Gunfire erupted in the food court at Eastland Mall as members of the Hidden Valley Kings gang attempted to mow down drug dealer Juan Lawrence while shoppers at the troubled mall ducked for cover.
Later that night, still hot on Lawrence's trail, cars full of HVK gangsters traded shots with Lawrence by car, weaving in and out of traffic."There was a rolling shootout going up North Tryon Street," U.S. District Attorney Kevin Zolot told the History Channel. "They were literally driving down a main thoroughfare in Charlotte and shooting at each other. It was almost like the Wild West."According to the documentary currently airing on the History Channel about Charlotte's Hidden Valley Kings gang, after Lawrence crashed his car, gang members carrying guns hunted him street by street, at times running through people's homes. They eventually caught up to him and executed him with a high-powered rifle.high-ranking members of the Kings were eventually busted though a joint effort by the police and the FBI in 2007 was widely reported here. But the sheer size, organization and murderous tendencies of the 500-member gang laid out in the documentary was a largely untold story locally. The gang was described by police officers as having the potential to be among the biggest money makers in Charlotte with a lucrative drug trade run out of the Hidden Valley neighborhood that gang members at times protected with mounted machine guns and AK-47s.

The reputed head of a North Charlotte drug distribution organization was apprehended early this morning in New York.
Twenty-nine year old Roscoe Abell was indicted in early 2007 in connection with an organized gang distributing drugs in the Hidden Valley area of Charlotte. He was also wanted on outstanding federal warrants for violating supervised release stemming from a previous conviction. Abell eluded arrest during the original roundup of the others named in the indictment, and remained at large until investigators with the Hornet's Nest Task Force in Charlotte developed information the led the U.S. Marshals New York/New Jersey Fugitive Task Force to an apartment in Manhattan. Marshals found Abell in a rear bedroom of that apartment this morning and arrested him on both of the outstanding charges.
Abell will appear today in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York for initial proceedings before his removal to Charlotte.