NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – A 22-year-old Newport News man was sentenced to nine years in prison for his role in trying to murder rival gang members in Hampton in June 2015.
Officials say that Shaquone Ford, along with fellow 36th Street Bang Squad gang members Martin Hunt, Jamaree Green and Corey Sweetenburg, tried to seek out a rival gang member at a Hampton high school. The members intentions were to murder him.
The four men were searching for the rival gang member because they suspected him of killing a 36th Street Bang Squad member two days prior, on June 3 2015.
In a press release the Department of Justice said, “The group followed a Hampton City school bus in two vehicles, waiting for their target to get off at a stop. When the target exited the bus, the defendants and other 36th Street members and associates chased him into an apartment complex. The defendants carried loaded firearms and planned to kill the target if he was found.”
Officials say that the case was part of a two-year investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Hampton Police Department and the Newport News Police Department, in an effort to address violent gang activity on the peninsula.
