Charlotte Bloods gang member in Fort Mill shootout pleads guilty, sentenced to prison
A Charlotte member of the Bloods gang has been sentenced to 12 years in a South Carolina prison after a 2018 shootout in York County outside a Fort Mill apartment complex.
Willis Gus Lane, 20, was sentenced last week after pleading guilty in York County criminal court to assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature.
The attack happened Sept. 19, 2018 adjacent to the busy intersection of Gold Hill Road and U.S. 21, at the entrance to an apartment complex south of the North Carolina state line, 16th Circuit Assistant Solicitor Matthew Hogge said.
Two victims were shot, and a passing York County Sheriff’s Office deputy’s patrol car was hit by bullets fired from an AK-47 machine pistol, Hogge said.
The shooting was captured by apartment surveillance video that was played in court. Also played in court were several social media videos and posts that Lane made of him showing guns and threatening to commit the shooting.
All the people involved, including the victims, were affiliated with a Charlotte set of the Bloods, Hogge said. The shootout was from an internal “civil war” among gang members, Hogge said.
“This was part of the retaliatory gang violence that has become too common for our neighbors up in Charlotte,” Hogge said. “Charlotte closed out 2019 with a homicide rate over a hundred. That’s the last thing York County wants to see.”
When Lane was arrested days after the shooting in North Carolina by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department gang officer, Lane approached the officer with a machine pistol, which was taken from his waistband, Hogge said.
“The CMPD officer came close to shooting Lane that day,” Hogge said. “Lane thought the CMPD officer was a rival gang member.”
Lane was originally charged with three counts of attempted murder, but was offered a plea deal because Lane is young, had no previous criminal record, and the victims in the case were gang members Lane felt threatened by, Hogge said.
“But he deserves a harsh sentence,” Hogge said. “This is also about all the innocent people who could have died that night...He fully intended to kill people that night.”
Assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature carries a maximum of 20 years in prison under South Carolina law.
Lane apologized in court. He said he knew he had to be punished for his violent actions.
“I’m sorry,” Lane said. “I don’t want this mistake to penalize my future. I do have a future. I ask for a chance to right my wrongs... To rebuild what I have destroyed.”
Lane said in court he hopes one day to work with troubled youth.
York County Circuit Court Judge Dan Hall said the persons hurt by gunfire are victims, but the York County community also is a victim when gang violence crosses the state line and threatens the safety of the public. Hall called gang violence “poison.”
“The victims are here in this courtroom, the community, society,” Hall said. “A gang shootout at an apartment complex in our community is not bravado.”
After the shootout and a police chase, York County deputies arrested several people who police said were connected to the Bloods gang.
Attempted murder charges against some defendants have been dismissed, prosecutors said in previous hearings.
One person has pleaded guilty to a weapons charge. Charges remain pending against other defendants, prosecutors said.
This story was originally published January 11, 2020 at 12:00 AM.
