Oakland gang member cut off parole ankle monitor on mission to avenge brother’s murder, police claim

Terrance King, 30, became a wanted man just three days after paroling from a 17-year prison sentence, after police received a tip that he armed himself and cut off his ankle monitor.

OAKLAND — On June 28, Oakland native Terrance King was released from prison after serving a 17-year sentence for assault with a deadly weapon.

Just three days later, King was a wanted man, after police learned that he cut off his ankle monitor and was traveling from Southern California to the Bay Area, where investigators had been tipped off that he was a man on a mission of vengeance.

Back in April, King’s 25-year-old brother, Hodari Lyons, was shot and killed in Oakland, and the tipster told authorities that King was coming to the East Bay in search of revenge, according to court records.

Police arrested King on July 10, in San Leandro; they say he was in possession of an AK-47-style pistol, ammunition, and some Oxycodone pills. Now he’s been charged with violating his parole and with being a felon in possession of guns and ammunition.

When a U.S. Marshals Task Force attempted to arrest King, he led them on a brief foot chase, authorities said in court filings. He’s now being held at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin without bail in the parole case, and with $210,000 bail in the gun case. His next court date has been set for Aug. 6.

King was among 17 alleged members of the Oakland-based Case Gang arrested in 2013. The defendants faced charges ranging from robbery and assault to pimping, and King eventually took a plea deal and a 17-year sentence, records show.

His brother, Lyons, was fatally shot last April 27, on the 6900 block of Hamilton Street in East Oakland. When prison officials and authorities learned that Lyons was King’s brother, a group of law enforcement officials from Oakland police, the California Department Of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and a parole officer met with King in prison to dissuade him from retaliating, according to authorities.

King paroled into Southern California on June 28. By July 1, police say, he had removed his ankle monitor and was wanted on a so-called parolee-at-large warrant.

In court papers arguing for his release from jail, King’s attorney wrote that after Lyons’ death, King’s family started receiving death threats, a suggestion that King was attempting to protect his family from harm. The defense motion says King was paroled to a halfway house in Southern California where he knew no one, and “felt unsafe, given the threats against his life.”

At the time of his arrest, King was arranging to move his family out of the Bay Area to another state, the defense motion says.

Police have not announced any arrests in Lyons’ death. They say roughly a dozen shots were fired and that the suspect was driving a dark-colored vehicle.