United States District Judge Nancy Brasel sentenced Gregory Hamilton, age 29, to life imprisonment.
Hamilton is a violent member of the Minneapolis criminal street gang known as the Highs. He was convicted after a three-week trial of RICO Conspiracy and Premeditated Murder for his involvement in the Highs and the August 8, 2021, murder of Darryl Wells, Jr., an innocent bystander who was mistaken for a gang member.
This is the second life sentence secured by the U.S. Attorney’s Office as a part of the RICO prosecutions aimed at disrupting and dismantling the violent and murderous street gangs of Minneapolis. To date, the office has charged well over 100 gang members with federal crimes, including charging 39 members of the Highs with RICO conspiracy, narcotics trafficking, firearms trafficking, and related offenses.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Hamilton, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, was a member of the Highs—a criminal enterprise that controlled territory north of West Broadway Avenue in Minneapolis. Evidence at trial proved that members of the Highs committed murders, narcotics trafficking, weapons violations, burglaries, assaults, and robberies on behalf of the enterprise. As members of the Highs, the defendants were expected to retaliate against the rival Lows gang, which operated south of West Broadway Avenue.
On August 7, 2021, a prominent Highs member was shot and killed by a Lows member at the Winner gas station, a Highs hangout. The following day, August 8, 2021, Highs members organized a memorial for the deceased member at the gas station, where they distributed firearms and encouraged one another to retaliate against Lows members. Defendant Hamilton attended the memorial.
Later that day, Hamilton and a second convicted defendant, Dantrell Johnson, drove to a Lows hangout—Wally’s Foods—and shot a Lows associate, who survived his injuries. Approximately two hours later, Johnson, Hamilton, and another convicted defendant, Keon Pruitt, drove to Skyline Market, another known Lows hangout. The were “hunting” Lows and wanted to shoot Lows members. They mistakenly believed Wells was a Lows member—he was not—and the store’s cameras captured them shooting Wells inside the store. Wells ran from the store. Pruitt, who was driving two juveniles in a stolen Porsche, chased Wells a short distance. The two juveniles then jumped out of the car, chased Wells into a nearby alley, and fired additional shots at him. All told, Wells was shot at least eight times.
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The jury convicted Hamilton, Johnson, and Pruitt of Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Conspiracy and Using a Firearm to Cause Death.
Today, Judge Brasel imposed what the government requested at sentencing—a life sentence. In doing so, Judge Brasel observed, “This was gang revenge, pure and simple.” Judge Brasel noted that the evidence at trial showed that Hamilton is “a shooter for the Highs” and that he killed Darryl Wells “in a horrific and barbaric manner.” She explained that the victims of the Highs violence—which turned North Minneapolis into “an open-air shooting range”—were not just Wells but also the many members of the community who were also bystanders to this violence.
In imposing the life sentence, Judge Brasel concluded, “A lesser sentence would not honor and protect members of this neighborhood who were terrorized” by the violence of the Highs. As one concerned community member wrote to the Court, “Whether it be from violence with guns, drug sales, a combination of both, we have been preyed upon enough as a community.”
These cases against the Highs are a result of an investigation conducted by the ATF, the FBI, the Minneapolis Police Department, IRS Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and the Minnesota Department of Corrections, with assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service, the DEA, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office, Dakota County Sheriff’s Office, St. Paul Police Department, and numerous other law enforcement agencies contributed to this investigation through reports or evidence control.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas Lopez-Calhoun, Albania Concepcion, Rebecca Kline, and Carla Baumel of the District of Minnesota, and Trial Attorneys Brian Lynch and Alyssa Levey-Weinstein of the Justice Department’s Violent Crime and Racketeering Section, prosecuted these cases.
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