To this day though, reading about Big Evil made me
Not the whole article but some tidbits.
Big Evil's Ride to Death Row
"Every gang has a bad ass, a shot-caller," says LAPD Homicide Det.
Rosemary Sanchez. "Evil was the most violent one I ever knew about."
FBI Agent Jon Lipsky says only famed Mafia killer Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro was as violent. "Johnson has admitted to 13 murders by his own hands. That makes him a serial killer."
Det. Thomas Mathew calls Johnson "the most cold-blooded killer in the city," and sees himself as Evil's nemesis. One of the gang's traits, he says, was their turnaround time when it came to a retaliation shooting. "They were notorious for quick paybacks. Whenever we heard there had been shooting [on 89 Family turf], we would rush over to the rival's turf and wait for them to come by. Sometimes they had already given the payback."
But Evil wasn't just fast. He was a street strategist, detectives say.
"Most gang members are reactionary, heat of passion," says Barling. "You shoot us, we shoot you. Evil was different. Evil would think and plan things out." He built a reputation for beating murder raps and for allegedly calling in several murders from behind bars. He even ordered the assassination of Mathew. For a time, an LAPD SWAT team shadowed the detective to counter the threat.
Evil's crimes, meanwhile, were becoming street folklore. Barling recalls a 1991 assault on the Avalon Gardens housing project that Crips, Bloods and cops still talk about. "Evil had his guys do two other shootings just to get police away from Avalon Gardens," he says. "He had guys in stolen cars waiting as getaway drivers. He had guys going into [the project] on the flanks. Then he led 10 of them--walking--into the middle of the project and fired off more than 200 rounds. It was lucky only one person died."
In 1994, Gloria Lyons told authorities that she saw an 89 Family member kill a man. She was killed. Georgia Denise Jones testified in the same case. She was killed. Two years earlier, Albert Sutton was due to testify in a murder trial. He was killed. But in developing evidence in the Loggins and Beroit murders, detectives latched onto a witness, Freddie Jelks, who was facing life in prison for a murder. During the Loggins-Beroit murder trial, Jelks said that Evil had ordered the killings. The jury voted to convict and sent Johnson to San Quentin's death row. Now he's in the Pitchess Detention Center in Saugus preparing to represent himself in yet another murder trial in January.
"When his anger goes off, it is a something to check out, blood," said a member of the Swans. "It was scary. He be getting like a hurricane, and you can't stop him when he want to jack up someone. You know that he ain't just talking, like so many other brothers. If he said it, I would say to myself, 'Someone gonna die tonight.' "
Sometimes , even when he's laughing, it's hard to tell if Johnson is joking. At the time of this interview, for instance, he was a trustee at the Men's Central Jail. His job: food server. "No one complains about the service," says Johnson. "That would be dumb."
"I was the epitome of a gang member," he says. "I was real. A lot of people be putting on a front that they bad. Acting tough. I wasn't acting at all. I was just being me. I love to fight. Win, lose or draw. I'd rather put down a gun and fight. I fight to win. If you got to bite, bite. If you got to scratch, scratch . . . . People fail to realize, it was like a religion. It's not for the fun of it. Some people worshiped Allah or Jesus. I worshiped Bloods.
gat damn
