The West Side Gator Boyz were one of Dallas' most notorious street gangs. Born from the surprising merger of
Cripsand
Bloods – the Hatfields and McCoys of modern-day street gangs – the Gator Boyz dominated the drug trade in West Dallas, authorities say.
LARA SOLT/DMN
This property at 5630 Barree Drive in Dallas belonged to Gator Boyz gang leader Tyrone Weatherall, who was sentenced Friday to almost 22 years in prison.
They say the gang, numbering between 30 and 50 members and led by brothers Tyrone and Patrick Weatherall, maintained control over its enterprise and the neighborhood with a shrewd business approach to organization and a silent intimidation so encompassing that it rarely, if ever, required members to use physical violence.
The Weatherall brothers amassed a cache of weapons, cash and property, including a ranch with exotic animals that authorities say they often used to entice children as young as 14 to sell drugs or serve as lookouts in and around about 30 drug houses throughout West Dallas.
LARA SOLT/DMN
Patrick Weatherall , who also led the Gator Boyz gang, once lived in this home at 1002 Jungle Drive in
Duncanville. He was sentenced earlier this month to 30 years in prison.
"It's sad because these kids that are out there in this neighborhood, they see this [behavior] as acceptable, and that in and of itself does harm," said
Dallas police gang Detective Danny Torres, who along with federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Agent April Howell, headed the three-year investigation of the gang.
"To them, it's acceptable to see drug houses, it's acceptable to see dope dealers, it's acceptable to go to jail. I wanted to change that," he said.
Working undercover and with informants, local and federal authorities arrested nearly 20 Gator Boyz members in recent months. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater accepted Tyrone Weatherall's guilty plea to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute crack cocaine and sentenced the 35-year-old to almost 22 years in prison.
On Nov. 4, U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor accepted a similar plea from Patrick Weatherall, 33, and sentenced him to 30 years in prison.
Several other Gator Boyz have been sentenced to federal prison terms, and four more are scheduled for sentencing over the next few weeks.
Authorities say the arrests and heavy sentences have crippled the gang and brought relief to the neighborhood it once ruled.
"I wanted to make things better for all of those little kids out there in West Dallas," said Torres. "I think we did that."
But some West Dallas residents aren't so optimistic.
"The Gator Boyz being imprisoned does not change anything for the community, the reason being, somebody always takes their place," said Dianne McGinnis, who maintained that drug dealing in the area continues unabated. "It is just like an infestation of rodents and roaches – you can exterminate but you never get them all. Someone always gets away to start over."
Tough times came early for the Weatherall brothers, neither of whom graduated from high school, family members said. Their father left the family and, according to court documents and testimony, their now-deceased stepfather was abusive to them, their siblings and their mother, Gwendolyn. By the time Tyrone was 12, his stepfather had him dealing drugs. Patrick soon followed.
Lawyer Paul Watler, who represents Tyrone Weatherall and is also a media attorney for The Dallas Morning News, said his client "accepts full responsibility for his actions." But at Friday's sentencing hearing, Watler described him as "a man who really did not have a chance. This case illustrates the poor outcome that results when a young man is surrounded by adults and peers who model a life of crime and drugs."
Patrick Weatherall's lawyer, Randall Parker, agreed. "They grew up in the West Dallas projects," Parker said. "In that community, drugs are a way of life."
When officials bulldozed the massive West Dallas housing projects a decade ago, police say, many of the Rupert Circle Crips and Fishtrap Bloods – named after streets within the projects – who lived there moved across Hampton Road to the small neighborhood of modest homes near Pinkston High and C.F. Carr Elementary.
Some of these gang members came together in an alliance that originally was an attempt to break into the rap music business, but soon became about easy drug money.
"Money and business are probably overriding loyalty to turf and one gang," said Lt. Edwin Ruiz-Diaz, head of the Dallas police gang unit. "They're uneducated, but they're not stupid. It's all about the money; that comes first."
Led by the Weatheralls and a third man, Devinn Mitchell, who has also pleaded guilty to drug charges and is awaiting sentencing, the Gator Boyz gradually acquired massive material wealth, authorities say. According to court documents, Tyrone Weatherall admitted using proceeds from drug deals to purchase exotic animals, several horses and houses – including one on a lake in
Grand Prairie – lavish vehicles and a ranch.
"This was not a nickel-and-dime operation," Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon McCarthy told the jury hearing the drug case of another Gator Boyz member earlier this year. "For example, the leader of this gang ... owned as many as eight homes. They rented several more in this neighborhood driving around in 7 Series BMWs, Hummers, one even had a Bentley, a tiger and at one point they had an alligator which is where they originally got the name of being the Gator Boyz."
According to Torres, street legend has it that when the group first organized, members owned a small alligator that they used to parade around the neighborhood. Whenever folks saw them, Torres said, they would say, "There go those gator boys."
Torres said they did once have sincere plans to make a CD. But they built their foundation and earned a living by selling drugs, he said, and the easy profits from that quickly made rapping a distant memory.
Although a West Dallas rap group that calls itself the Gator Boys did eventually produce a "pretty damn good" CD, Torres said that those artists were friends with gang members, but not members of the gang.
By 2001 the Gator Boyz, with nicknames such as Boo Boo, Yardman, Monk Monk, Jamaican, Cat Daddy and Rodawg, had organized themselves into a formidable unit with a tiered system of control. They threw off old labels that might have previously kept them from working together.
"The Gator Boyz are what you call a hybrid gang," Torres testified during Patrick Weatherall's sentencing hearing. "It doesn't matter if you are a Blood or a Crip, as long as you're from that neighborhood you can be in that gang."
The gang's drug houses had reinforced windows, and doors were equipped with steel cages both inside and out, allowing members to trap anyone passing into the home, whether friend or foe. Gator Boyz members later testified that all of these modifications were done to keep SWAT out and give them time to get rid of or hide the drugs and guns if police made a raid.
Torres said in interviews that the Weatheralls were so organized in their "business" that their drug-dealing employees worked around-the-clock shifts, much like a factory. And he said the gang operated with a three-tiered hierarchy with the Weatheralls and Mitchell at the top, then mid-level managers who oversaw the handling of drugs and money at their more than 30 dope houses, and the young boys at the bottom who did much of the actual sales.
"The Gator Boyz were unique because of their leadership," Torres said. "They had a hold on that neighborhood because no one would challenge them. They owned that neighborhood and people understood the consequences if they messed with them."
But it wasn't actual violence that so much drove the gang, it was intimidation and the threat of violence that kept the neighborhood in line. One of the few incidents of violence was against an animal: Authorities say that Tyrone Weatherall was incensed that his pet tiger apparently attacked some of his beloved horses, so one of his Gator Boyz underlings killed it.
The bullet-riddled body of the female Bengal tiger mix – police say it was shot at least five times, including once through the heart – was found dumped near Interstate 35E and Overton Road two days after Christmas in 2007.
But it was the youngsters who fueled the machine, authorities say, and the brothers often shrewdly bought allegiance – and future employees – by doing nice things for children. Torres said Tyrone Weatherall would allow kids to ride his horses along the Trinity River Bottoms. And he said he's heard that the Weatheralls would often go to a store and personally pay for the school clothes and supplies of West Dallas children.
"A lot of the individuals started off when they were 14, 15, 16, going to Mr. Weatherall to sell drugs," ATF agent Howell testified Friday during Tyrone Weatherall's sentencing hearing. Howell testified that Weatherall provided the youngsters with "the drugs to sell and a place to sell them in."
One of those youngsters affected by what they saw was Demetrius Forward, now 20. While not a leader of the Gator Boyz, he was described in court documents as "not a minimal or minor participant" either. He has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking. His sentence is pending.
His attorney, Buck Johnson, said Forward first encountered the Gator Boyz as a small child when his mother would go to their dope houses to buy drugs and would bring her son along. Soon, Forward was washing cars and mowing the lawns of Gator Boyz members.
"By the time he was 11 or 12, they had him selling dope for them," Johnson said. "He truly never had a chance. It's the only thing he ever knew. This is what he grew up in. And from what I understand, they used other young kids to sell for them."
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