Drug Boss Stabbed to Death in Prison

Felix Mitchell, the boss of an Oakland, Calif., heroin ring, was fatally stabbed in Leavenworth Federal Prison, officials said Friday.

Mitchell, 32, head of a multimillion-dollar heroin operation in Oakland, Berkeley and Sacramento, suffered multiple stab wounds and died at 1:59 a.m. in Cushing Memorial Hospital, prison spokesman Jeff Duncan said.

Mitchell was sentenced June 4, 1985, in San Francisco by U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel to the maximum sentence of life without possibility of parole for what she called a “reign of terror” in the Oakland housing projects.

“Mr. Mitchell was pronounced dead . . . as a result of multiple stab wounds. Mr. Mitchell was discovered wounded in his cell at 3 p.m. Aug. 21,” Duncan said. “The FBI has been notified and an investigation is under way.”

There were no known suspects, nor was there a known motive for the attack.

Duncan refused to discuss Mitchell’s record of prison behavior since his confinement a year ago.

Mitchell’s ring, “The 69 Street Mob,” was believed to have sold as much as $20,000 a day in drugs during its peak in the 1970s and early 1980s.

His gang was accused of waging a bloody war for control of Oakland housing projects.

The gang war involved a week-long series of firebombings and drive-by shootings that became known as the “Oakland Drug War.” It produced seven murders in 1980.

Mitchell told his probation officer before he was sentenced: “I like money, I like jewelry, and I like fine cars--and I went out and got them. Isn’t that the American way?”

Mitchell was sentenced along with six other members of the gang after an eight-week trial.