"I'm Too Hard to be Faded..."--Bobby Banks in a Scene from Gang War: Bangin' in Little Rock

From Steve: Here is a story from today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette about one of Little Rock's worst criminals. Banks has been around for years causing grief for many people. Allegedly, Banks was spreading around the streets that he would never be taken alive and he would go out in a gunfight if it ever came to that...you will see he was arrested while in a "hidey hole" very similar to Saddam Hussein huh?

Information also came to me that recently Banks very nearly beat his own mother to death. In the early 90s, Bobby once tried to run me off the road while I was in his neighborhood speaking with kids about violence. Nice guy huh? I certainly hope things go right for the feds this time and they can lock away this terrorist. Perhaps even more charges will be forthcoming as Bobby's little kingdom collapses from under him.

I will never forget Bobby in the Gang War documentary sitting on the steps of Centennial Park saying he was "too hard to be faded.." Looks like his light is finally going to be put out. S/


Purported kingpin of illicit drug ring in LR standing trial

BY LINDA SATTER
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

The purported leader of a major drug-trafficking operation based in Little Rock went on trial Tuesday, with federal prosecutors saying he once operated several well-organized “crack houses” in the heart of the city.

Bobby Glenn Banks, 30, faces a main count of conspiring with others to distribute cocaine between December 1999 and December 2004. He also is charged with several counts of distributing crack cocaine and single counts of using a communication device to commit a drug crime, possessing powder cocaine with the intent to distribute and corruptly endeavoring to interfere with a judicial officer.

The latter charge stems from remarks Banks made to two federal marshals who were transporting him, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Duke told jurors in her opening statements. She said the marshals will testify that Banks told them to tell Mark Stafford, an investigator with the Little Rock Police Department, that he knew where Stafford lived and knew his wife’s name.

Banks faces up to life in prison if convicted on all the charges. He and 16 other people were jointly indicted in December 2004, but he remained a fugitive until September, when he was found hiding in a crawl space of a home on Windamere Drive where his wife, Katrina Harshaw, lived.

One of those named in the indictment, Kenneth Dewayne Williams, 49, was found dead in late December 2004 just before the public release of the indictment. Williams had been shot and left in a field near Wrightsville in rural southeastern Pulaski County. All but one of the others named in the indictment have pleaded guilty to charges, and the one who has not pleaded guilty is a fugitive, authorities said.

Duke told jurors in her opening remarks that Banks owned and operated several crack houses in the vicinity of Central High School. She said that two “cooperating witnesses” would testify about 24 “controlled buys” they made while police and FBI agents listened through hidden microphones. The two witnesses, a man and a woman, bought almost 100 grams of crack, a concentrated form of cocaine, Duke said. To put that amount into perspective, she said a gram was about the equivalent of an individual package of sugar or sugar substitute.

Banks’ attorney, Ron Nichols, declined to make an opening statement. In cross-examining the first government witness, FBI agent Steven Crutchfield, Nichols asked if law enforcement officers had any photographs to back up accusations that Banks sold or directed sales of illegal drugs from the purported crack houses.

Crutchfield said he had no photographs of Banks but said he recognized Banks’ voice on the transmitter as he listened nearby to the cooperating witnesses conducting transactions in the houses. Crutchfield also noted that officers could have endangered the witnesses if they tried to take photographs inside or near the crack houses, where people known as “watchers” patrol outside with walkie-talkies, others, known as “steers,” direct drug buyers to the house and “doormen” greet customers and take orders.

Before a crack house opens, operatives secure the house with bars and other measures, Duke said. Duke said jurors will learn through witnesses, some of whom worked for Banks, that he was “the leader, the CEO, the board of directors, whatever” who made all the money off the sale of crack through the houses.

Banks, well-known to police for years, is also known by the nickname “Big C,” which refers to his position as a leader of a Crips gang in Little Rock. In 1994, Banks was acquitted of a murder charge resulting from the 1992 death of a 14-year-old girl when random gunshots were fired into a crowd on a Little Rock street corner. Banks later was acquitted by a federal jury in 1999 of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

The trial resumes at 9:30 a.m. today before U.S. District Judge George Howard Jr.
This story was published Wednesday, February 01, 2006