the heroin on himself and left the house.
Over the next few months, Sirmons said he tried to maintain appearances to evade suspicion, but when he arrived at the drug house on Dec. 22, no one was there. He sat on the couch and used heroin, he said. Police believe Gardenhire shot him in the leg sometime after that.
A witness told police that Gardenhire said the shooting was "disciplinary in nature," which is why Sirmons was only shot in the leg. The witness also said Gardenhire showed them the Ruger firearm used in the shooting.
Shelly Bradbury: 412-263-1999, sbradbury@post-gazette.com, or on Twitter @ShellyBradbury. Paula Reed Ward: 412-263-2620, pward@post-gazette.com, or on Twitter @PaulaReedWard.
First Published: May 2, 2019, 3:40 p.m.
Updated: May 2, 2019, 10:28 p.m.