Gang Violence Emigrates From L.A. to the Heartland

In the old days in this sleepy little farm town, the local gang might have gotten together and rolled a hapless kid in the mud on his first day of school.

The old days are long gone, even in Buffalo, Mo.

Police say five young people claiming to be members of a violent street gang with roots in Los Angeles beat Michael Sutton so viciously that he suffered a brain hemorrhage. Then they slit his throat and left him to bleed to death under a bridge on the outskirts of town.

The 20-year-old was killed, authorities say, because he wanted to quit the Five Deuce Hoover Crips street gang.

“We had a closed-casket service, but I saw his body, and you wouldn’t believe what they did to him,” said his mother, Marlene Sutton, who fought back tears as she stood outside the Dallas County Courthouse, where the five made brief pretrial appearances Aug. 24.

Over the last year, the gang had taken hold in the lives of a dozen or more young people in this nondescript southwest Missouri town--population 2,400--that sits between picturesque woods to the west and rolling hills to the east.

Authorities say this was the first big-city gang killing in the area and only the second murder in Buffalo in the 1990s.

“Oh no, we’ve never heard of anything like that in Buffalo, ever,” Louis Hicks, 79, said over lunch at the downtown senior citizens center. “Our town is a good little town.”

Until Aug. 18, added his wife, Stella, the worst thing to report to police was rowdy kids throwing trash in the yard.

And until Aug. 18, the crimes of the Buffalo branch of the Five Deuce Hoover Crips weren’t much more than that, said Dallas County Sheriff Mel Parks.

“We did know almost all of the people involved in this,” Parks said. “But they had done nothing real serious. Some small burglaries, some minor assaults--and we do consider those crimes very serious here--but no violent crimes.”

But on Aug. 18, police said, Sutton was beaten unconscious by gang members who returned later to make sure he was dead and then cut his throat.

“It looked worse than anything you’d see in a horror movie,” Sutton’s mother said.

On the other side of the courthouse, Cindy South was equally distraught as she insisted that one of the suspects--her 18-year-old daughter, Lilli White--was innocent.

“I feel bad for that boy’s mother,” said South, whose daughter is jailed in lieu of $500,000 bail. “But my daughter did not murder her son. . . . My daughter told me she is innocent, and I believe her.”

Authorities say the Buffalo gang members were organized by Andre Kirk, 24, who arrived from Little Rock, Ark., about a year ago. Kirk boasted of being a member of the Five Deuce Hoover Crips, an Arkansas offshoot of a street gang that traces its roots to South-Central Los Angeles.

People who knew Sutton said he seemed an odd candidate for such a group.

“He was always very nice,” said Larry Davison, who runs Davison’s Electronics on the public square across from the courthouse. “I would have thought he was above that type of personal behavior.”

Sutton had often visited the store and Buffalo Gun & Pawn down the street to buy compact discs and videotapes. He always stopped to chat.

“We’ve had a few guys come in here who would get mouthy or loud or whatever, especially when they were with their friends,” said Chris Horn, who runs Buffalo Gun & Pawn. “But Mike never did. He was always just as polite as can be, always a nice guy.”

Sutton did have at least one scrape with the law. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail for breaking and entering. “He stood outside while some people he knew broke into a building,” his mother said.

But Sutton had been saying recently that he wanted out of his group of friends and no longer felt safe in Buffalo.

He wasn’t the only one who noticed changes in town. On the square in the front of the courthouse, people said they sometimes saw young people flashing gang signs at one another, although they never took it seriously.

Over the last few years, Davison noticed more traffic and more strangers arriving from big cities.

“Some people are moving here from cities to get rid of their problems, and it could be they’re bringing the problems with them,” he said.