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Alleged Ga. gang leader shot to death after escaping halfway house

Last week, Jumoke Johnson escaped from a federal halfway house and cut off his GPS monitor

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Jumoke Johnson Jr.

Photo/Chattanooga Police

By Ellen Eldridge
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — He cut off his GPS monitor and fled from a federal halfway house, but a 23-year-old alleged gang leader failed to outrun three generations of crime and violence.

Jumoke Johnson Jr. was shot to death Friday night following a crash on East 12th Street in Chattanooga, the Times Free Press reported.

Chattanooga police officers told the Times in 2012 that Johnson was a thug who wreaked havoc on the city and likely would for years. They said he was a gang leader in the Rollin 60 Crips and suspected Johnson of orchestrating homicides and dealing drugs, allegations he denied as a hopeful high school graduate.

In 2013, the Times reported that Johnson was arrested among 30 men during a cocaine distribution sting.

He pleaded guilty to a drug charge in January 2015 and was sentenced to more than five years in prison, the Times reported.

Last week, Johnson escaped from a federal halfway house on McCallie Avenue and cut off his GPS monitor.

On Friday, witnesses told the Times that Johnson and 20-year-old Christopher Woodard, who was out of jail on bond for robbery charges, were shot by people in another car who left the scene before officers arrived.

Johnson was a father, and at one time a hopeful college student after a donor offered to pay his way through an Alabama school. But Johnson dropped out after a semester, the Times reported, and returned to the streets.

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