🚨 NO WHITE SUPREMACISTS INVOLVED 🚨
CBS New York published May 16, 2023: Brooklyn DA: 2 dozen suspected gang members arrested. The Brooklyn district attorney's office says it took down dozens of suspected gang members. Prosecutors say the members were responsible for shootings that injured innocent people. CBS2's Hannah Kliger shows us the alleged link between the violence and rappers.
Eyewitness News ABC7NY published May 16, 2023: Rapper among 32 alleged gang members charged in Brooklyn shootings. Michael Williams, known as Sheff G, is among 32 purported street gang members charged in a series of shootings in Brooklyn.
FOX 5 New York published May 17, 2023: Sheff G, Sleepy Hallow arrested in major NYPD gang takedown. Two popular drill rap artists, Sheff G and Sleepy Hallow, along with 30 other men and women, are charged in a sweeping gang murder conspiracy case in Brooklyn. According to the Brooklyn DA, they allegedly used money from their music careers for guns, and to offer bounties on the heads of rival gang members.
Fox5 News, New York local
written by Lisa Evers
Tuesday May 16, 2023
BROOKLYN - Two popular drill artists, Sheff G and Sleepy Hallow, along with 30 other men and women, were charged in a sweeping gang murder conspiracy case.
According to the Brooklyn DA, they allegedly used money from their music careers for guns, and to offer bounties on the heads of rival gang members.
FOX 5 NY's Lisa Evers had an exclusive look inside the NYPD investigation that helped build a case.
How the investigation began
Twenty-two teams make up of the NYPD's Gun Violence Suppression Division. The Warrant Squad was briefed about the case, which stretched back four years.
Over the coming hours, they took alleged eight Trey gang members into custody. Some were already behind bars, like Michael Williams, better known as drill rapper Sheff G, who previously pleaded guilty to gun possession.
He was booked on new charges. Police said Sheff G controlled the streets, even though he was locked down.
"Let's talk about Sheff," Chief Jason Savino, of the NYPD's Gun Violence Suppression Division, said. "If he said something, it happened. A simple text like ‘we got to get a big one.’ That simple text created a war. You talking about an individual that sends out a text. It instantly starts a gang war."
Gang takedown begins
The detectives and officers from the NYPD Gun Violence Suppression Division and Warrant Squad received their assignments. Over 200 of them would be fanning out to take in any suspects who have been pre-indicted on very serious allegations.
Help from surveillance video
They took the suspects not already incarcerated into custody without a single shot being fired.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said the gang members used more than 30 guns to threaten or eliminate their rivals, proudly posting and boasting on social media phone videos.
The surveillance video, where they pop out with guns from the sunroof and window, shows one of the street shootings included in the case.
Gonzalez said charges include murder, attempted murder, weapons, possession and other crimes. It was one murder, four attempted murders and 12 non-fatal shootings.
"What we allege and what we learned during the course of this investigation is that Sheff G use a lot of the money he earned to help facilitate further gang activity, encouraging gang members to participate in violent crimes," Gonzalez said.
"The sheer violence in this case would stick out to me. The total disregard for civilians," Sgt. David Zayas said.
At the 77th Precinct in Crown Heights, the suspects were brought in to be booked.
"There's many facets to an investigation like this that cover a wide range that have to be vetted," Lt. Salvatore Sciove said.
After being arrested on the new charges, Sheff G and two other suspects were taken in to central booking.
According to investigators, their celebrity status of the drill rappers increase their clout and influence on the streets.
NYPD said it's not targeting drill rappers, but merely going after those responsible for the gun violence.
"Everybody looks up to these guys. It's a shame that they're using the music platform to actually carry out a negative message, when I talk about a negative message, I don't mean the music, I mean what they are actually doing."
The Brooklyn DA said he will continue to pursue these cases to get the most violent criminals off the streets and stop the shootings which have terrorized so many neighborhoods.
If convicted on these charges, the suspects could be facing decades behind bars.
FOX 5 New York published Apr 21, 2023: NYC's new gang culture: 'The body count is never enough'. Gangs and gun violence have been plaguing the city, and authorities say the members are getting younger and bolder in this week's Street Soldiers. FOX 5's Lisa Evers shares what is fueling the violence, and what's being done to redirect these young people from a life of crime.
Fox5 News, New York local
written by Lisa Evers
Friday April 21, 2023
NEW YORK - Police say they're making progress in reducing major felony crimes, but one area has them deeply concerned – the growing rise in youth violence, especially gang-related shootings.
FOX 5 New York had exclusive access embedded with New York Police Department special units for a major gang takedown. It is clear today's gang problem is very different from the gang culture of decades past, and so is the law-enforcement approach.
"A significant number of incidents involving our people center on gangs and street crews," NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said.
We got an exclusive inside look at how the NYPD is focusing on the most violent offenders, and not doing the wide net sweeps of the past where they sometimes snared innocent neighbors. In Queens, it was two rival gangs. More than 30 alleged members most between 18 and 22 years old, and some juveniles. All, police say, with previous criminal justice involvement, all charged with gang conspiracy in two murders and multiple shootings using dozens of guns.
"It's pretty much ‘shoot on site’ when they see the opposition, and a lot of times innocent people are caught in the middle of it," NYPD Gun Violence Suppression Division case supervisor Sgt. Jeffrey Liu said.
Attorney Dante Mills added, "It's just young kids doing whatever they want. Any idea they come up with, they get other people on board and just do random crazy thing. That's not how it was before; there was a hierarchy. It was some stability, and I think it kept things more in line."
Experts say easy access to cheap guns has escalated the violence.
"In the 90s, there were rules," former NYPD lieutenant and current John Jay College professor Ralph Cilento told FOX 5. "You had to ask permission before you killed somebody. And now, the body count is never enough. When you went through a rival gang member's neighborhood, he used to get beat up. Now you get shot and killed."
In fact, my photographer and I had to put on bulletproof vests for our report due to the potential for danger.
The root of the problem runs deep, according to A.T. Mitchell, the founder of the Man Up organization and the man appointed New York City gun czar by Mayor Eric Adams.
"It's a reflection of what's going on in our communities, where our neighborhoods in our society failed our young people, and let them out to do whatever they want to do and commit these vicious crimes," said Mitchell. "And the easy access to social media has helped heighten it."
Police say the gang rivalry is heated to a boiling point on live social media taunts, and drill music videos where gang members allegedly bragged about the locations of the shootings and calibers of guns used in actual incidents.
"The drill rap is always a motivator, and the drill rap is so specific that they mention people that have been killed in the past and disrespect those people that have been killed in the past, and it creates a residual effect," said Capt. Ryan Gilles of the NYPD Gun Violence Suppression Division.
Sgt. Calvin Fergus added, "These guys did horrific violence out on the streets of South Jamaica, so it's a victory for the community today that these guys are apprehended."
Bronx and Brooklyn have had similar issues. The city is taking a multi-layered approach to prevent the teams from getting into gangs in the first place.
🚨👇 BONUS RELATED 👇🚨
FOX 5 New York published May 5, 2023: Crime in the City full episode: May 5, 2023. A look at some of the more notable crimes across the New York City area this week, including the rape of an injured and unconscious woman, an attack on an MTA employee, and a Brooklyn subway assault. Also, the death of an NYPD detective -- 33 years after he was shot.
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