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BY BILL DOLAN
bdolan@nwitimes.com
219.662.5328 | Wednesday, November 30, 2005 | (No comments posted.)
Lenzo "Thirst" Aaron III, Antonio "Tone" Jones and James W. "James G" Parks didn't have to think twice about where to get the firepower to rob a man cooking crack cocaine at a Gary apartment when the opportunity arose.
They already were packing .45-caliber and .22-caliber handguns and an AK-47 assault rifle.
All three had criminal records. And Jones and Parks, as convicted felons, were barred under federal and state law from possessing firearms.
But those laws didn't provide their four homicide victims any more protection than the flimsy screen door the killers charged through the night of Jan. 16, 2004.
That they could assemble such a deadly arsenal should come as no surprise to law enforcement officials.
Local U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officials disclosed five years ago that Indiana was a source for firearms purchased legally in this state and later used in crimes throughout the Midwest.
Americans for Gun Safety, a Washington, D.C.-based gun control advocacy organization, pinpointed the problem last year using ATF data. Several gun dealers in Northwest Indiana and south suburban Chicago were among the top 70 sources of suspicious guns in the nation between 1996 and 2000.
Chuck's Guns of Riverdale was identified as the source of 2,370 crime weapons.
ATF data indicates other stores that sold weapons traced to crimes between 1996 and 2000 include:
-- Westforth in unincorporated Calumet Township.
-- Fetlas Trading Post in Valparaiso.
-- Cash Indiana stores in Lake Station and Chesterton.
-- Blythe's Sport Shop in Griffith.
-- Jack's Loan Office in Gary.
-- Jim Shema's Outdoor Sports in Merrillville.
But these days the ATF is muzzled.
Critics claim ATF data is misleading, because gun dealers don't knowingly sell to criminals. They successfully lobbied Congress to stop disclosures of such data, Americans for Gun Safety reported.
A new federal law forbids disclosure of such information, according to a spokeswoman in the ATF's Washington, D.C., public relations department who declined to identify herself.
U.S. Attorney Joseph Van Bokkelen said the current picture in the region is probably not as bleak as the 1996-2000 data suggest.
"Indiana is probably still a source state, but not to the extent that it was," he said.
Indiana residents holding a gun permit were able to bypass the FBI background check during the period covered by the older ATF data. Courts didn't automatically invalidate a gun permit if the holder was convicted of a felony, so criminals could still buy guns -- until October 2003 when that exemption ended.
Van Bokkelen said his Northwest Indiana office filed 160 cases of federal firearms violations between October 2004 and last month. That's up 50 percent from the previous fiscal year.
He said his office wins more convictions for felons in possession of firearms and straw buyers -- those who buy guns for felons who cannot buy their own because of the FBI background check requirement -- than many major cities.
While business disputes in the legitimate world are settled through the courts, criminals use guns to settle drug debts, resolve competitive frictions or conduct hostile takeovers.
Police said a hostile takeover is what Parks, Jones and Aaron planned after learning Anthony "Smoke" McClendon Sr. was getting ready to move dope and had money on hand.
McClendon interrupted a card game among Parks, Jones and Aaron that night by calling to say he needed some help.
Aaron, who became a state's witness under a plea bargain in return for leniency, testified last year that Jones told him, "'Man, this dude just called me to take him to get a nine piece (cocaine). He got all the money. He got six G's ($6,000) on him. You all want to rob him?' We agreed to rob him."
Jones already had the .45 tucked in the waistband of his pants when McClendon called him, initiating the sequence that led to the four murders, Aaron said.
Gary police Detective Michael Jackson, the chief investigator on the case, said it is not known how Jones came by his .45-caliber.
Parks was a convicted felon who couldn't legitimately buy guns, so a straw buyer bought the assault rifle for him from a Merrillville gun shop.
"As far as the (.22-caliber) is concerned, Parks bought it from a drug fiend at Truckstops of America (on Burr Street in Gary). That guy came forward and said he sold it for drugs," Jackson said.
They rounded up the two other weapons before driving to 2600 Polk St., where McClendon was cooking crack cocaine in the kitchen of Laurice and Jimmy Jones, a married couple who were baby-sitting McClendon's 23-month-old son, Anthony "A.J." McClendon Jr. They were unrelated to Antonio Jones.
"(Jimmy Jones) was an avid user of the drug. They were allowing Smoke to use their residence to cook his drugs," Detective Jackson said.
Aaron testified he grabbed the assault rifle.
"Tone (Jones) went through the screen door first. Tone started shooting.
"By the time I got up the stairs, I seen (Laurice Jones) and the baby sitting on the couch. I was standing there, and the lady with the baby was saying, 'Don't kill me, sir. Don't kill me, sir.'
"I shook my head from side to side like, you know, I wasn't going to hurt her. So I heard more gunshots. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. And I just kept hearing him say, 'Where the (money) at?'"
Aaron said Parks grabbed the assault rifle, went into a room and, behind a curtain, fired off some rounds. He began hollering, "Come finish 'em off." Aaron said he refused and walked out the door as he heard more shots fired.
The coroner's verdicts compiled after the crime cataloged the carnage:
-- Bullets passed through Anthony McClendon Sr.'s head "with explosive damage and fragmentation of same."
-- Bullets pierced Jimmy Jones' heart and lungs and ripped through Laurice Jones' chest, abdomen and right leg. The child Laurice Jones was holding died of a bullet through his chest.
Jackson said the murder weapons were probably dumped in a wetland area and have never been recovered.
Coming Thursday: Law enforcement officials debate whether there has been progress in the war on drug trafficking.
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