A county judge set bond at $2 million yesterday for a Somali immigrant charged with felony murder and aggravated robbery, while the woman sat unfazed.
Judge Michael Ward accepted a prosecutor's request for a $2 million bond, sending Columbus resident Hamda A. Jama, 21, back to the Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail. Assistant County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn, asking for the bond, called Jama a high-ranking gang member.
She was fourth in charge of this gang
two down from Mr. Boler Blackburn said, referring to Phillip D. Boler, who investigators say went with Jama and three others to rob a house in New Marshfield on Feb. 15. The resulting gunfight killed Donnie Putnam, 39, of Meigs County.
Eric C. Fussner, 33, of Nelsonville, and Mohat M. Osman, 22, of Columbus, also attempted to rob the house, investigators say. Prosecutors charged all four with murder and aggravated robbery. A juvenile judge ruled last week that Abdifatah Abdi, 17, of Columbus - who went with the other four to the house, armed with a gun, prosecutors say - will be tried as an adult. None of the indictments are available through the county's public case system.
Jama sat calmly next to her attorney, wearing orange prison clothes and a flower-patterned headscarf. As the judge set bond, she appeared unconcerned.
Blackburn said Jama sold drugs at a separate house, under surveillance by the sheriff's narcotics unit, before attempting to rob the house where Putnam was killed. At the first house Jama was armed, he said.
Jama, Osman and Abdi are Somali immigrants from Columbus, possibly members of a Somali gang, prosecutors say.
But Lt. Bryan Cooper of the Athens County Sheriff's Office said he's not sure if Jama or anyone else who tried to rob the house that night belongs to a gang, let alone how they rank. More details will be available soon, he said.
I hate that we're calling this a 'Somali gang' because that reflects negatively on the Somali people Cooper said. We're still gathering intelligence
and we're not so certain if it is a gang.
Columbus police Sgt. Chantay Boxill, who investigates gangs as part of the city's criminal information unit, said Somali gangs only recently showed up on the unit's radar. She couldn't speculate on the number of Somali gangsters or the names of their groups.
Somali gangs tend to form around clan allegiances, Boxill said, adding the tight-knit Somali community and language problems - Somali immigrants speak clan dialects, Farsi and Arabic - make gathering gang intelligence difficult.
A lot of them are emulating the traditional black street gangs and many of them are getting involved in violent crime
Boxill said, adding that Somali gangs sell marijuana and cocaine in the city. At least two murders and several very violent robberies may be linked to Somali gangs, Boxill said. Mainly
like I said
robbery
burglary
car theft
things like that.
Sheriff's deputies and the Columbus Police Department's gang unit are still searching for a person of interest
who Blackburn said is the leader of the group responsible for killing Putman.
Lawyers for Jama and others charged in Putnam's death will appear before Ward at 11 a.m. March 23 for a pretrial hearing.
- Caitlin McGlade
contributed to this report.
