Aryan Brotherhood - History

History

Until the 1960s, most prisons in the United States were racially segregated. As prisons began to desegregate, many inmates organized along racial lines. The Aryan Brotherhood is believed to have been formed by a group of Irish bikers in 1964 at San Quentin State Prison, but it may have been derived from or inspired by the Bluebird Gang. They decided to strike against the blacks who were forming their own militant group called the Black Guerrilla Family. In the early 1970s The Aryan Brotherhood had a connection with Charles Manson and the Manson Family. Several members of the Family, who were not in prison at the time, attempted to join forces. The Manson Family became split, the Comoites following former family member Kenneth Como, and the Mansonites following Manson. However, the relationship did not last long as the Aryan Brotherhood considered Manson "too leftist", and not racist enough for their group.

By the 1990s, the Aryan Brotherhood had shifted its focus away from killing for strictly racial reasons and focused on organized crime, such as drug trafficking, prostitution and sanctioned murders. They took on organized crime-like powers, and may be more powerful than the Italian crime families within the prison system. For example, while incarcerated in Marion Federal Penitentiary in 1996, after being assaulted, Gambino crime family boss John Gotti allegedly asked the Aryan Brotherhood to murder his attacker. Gotti's attacker was immediately transferred to protective custody and the planned retaliation was abandoned.

In late 2002, 29 leaders of the gang were simultaneously rounded up from prisons all over the country and brought to trial under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. The intention was to bring death sentences for at least 21 of them, to cut off the leadership of the gang, in a manner similar to tactics used against organized crime. The case produced 30 convictions but none of the most powerful leaders received a death sentence. Sentencing occurred in March 2006 for three of the most powerful leaders of the gang, including Barry Byron Mills (born 1948) and AB "lieutenant" Tyler "The Hulk" Bingham, who were indicted for numerous crimes, including murder, conspiracy, drug trafficking, and racketeering and for ordering killings and beatings from their cell. Bingham and Mills were convicted of murder and sent back to United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility Prison (ADX) in Florence, Colorado where they are serving life sentences with no parole, escaping the death penalty.

Prosecuting the gang has been historically difficult, because many members are already serving life sentences with no possibility of parole, so prosecutors were seeking the death penalty for 21 of those indicted but have dropped the death penalty on all but five defendants. By September 2006, the 19 inductees not eligible for the death penalty had pled guilty. The first of a series of trials involving four high level members ended in convictions in July 2006.

On 23 June 2005, after a 20-month investigation, a federal strike force raided six houses in northeastern Ohio belonging to the "Order of the Blood", a criminal organization controlled by the Aryan Brotherhood. Thirty-four Aryan Brotherhood members or associates were arrested and warrants were issued for ten more.