Following a one-week trial, a federal jury in Memphis convicted a member of the Unknown Vice Lords — a violent street gang in Memphis — for his involvement in a gang-related murder, after deliberating for less than an hour.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Vincent Grant, also known as “V-Slash,” 41, of Memphis, was a high-ranking member of UVL, also known as The Ghost Mob. This criminal enterprise controlled territory throughout the entire city of Memphis and beyond to Arkansas and Mississippi.
Members of UVL committed murders, burglaries, assaults, human trafficking, and drug trafficking on behalf of the enterprise. When the gang’s Supreme Elite Chief, the leader for the entire state of Tennessee, was murdered, the gang sought retaliation against anyone thought to be involved.
As proven at trial, on January 10, 2019, the gang’s Supreme Elite Chief and his girlfriend were murdered in a residential neighbourhood in broad daylight. The gang sought retaliation that same night against a rival gang, the Travelling Vice Lords, whom they initially believed to have been responsible.
Multiple UVL members drove to a known TVL hangout and engaged in a gun battle with the other gang. During the next few days, UVL conducted its own internal investigation and was informed that a fellow member was thought to be responsible for the Chief’s murder.
Five days after the Chief was murdered, on January 15, 2019, the implicated member, the victim for this trial, was murdered at the hands of Grant and other UVL members. On January 14, 2019, Grant, as a keeper of guns for the gang, provided guns to multiple gang members for the purpose of going on a “demo”, which is the gang’s term for committing violent acts.
Then, early the next morning at around 1:00 a.m., Grant and three other gang members drove the victim to an apartment complex, where two of them executed the victim with the guns Grant provided.
“This violent gang brutally executed one of their own and left the body on display as a warning that betrayal would not be tolerated,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Their blatant disregard for human life — carrying out shootings in broad daylight and in residential neighbourhoods—underscores the urgent need to confront and dismantle this threat to public safety.”
The jury convicted Grant of causing death by use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, that being murder in aid of racketeering. He is scheduled to be sentenced on September 19 and faces up to life in prison.
“Gang violence is never isolated — it endangers entire communities,” said Acting Director Daniel Driscoll of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “This gang’s brutal executions, carried out openly in residential neighbourhoods in broad daylight, sent a chilling message of intimidation, but ATF and our law enforcement partners sent an even stronger one back: violence and fear will not prevail.”
A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
