GANG CASE FIRST HERE FOR DEATH PENALTY

The prosecution here of three suspected Los Angeles drug ring leaders
represents the first time that the local U.S. attorney's office has sought
the death penalty for street gang members. And it is only the second time
that it has sought the death penalty at all.

Prosecutors allege that the three are responsible for six killings - four
in Oklahoma City and two in Los Angeles - as well as numerous drug-related
robberies, abductions and tortures spread over three states. Among the
charges the three face are intentionally killing someone in furtherance of
a continuing criminal enterprise, killing to obstruct justice, and killing
by using firearms during a drug conspiracy.

The reputed gang leader, Jamal Shakir, 29, is serving a life prison
sentence in California for kidnapping. The two other leaders, Eben Payne,
24, and Donnell Young, 27, also are in California prisons awaiting trial.

How the case came to be prosecuted here is a tale that even now federal
prosecutors and law enforcement officers decline to detail, citing the
impending capital murder case. What they will say is that years of
investigative work that led to the gang's demise began in Middle Tennessee
in the 1990s.

"The case in its earliest stages originated in Nashville," said Jim Vines,
U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee. "Our U.S. attorney's
office and the local investigators did most of the work in the early phases
of it, and then the non-Nashville parts of it sort of came up late in the
game. We do a lot of investigations of cases that are just drug
transactions, and they can turn into other things over time."

The case took years to crack and involved city, state and federal law
enforcement agencies. Vines said it is possible that federal prosecutors
from Oklahoma City and Los Angeles may be called to help with the case.

More than 40 people from Nashville and elsewhere have been prosecuted in
connection with the gang.

Prosecutors say the death penalty is warranted against Shakir, Payne and
Donnell because they killed people and committed other acts of violence as
part of a drug trafficking conspiracy.

Even in prison, Shakir continues to pose a threat, prosecutors say, and is
accused of threatening law enforcement agents and witnesses against him.

He "expressed his desire to kill or injure law enforcement officers and
witnesses, to obstruct the investigation and prosecution of the charges
against him and his co-defendants, and to retaliate against cooperating
witnesses," according to court papers.

According to court documents, he is accused of trying to smuggle cell
phones into prison, of trying to escape - even hiding a handcuff key in his
rectum - and of making numerous threats.

The gang members are being tried for the following killings: the Los
Angeles slayings of Solomon Harris, in September 1995, and of Barney Moten,
in 1997; and the Oklahoma City slayings of Anthony Rogers in 1996, Kenard
Murry, Regina Suetopka and Woody Pilcher, all in 1997.

Local federal prosecutors have sought the death penalty in one other case,
that of Timothy Lynn (Cuz) Holloway and Donald Thomas (Cadillac) Cable.

The two were accused of arranging to have a federal grand jury witness
killed in 1995. They are both serving life sentences in federal prisons.

Trial for the gang leaders is set for May 19. U.S. District Judge John T.
Nixon will preside.