BALTIMORE — The Maryland Attorney General announced today that one murder, two attempted murders, several commercial burglaries and robberies, and at least 35 carjackings can all be traced back to six people running a criminal organization in Baltimore. The incidents all took place between April 2022 and August 2023.
“We do not tolerate the reckless behavior that plagued our streets and changed innocent lives forever. Though nothing can bring back the life that was stolen, or erase the traumatic stress that accompanied the attacks, I hope these indictments bring some peace of mind to the victims and their families,” Attorney General Anthony Brown said during a press conference Tuesday afternoon.
Anecio Rodriguez, now 19, is charged with 156 counts. He's the only one charged with murder. Lovelle Little, 18, is charged with 269 counts. Kevin Mills, 20, is charged with 86 counts. Twan Ellis, 18, is charged with 67 counts. The other two people are juveniles, so their names and ages were not released. One is being charged as an adult, and another is too young to be charged as an adult.
“One issue we continue to see as witnessed in this case is continued youth involvement in crimes. We must address the root causes of youth participating in crimes and find ways to prevent them from believing a life of crime is their only option,” Brown said.
The investigation began in November 2022 after a 38-year-old woman was murdered during an attempted carjacking.
"When they cut off the vehicle and forced it to stop moving, the group approached the vehicle, which was being driven by a ride share driver with three other occupants. The driver attempted to evade the group, and drive away, but one of the individuals fired a handgun into the vehicle, killing one of the passengers, Delaka Augins,” Katie Dorian, chief of the criminal division with the Office of the Attorney General, said.
Investigators were able to link the gun used in that murder to two other attempted murders - one in October 2022 on Reisterstown Road, in which the group attempted to steal the victim’s car, and then shot him when he fought back, and another in December on Rosalie Road. The victim in that incident was shot in the head during a carjacking. Ballistics evidence tied the three incidents together. Investigators later connected links from the guns used, to evidence recovered at other crime scenes.
“During the robberies and carjackings, the group would wear masks and dark clothing, and approach the victims in an organized fashion while displaying handguns, which they would often point at the victims’ heads, and demanding the victims hand over their property, threatening to shoot the victims and saying things like, ‘Get the F out, or we will kill you,’ and ‘give me everything before I blow your head off.’ On one occasion, after they forced the victim onto the ground, one member of the group told another member to run the victim over. On several occasions, the group pistol whipped the victim and/or shot the victims or otherwise assaulted the victims,” Dorian said. "The defendants would then use the stolen vehicles to commit other violent acts.”
The indictment details every single incident the group was allegedly involved in - all 85 of them. Time after time they robbed victims at gunpoint, taking their cars, phones, wallets, anything they could find. They often targeted people filling up their cars at the gas station. Their victims include a newspaper delivery person, an Amazon driver, and a customer at a car wash.
Investigators say the group relied heavily on social media to conduct their operation - to communicate, sell stolen cars and property on Facebook marketplace, and even to document their crimes, often posing with cash, cars and guns.
“We’ve got a real problem with social media platforms. And that’s true whether you’re talking about criminality and messaging around crime or quite frankly whether it has to do with harmful content that is pushed to our teenagers. And I along with Attorneys General around the country are looking into what we can do to change the behavior of social media platforms,” pointing to the lawsuit Maryland joined last year filed against Meta.
When asked whether social media helped investigators catch these individuals, Paul Halliday, chief of the organized crime unit for the Attorney General's office, said, “When we get involved, we like to explore all possible options whether it’s social media, financial applications, phones, anything we can get from phones. It’s very common in these types of investigations to look anywhere where there could be evidence of the crimes."
This case also highlights another trend frustrating city and state leaders - criminals getting released back into the streets. Court records show one of the gang members, Little, was arrested for a gun charge in the spring of 2023, and later violated his probation, all while investigators now say he was participating in a string of violence throughout the city.
"This is our frustration that we have every single day, you guys hear me talk about this time and time again. When the women and men of BPD go out and make these arrests, and they go over on to the other side, we can't continue to see those same individuals back out on the street committing more acts of violence, which is why we have great partnerships with the State’s Attorney and the Attorney General, which is why you hear all of us talking about the need for policy change in Annapolis and other places to make sure that these individuals are not - consistently violent individuals - ending up back on the streets,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said.
Although the majority of the incidents happened in Baltimore City, the charges were filed in Baltimore County.
When asked why, Attorney General Brown said: “The statute that we operate under gives us the ability to bring a case a a venue provision in any county where any one of the offenses connected with the group has occurred. While we don’t go into detail about the tactical or strategic reasons behind why we may bring a case in a particular venue, the statute that we operate in gives us that flexibility to do that."
