Baltimore's Stop Snitching Producer Going to Prison Again

According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles sentenced Ronnie Thomas, 36, the Baltimore gang leader known for producing and appearing in controversial Stop Snitchin' Videos to 235 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

Thomas, leader of the TTP Bloods (Tree Top Piru Bloods), was hit with the racketeering charge for narcotics trafficking, conspiracy to commit murder and robbery. Thomas is best known for producing a series of DVDs that caused a public outcry in Baltimore. The Stop Snitchin' videos gained prominence in 2004 when Thomas produced a DVD warning criminal informants to stop snitchin' (informing) to the police department. The DVD which met with outrage, as community activists complained that the sole aim of the home-made DVD was to scare people with threatened violence if they went to law enforcement about criminal activity.

Two years after the release of the video, Thomas, known as Skinny Suge among other aliases, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for first degree assault. All but three years of that sentence were suspended. The Stop Snitchin' DVD which gained momentum in the hip hop world, came on the heels of the horrific, mass murder of a Baltimore family in 2002. Angela Dawson, her husband Carnell and 5 children were hit by an arsonist, a young man who retaliated because Angela Dawson repeatedly called police to report drug dealing in her neighborhood. In the end Angela and her five children died in the fire. Only Carnell survived.

Darrell L. Brooks, a former page in City Council Chamber Council, pleaded guilty the day the trial was to start. Members of the Dawson family sued the City, unsuccessfully. At the crux was the Mayor's "Believe" program. Many contend that it was unreasonable to expect those in drug-infested neighborhoods to take on drug dealers.

At the time of the Dawson murders, then Mayor Martin O'Malley urged citizens to take back their streets. Dawson took those words to heart, and called the police no less than 50 times. While police responded each time, they could do little but watch the family until they could catch Brooks in the act. The Dawson murders brought national attention with the likes of Jesse Jackson and Dick Gregory attending the funeral. Dulaney Memorial Gardens, the spot were fallen police officers are buried, donated spots for the Dawson family.

Thomas served as leader of the TTP Bloods, a violent gang, an offshoot of the original "Bloods," a street gang prominent in Los Angeles in the '70s. TTP is an offshoot of that gang. Its Maryland roots stem from about 1999 at the Washington County Detention Center in Hagerstown.