TAMPA, Fla. — When the Tampa Police Department announced arrests for the murder of “drill” rapper Julio Foolio, it was quick to say the shooting was part of an ongoing gang feud in Jacksonville but when similar gang violence happens here, TPD instead calls them “rival neighborhood groups.”
So we asked former Tampa police chief and current mayor Jane Castor about the word choice and why no matter the name, violence — fueled by social media and music — is here in the Tampa Bay area.
On Easter night in St. Petersburg, gunmen opened fire, wounding four innocent bystanders. Police there have said those arrested are part of the “Young Gangsters,” or “YGs,” but avoided calling it a gang.
“These senseless acts that are done mainly through rivalries or juveniles or neighborhood groups to settle an argument or a beef,” Assistant Chief Mike Kovacsev said at the time.
When two people were gunned down in SoHo in May, Tampa police said two “rival neighborhood groups” from another neighborhood shot at each other.
“We do know the groups knew each other and had a beef with one another,” Chief Lee Bercaw said at the scene.
But when groups from Jacksonville killed Foolio, whose real name is Charles Jones, near USF, Bercaw called them gangs.
“It was found that the shooters are members of or affiliated with rival gangs of Jones that go by ‘ATK’ and ‘1200,’” Bercaw said at Monday’s press conference announcing charges against suspects in the case. “If you're a gang member, there's no alleged immunity through ‘a cone of silence’ as our detectives will find evidence needed to make an arrest and hold everyone accountable just as we did in this case.”
At a public safety town hall Tuesday night, we asked Mayor Castor, a former police chief, why the distinction.
“Because gangs are statutorily defined,” she said. “One of the elements of the gang statute says that they are involved in a criminal enterprise.”
The common thread to these cases is retaliation, not racketeering or conspiracy, even though some suspects call themselves gangsters.
“You can call it whatever you want,” she added. “We just want to prevent those from happening in our community.”
As for the suspects involved in Foolio's murder, they are still in the Duval County Jail with a first court appearance there set for next week.