Leifel Jackson,who claimed to have founded Little Rock’s “Original Gangster Crips” in the early 1990s and spent nearly 10 years in prison

Gov. Mike Beebe announced Friday his intention to grant pardons to nine Arkansans, including a man who claimed to have founded Little Rock’s “Original Gangster Crips” in the early 1990s and spent nearly 10 years in prison on drug convictions.Leifel Jackson, 47, known as “O.G.” during his criminal days, said that during his time in prison, he learned to read and began thinking about the damage his drug dealing had caused.After his release in 2001, Jackson began working with organizations tackling youth violence, activities that authorities cite in support of his pardon.
Beebe spokesman Matt De-Cample said he knew of no law enforcement agencies that opposed the proposed pardon.“I can tell you generally that any pardon application that we look through, what the person has done with their life since their conviction and jail time is taken into consideration,” De-Cample said.Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley, who normally objects to pardons for convicted felons, didn’t oppose Jackson’s application “Given my track record of raising Cain about clemencies in the past, this is one where I think the power can be exercised properly,” Jegley said.“I’ve been watching Leifel Jackson since he got out of prison ... and I’ve had several conversations with him.”Jegley said Jackson has given him some insight into what is happening on the streets.
“He’s not a snitch, don’t get me wrong, but he has a perspective that is helpful,” the prosecutor said.Jegley said any doubts about Jackson’s sincerity were overtaken by the man’s good intentions since his release.“At first I was a little skeptical, but I’ve been convinced, not because of anything he’s told me, but because he’s shown me that he has turned his life around,” Jegley said. “I wish more of the people who go through the system could say the same thing.”Attempts to reach Jackson on Friday were unsuccessful.Jackson was featured in a pair of HBO documentaries on gangs in Little Rock, the second of which concentrated on his efforts to keep children out of gangs. He founded the group Reaching Our Children and Neighborhoods.
The program works with 60 children between the ages of 6 and 18, giving them a place to gather after school and during the summer to study and play.“We give them an opportunity to just be kids,” Jackson said, in an October interview with Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.’s weekly publication Sync. “To be kids and be around other kids.“We deal with academics, but we deal with behavior as well,” he told the publication. “A lot of kids are not able to be kids today. They have to grow up so fast. ROCAN plays a part in giving them a chance to be a kid long term. It gives them a safe place to be a kid.”Maumelle Police Chief Sam Williams, who spent more than 20 years with the Little Rock Police Department, several of them as commander of the department’s Special Investigations Division, had a different perspective on Jackson’s proposed pardon.“If the authorities that are making those decisions feel like he’s eligible for a pardon, I can’t argue,” Williams said. “Maybe he has turned his life around, but I’m always skeptical.“I do know this - during the course of his life he did a lot of harm, but he would probably be the first or second person to admit that,” Williams said.“He dealt a lot of dope,” Williams said. “I can tell you that.”

Timothy “Fuzzy” Timms, a 45-year-old member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle club, stood up Monday for his First Amendment right to freedom of expressi

Timothy “Fuzzy” Timms, a 45-year-old member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle club, stood up Monday for his First Amendment right to freedom of expression. Timms, a resident of the San Diego community of South Park, refused to take off a black leather vest with the motorcycle club's “death's head” insignia when he reported for jury duty. He's a big burly man, 5 feet 8 inches, 250 pounds, with a full beard and auburn-colored, shoulder-length hair. At 7:45 a.m., Timms' stance got him booted from the San Diego Superior Court's Hall of Justice by sheriff's deputies, along with another Hells Angel who also refused to remove his insignia vest. Nine hours later, representatives of both the Superior Court and the sheriff's department apologized to Timms and club member Mick Rush for “misunderstanding” an order issued April 24 by Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser. Rush also had been reporting for jury duty. “It all boils down to a misunderstanding of Judge Fraser'

Rashawn and Deon Beneby Someone mowed down the brothers, some 15 yards apart, on a grassy strip

''They may have been into drugs but they didn't do anything to harm anybody,'' said their aunt, Cheryl Watkins. ``It was cold-blooded murder to lay them out like that.''Miami-Dade County's 80th and 81st homicides of 2008: Rashawn and Deon Beneby, brothers and suspects in a string of violent robberies, shot dead Thursday afternoon next to the Liberty City middle school they once attended. ''It's cold-blooded, outright killing out there -- and we're not even in the summer yet,'' said the Rev. Richard Dunn, a community activist who lives three blocks away. Witnesses said a group of men were gathered outside an apartment at the Annie Coleman Gardens housing project when the shooting started.Someone mowed down the brothers, some 15 yards apart, on a grassy strip next to the chain-link fence that separates the community from the baseball field at Charles R. Drew Middle School, 1801 NW 60th St. Rashawn was executed -- shot in the head an

Jorge “Rivi” Ayala, Griselda Blanco, aka the Black Widow

Rivi was, for a time, the hit-man of choice for Griselda Blanco, aka the Black Widow. Griselda was the grande dame of the Miami cocaine business, a Colombian mother of three, of impoverished origins, who slaughtered and intimidated her way to the top of a billion-dollar industry. She is a central character in this movie, the most deadly figure in a story in which the bodies are stacked like dominos. Conspicuous by her absence as an interviewee, she is one of the few key survivors of the era whom the film-makers were unable to coax before the lens. “Her release was imminent at that point, as was her deportation. I think she has changed her mind since, because we have been reapproached,” Corben says. contract killer Jorge “Rivi” Ayala, the director of Cocaine Cowboys Billy Corben says: “He told me where there is a body buried in Miami, by the Florida turnpike. It’s all developed now, malls and condominiums. He knows where all the bodies are buried. We told the police. I think he told the

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