In January 2019 Ronald Terry, 49, was found shot to death inside a white Cadillac that had crashed through a fence near Memphis International Airport on Dwight Road near Airways. A 36-year-old woman, Candid Sanders, was beside him and had also been fatally shot. Terry, known as Big Pokey, was identified by prosecutors as a former high-level leader of the Vice Lords who had come from Chicago to organize the Memphis chapter and had previously been convicted in an attempted-murder case. He had been released from prison in 2016 after serving about eleven years; some reports said he renounced his gang ties before release but it is unclear whether he retained connections.

The killings prompted a statewide response: the Tennessee Department of Corrections briefly locked down all prisons and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation issued an alert after reports of possible retaliatory threats, though no specific credible threat was confirmed. The Memphis Police Department continues to investigate; no arrests or suspects have been publicly identified. If anyone knew Terry or Sanders or has information about that crash and shooting, please share what is known with investigators.