In August 2015, authorities say a "street lieutenant" for Brandon Pride’s west side drug operation got caught with 52 bags of heroin. The lieutenant, 43-year-old Jason Summers, offered to cooperate with police, and later that night helped officers arrest another member of Pride’s operation with 230 bags of heroin.
Pride, 36, quickly suspected Summers was "snitching," authorities say in court documents. The next day, he instructed Summers to meet him in the 1100 block of Saratoga St. to receive the day’s heroin packages — and told him to come alone.
Summers was fatally shot in the street, and police and federal authorities now say he was one of at least four people who Pride had killed or tried to have killed over the past two years because he suspected they were working with law enforcement.
The allegations are contained in a new indictment against Pride and eight others. Last March, the Baltimore Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Attorney General’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office indicted 21 members of Pride’s organization on drug charges while continuing to work the case.
Police have scheduled a Tuesday morning news conference to discuss the case.
Pride was not charged in the original case. He is now charged with two counts of first-degree murder, multiple counts of solicitation to commit murder and witness intimidation, and one count of the state’s drug kingpin statute, among other charges, and was being held without bond. An attorney for Pride was not listed in court records.
The drug operation, which was known as "Brick City," operated in the area around Harlem Park in West Baltimore. In court papers, authorities say some of the shops could make more than $20,000 a day in heroin sales.
The area had been targeted in 2015 by city police and federal agents "as part of an ongoing effort to disrupt drug trafficking organizations in neighborhoods hardest hit by recent shootings, homicides, and gun violence," and authorities said last year that they members of the organization had sold heroin to undercover officers more than 30 times.
Now authorities are connecting the organization to violence, saying Pride directed hit men to take out people he believed were working with law enforcement.
Pride is accused of ordering the May 14, 2015 murder of Tahlil Yasin, 39, who was shot in the back of the head in broad daylight outside of the Soul Source restaurant, described as a popular breakfast venue where members of "Brick City" often met.
Yasin was a former confidential informant for a federal law enforcement agency, and was selling drugs in the area controlled by Pride, police say.
The indictment says Pride "authorized, directed and afterwards paid" Antoine Benjamin and Davon Coates for committing the murder. Benjamin and Coates are charged in the new indictment as well. Neither man had an attorney listed in court records.
Later that same day, a member of the organization posted on social media an image of an assault rifle with the caption, "Remember bitches …. Snitches end up in ditches!!!"
Prosecutors say Pride was right in his hunch about Summers, who was fatally shot Aug. 20, 2015 on Saratoga Street. Summers had told police after his arrest that he worked for Pride, and offered to send a text message to a woman who delivered packages of drugs for Pride. In the presence of law enforcement, he sent the message and arranged a meeting.
Police drove Summers to the meeting in a covert vehicle, according to court records, and she was pulled over and arrested with drugs.
Summers was murdered the next day at Pride’s direction, police say, and in the days that followed, members of the organization began to suspect that one of Summers’ friends had witnessed the murder and taken Summers’ heroin packs after his death.
Pride allegedly offered $15,000 for someone to lure the friend somewhere to be killed, authorities say, though court papers do not say whether such a hit was carried out.
After the spring indictment, police say Pride placed a hit on a member of the organization whom he believed to be a key witness against the organization in the case. Over the next several months, they say Pride and Mark Rice actively tried to obtain information regarding the whereabouts of the witness, including sending heroin addicts to various areas of the city and offering to pay members of the organization to locate the person.
In cases with concerns about witness safety, prosecutors ask to delay the release of witness names until shortly before trial. Officials say that when a protective order shielding the witnesses was lifted, a member of the organization attempted to relay them to Rice, who according to the indictment was "previously responsible for the murder of a suspected witness against" the group.
Rice was charged in the original March 2016 in indictment and faces new charges including murder. Rice’s attorney could not be immediately be reached for comment.
In August, a member who the group believed to be a "snitch" was confronted at the Soul Source restaurant and was stabbed multiple times, police say. He survived.
The court documents detail police and members of the drug organization crossing paths inadvertently on two occasions. Once in June, investigators conducting covert surveillance from inside of an abandoned house watched through a hole in the floor as a member of the organization went inside and placed packs of heroin inside a PVC pipe.
In another instance, Pride conducted "counter surveillance" to check for police and pushed his face up against the tinted windows of a police surveillance car.
jfenton@baltsun.com
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