Early Tuesday Evening, February 10th
“His street name is ‘Shock’. I’ve had him in the lock-up for low level dealing more than once,” I told Mason.
She looked down at the dead gangbanger lying prone on the sidewalk. “It’s early yet and this is pretty residential here. Did he work this area a lot?”
“No,” I said as I shook my head. “That’s just it. South Zanesville is all Z Renegades stomping ground now; has been for a few years. He was a duck out of water being down here.”
“A Renegade hit, you think Sheriff?”
“That’d be my guess, if I were a guessing woman. Given all the fighting that’s gone on between the two gangs these past couple of days, I have to think he came down here looking to score some new clients or heaven knows what and, since he was alone, they snuffed him out quick.”
“Did PD get anything out of that biker they collared last night?”
“Nope. He clammed up and demanded a lawyer, they tell me. They’re waiting on the Public Defender’s Office to assign someone.”
Lucas Kreskie, the County Coroner showed up on the scene. After we gave him a brief rundown of the little we knew, I said to Mason, “Let’s start canvassing the area; see if anyone around will admit to seeing anything. Be careful,” I cautioned her. “There are good people here and there are Z Renegades here.”
Even in the cold of February, for a South Zanesville neighborhood, it was unusually quiet. We spent an hour going door to door looking for witnesses – anybody that saw or heard anything. We got nothing. Anyone that did bother to answer the door, wasn’t inclined to talk to the police.
Disheartened by the lack of public cooperation, we retreated back to my county SUV and headed for the station.
“The people I did get to open the door wouldn’t talk at all. They’re scared Sheriff. Is it all about the bikers?”
“Now, yeah, but it’s always been controlled by one gang or another. As fast as we root ‘em out, some other gang seems to move in to take their place. The ‘Z’ expanded East from Columbus about three years back and most of them settled south of the city. As a matter of fact, they used to call Barb’s bar, The Boar’s Head a little further east, home. She managed to root them out of there and clean the place up but, being bikers, they’re a little harder to get a handle on and run completely off than some of the other gangs we’ve run into.”
I sighed. “Once they gave up on hanging out at the Boar’s Head, I figured we were done with them causing general havoc. It was a quiet summer, this past summer...at least, as far as gang activity goes.”
“You would think the dead of winter and the cold weather would keep them lying low right now,” Janet replied.
“You would think.”
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