Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish fiction from reality. In movies like The Substitute, starring Tom Berenger and Marc Anthony, and The Principal, starring Jim Belushi and Louis Gossett Jr., we’ve become familiar with vicious gangs roaming high schools and preying on teen students with help of the principal. But hey, that’s Hollywood! No way any teacher or school director would ever get mixed up with gangs while luring his students into a life of crime, right?
Wrong.
Meet Michael Hopson, a then 30-something-year-old security guard at Denbigh High School in Newport News, Virginia (photo below). Tasked with keeping students safe and keeping gang violence out of the school, Hopson had a sacred duty protecting the lives of children. Unfortunately, he did not care about any of that.
Working security at a high school was only a front for Hopson. He was a founding member of the Black P-Stones gang in Newport News and eventually became the group’s sole leader. Known as an OG, he collected monthly gang dues, ordered and presided over meetings, and oversaw the Black P-Stones criminal activities, which included drug distribution, home invasions, robberies, and lots of deadly violence.
He was also the gang’s premier recruiter, (ab)using his position as a high school security guard to entice youngsters to join his gang or buy some narcotics off him. Though a little bit of weed might not have hurt anyone, once a student joined the Black P-Stones he was expected to take part in everything that came with the gang life.
If you were running with Hopson that meant plenty of brutal beatings and deadly shootings as he sought dominance over the area’s gangland. (more...)
What did Bobby learn at school today?
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