Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson explaining the gang indictment at his office in Downtown Brooklyn. Photo by the author
On Wednesday, Kings County District Attorney Ken Thompson was explaining how local gangs communicate over Facebook to a coterie of reporters at his office in Downtown Brooklyn.
"'That's opp zone,'" he explained, "as in, 'opposition zone.'"
Continuing down the list on a white placard at his left, Thompson chose a line from another suspect: "And 'I wanna boom it up,'" he said, means, "I wanna shoot them."
According to Thompson and the New York Police Department, the online chat in question took place just before a barbecue in Canarsie, Brooklyn, in May 2014. The young men learned rivals would be there, and hatched a plan to hit the party with gunfire, Thompson said. From the windows of their cars later that night, they allegedly sprayed the party with bullets, injuring two women and one man. Shortly after, one of the suspects—Jerome Myrie, better known just as "Myrie" and still at large—apparently took to Facebook to boast of the bloodshed.
The plan, in the alleged gang members' minds at least, had worked.
But on Wednesday, the allegedly sinister planning—and subsequent social media celebration—was used as evidence in a 76-count indictment against 18 alleged gang members, including Myrie himself. The men are all between the ages of 18 and 27, and are said to hang on Flatbush Avenue, Newkirk Avenue and Ditmas Avenue in Brooklyn. 15 of them have been booked on charges including second-degree murder, second-degree attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and weapons possession (nine guns were recovered) for attacks across the borough, the barbecue drive-by among them.
The suspects, the DA claims, are part of a larger group called Folk Nation—a sort of gang alliance, or set, with origins in 1970s Chicago that Thompson compared to the American and National Leagues in professional baseball. The idea is that the Folk Nation's allied member gangs are in a constant state of war with a rival coalition, People Nation. The 18 suspects' chapter in Brooklyn is allegedly called No Love City, and according to the DA, the local Crips chapter is its chief enemy.
"To enforce their dominance, they often directed their violence at rival gang members," Thompson, who announced the indictment alongside New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, said Wednesday. "Essentially they would get in cars and go on 'hunting expeditions,' looking for rivals to kill."
In one such example, Thompson delivered a minute-by-minute narration as a surveillance tape from a Canarsie courtyard in July 2014 played for reporters. A 23-year-old suspect named Corey Roberts was seen arguing with someone on a sunny, summer afternoon, as young children passed by on scooters. The video then shows him opening fire from the entrance, as people scream and scatter. His bullets hit two innocent bystanders, one in the heart. (Somehow, both survived.)
According to prosecutors and police officers, violence in Brooklyn surged after a No Love City member was killed by a rival on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood last October. Some of the Brooklyn suspects apparently saw on Instagram that several of their rivals were at a filming of rapper Meek Mills' music video in DUMBO. As the indictment reads, several of them allegedly rushed over in cars and "engaged in a gun battle with rival gang members."
The suspects are said to have escaped through the neighboring communities of Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, where this sort of violence is virtually unheard of, and ditched a bullet-riddled car on the street. However, the DA says, they didn't realize that blood and fingerprints were left at the scene, offering crucial evidence to investigators.
The resulting bust, conducted by the NYPD's new Gun Violence Suppression Division, is the latest indication that gang warfare is still rattling major sections of New York. That's especially true in Brooklyn—which is often called the "bloodiest borough" by local tabloids. According to law enforcement officials, a select group of young men are largely responsible for the 18 percent rise in gang-related shootings in 2015.
In high-crime communities, recently-funded "violence interruption" groups have taken to mediation and intensive workshops, in hopes of discouraging shootings before it's too late. And just last month, both Thompson and Bratton announced Project Fast Track, which sets up specific courts for gun-possession charges. (When I asked Thompson if this bust would be tried there, he said no. "We'd like to fast-track them to prison," he told me.)
" have no concern for human life," Commissioner Bratton told reporters, reiterating the tough tone. "And so we should have no concern in putting them away for 25 years."
As of Wednesday morning, all but three of the suspects had been arrested and arraigned. One is awaiting extradition from New Jersey, while two others remain on the lam—both of whom Thompson promised would be arrested in coming days. As Bratton suggested, 17 of the men face up to 25 years in prison, and the lone suspect facing a straight murder charge could do life.
"We're here to say, 'No more,'" Thompson said. "This indictment means to us that our streets don't belong to violent gangs, or armed thugs. They belong to the people of Brooklyn."
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