Brooklyn gang members bragged about guns on social media, DA says

NEW YORK - Flanked by the newly installed mayor and police commissioner, Kings County District Attorney Eric Gonzalez on Tuesday announced the takedown of 17 alleged gun-toting gang members, some in their early teens. Gonzalez said they're charged with three murders and more than a dozen shootings, in a reign of terror from Fort Greene to Brownsville. 

The 20 guns displayed on the table were allegedly used by gang members from three different sets who forged a peace treaty to create a bigger gang called YPF. Prosecutors say the alleged members bragged about their weapons in social media rap videos, which also served as recruiting tools to bring in more members to the 200-plus-member gang. 

"One of the most disturbing aspects of this case is the age of many of the defendants in this indictment," Gonzalez said. "Some were as young as 14 or 15 years old." 

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But the guns were more than props. Gonzalez said gang members were responsible for the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old college student at a New Lots Avenue bodega. It was a case of mistaken identity. Gang members are also accused of crashing a sweet 16 birthday party, allegedly killing a 20-year-old Virginia woman visiting family at the Albany Houses. 

"Now the shooting starts. They're shooting upstairs, they're shooting downstairs," he said of the mayhem. "You see everyone running for their lives." 

Mayor Eric Adams, whose term began Saturday, said his administration is taking a team approach with the NYPD and the city's district attorneys to get guns off the streets. He said they'll be creating new prevention programs for at-risk youth. But if prevention fails, they will be prosecuted, the mayor said.

"These guns were in the hands of bad people that did bad things to good people," Adams said.

Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said the NYPD is bringing "laser focus on the people who drive most of the violence in this city."

Gonzalez said the joint NYPD-KCDA investigation found that the gang was actively recruiting new members as young as 11. Five of the indicted suspects could face life sentences if they're convicted. The rest are looking at the possibility of more than 20 years behind bars. 

New York City has been wrestling with a spike in violent crime since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. After reaching a record low 292 homicides in 2017, the city hit 468 in 2020 and more than 480 last year. At the same time, shootings have surged, with more than 1,500 each of the last two years, according to police data.

Still, New York remains far safer than in the early 1990s, when there were more than 2,000 killings per year, or even through most of the decade after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The No. 1 priority is to get this violence down," NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig told officers before Tuesday's arrests.

With The Associated Press.