District Attorney Larry Krasner said this week that Young Bag Chasers – a violent West Philadelphia street gang commonly referred as YBC – should be renamed “You Been Convicted” after a fifth member of the group received a lengthy prison term.
Arshad Curry, 22, was sentenced Aug. 2 to spend at least 42-and-a-half years behind bars after he pleaded guilty to three counts of third-degree murder for his role in multiple shootings that occurred three years ago.
One of Curry’s accomplices, Raheis Sherman, was sentenced to 12-and-a-half to 25 years in September 2023, and three other alleged YBC members were convicted last year of killing two teenagers on the same day in 2021.
“YBC, sometimes known as the Young Bag Chasers, has a new name,” Kranser told reporters at a news conference this week. “I didn’t invent it. Somebody else did. The new name is You Been Charged, and the newer name is You Been Convicted.”
The District Attorney’s Office said the cases represent an effort to go after the relatively small number of young people involved in groups responsible for a disproportionate share of the gun violence in Philadelphia.
“This is a bunch of people so dangerous that one of the people who came to the sentencing was arrested for murder,” Krasner said.
Quamere Hall, 22, showed up at the courthouse to support Curry and was arrested at the hearing after police officers recognized him as a suspect wanted in connection with a homicide last year, the Inquirer reported.
In July 2021, Sherman and Curry got into a van and drove to Boys’ Latin Charter School, where they observed a group of teens get into a car, Assistant District Attorney Cydney Pope said.
The pair ambushed the vehicle, with Curry opening the van’s door and spraying shots. Kailyn Johnson, 16, and Tommie Frazier, 18, were killed and a third victim, a 16-year-old boy, was seriously injured, according to authorities.
“Neither one of these victims was targeted,” Pope said. “The surviving victim was not targeted. The individual who they did target was not even hit.”
Pope said the shooters were looking for another teen in the car due to his real or perceived connections to a rival gang. Johnson had agreed to give him a ride home.
In the aftermath of her son’s death, Emily Johnson said she was personally harassed by “a bunch of untalented rappers” who released diss tracks on social media.
“All I can say is that, at the end of the day, nobody won here – YBC, CCK, whatever the groups are, whatever the gangs are,” said Johnson, speaking at Krasner’s news conference. “We literally lost a whole generation of kids out here – for what?”
About two months after Johnson and Frazier were killed, Curry and an unidentified man fatally shot 19-year-old Sidney Sessoms inside his family’s Port Richmond home.
“They had moved into the neighborhood from the area of 38th and Mount Vernon to hide, to get away from the violence there, to get away from being targeted,” said Pope, adding that Sessoms’s 6-year-old sister had been injured in a shooting prior to the move.
Prosecutors said Curry and the other suspect shot Sessoms’ father, leaving him seriously injured, before chasing Sessoms into the house and killing him.
Law enforcement was in the area and responded to the scene quickly. When two officers tried to stop Curry, he opened fire on them. He was later apprehended when police spotted him trying to hide under a vehicle nearby, according to Pope.
Detectives recovered his cell phone and used data from the device to place him at the July 2021 shooting, the DA’s Office said.
In addition to the murder charges, Curry also pleaded guilty to multiple counts of assaulting a police officer, conspiracy and attempted murder.
Even while incarcerated, he has used Instagram to post photographs, including one of him in jail holding a makeshift knife, Pope said.
