If I ask you to name a city you associate with gang activity, you might say New York or Chicago. If you’re Gen X or older, you’ll probably say Los Angeles, because that was the gang-banging hub of America in the 1990s.
One place you’re unlikely to mention is Iowa.
In fact, when I think of Iowa, I think of corn fields, caucuses, wrestlers, and The Fat Electrician on YouTube. I don’t think of gangs, but these two guys make some of the LA guys back in the day look like choirboys.
Two Iowa men were sentenced to federal prison for their roles in a racketeering conspiracy, which engaged in a years-long pattern of violence, including murder, attempted murder, and drug trafficking.
Court documents say that the racketeering conspiracy involved Fifth Street gang members. The gang is also known as the “Arsenal Courts Posse,” “Zone Fifth,” “Fifth Street Mafia,” “Rock Town Money Getters (RTMG),” and “Money Team.” The Fifth Street gang operated as a criminal enterprise responsible for numerous acts of violence, including murder and attempted murder in the Davenport and Rock Island area. The criminal enterprise was connected to dozens of shooting investigations and at least seven homicides over the course of two decades.
Rasheem Damonte Bogan, 34, was sentenced on October 9, 2025, to 27 years in federal prison for racketeering conspiracy and felon in possession of ammunition charges, followed by three years of supervised release. On June 1, 2020, Bogan and seven co-defendants went to Necker’s Jewelers to commit a burglary. While there, the group encountered a man they mistakenly believed to be a rival gang member. Bogan and others fired 33 rounds from four firearms, seriously injuring the victim.
Kylea Dapri Cartwright, Jr., 29, was sentenced on November 6, 2025, to 30 years in federal prison for racketeering conspiracy and felon in possession of ammunition charges, followed by three years of supervised release. Cartwright was also ordered to pay $29,732.23 in restitution. Following a six-day jury trial, Cartwright was found guilty of racketeering conspiracy and possessing ammunition as a felon. Evidence at trial demonstrated that on July 5, 2020, Cartwright fired four rounds from a .40 caliber pistol toward a man on West Third Street in Davenport, resulting in the victim’s death. Cartwright used the same pistol that another Fifth Street Gang member had fired during the Necker’s Jewelers shooting a month earlier.
12 other defendants were convicted for the actions of the Fifth Street Gang.
But what’s impressive here isn’t that gang-bangers are being gang-bangers, but how long they kept up these acts of violence before finally being caught, tried, convicted, and sentenced.
Now that they have, though, they’re not looking at being back out on the streets anytime soon. Bogan will be nearly old enough to draw Social Security before he’s free, assuming he serves his full sentence–not a safe assumption, I agree.
These are not good people, and there’s no way they were lawful gun purchasers, even in Iowa.
But look at the last sentence of the quoted section for a moment. Cartwright used a gun that someone else had used the month before. It might not be personal property, but a community firearm that gang members could “check out” like a book from the library, then use as needed. There’s nothing specifically confirming that, of course, but that’s what it sounds like.
Admittedly, it could have been one or the other loaning the gun to a fellow gang member, but I doubt it.
See, the idea of community guns isn’t all that unusual. One person keeps a stash of guns that members can borrow as needed, use, then return. That way, if they’re caught, they’re never caught with the gun on their person later down the road, but the gun hasn’t been dumped in a river somewhere and is unusable for the gang in the future.
This is, of course, kind of illegal since the guns are usually stolen, the people getting them are convicted felons much of the time, and they’re using them for illegal activities, and everyone knows they are, but it still happens.
And these guys are just proof that gun control laws aren’t going to work. Iowa may not have as many as New York or Chicago, but those cities are also known more for gang violence than Des Moines ever will be.
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