Results tagged “gangs”

A Brooklyn actor is suing Spike TV for labeling him as a drug dealer — not an actor playing one on TV — in its reality show "DEA." Iban Hernandez, 32, says he had to move his family to a safe place after receiving threats from Newark gang members who saw an episode of the drug enforcement-themed program in which he is depicted as a real-life gang informant, not a thespian playing a role in a reenactment.

One Brooklyn Heights resident alerted fellow neighbors about possible gang activity in the neighborhood this week, after spotting four unruly teenagers on Hicks.

Yesterday, the funeral of 13-year-old Kevin Miller was held in a Jamaica church, a week after he was hit by a stray bullet from gang gunfire. Queens DA Richard Brown also announced that a second suspected Crips gang member was arrested for Miller's murder, "This case is another example of the mindless gun-related violence and street gang mentality that turns our streets into battlefields and too often takes innocent lives and recklessly endangers public safety."

Friday morning a Port Authority cop faced off against a group of nine gang members aboard the PATH and took them all down without having to step off the train. Officer John Roche was fetched down while aboard a PATH train in Jersey City by 37-year-old Shine-Amon Sky around 6 a.m. Friday. Sky had woken up after dozing off during his morning commute to find one of the young Bloods nearby had stolen his cigarettes. The large group of teens and young adults then pounced on Sky when he confronted them about it. When Officer Roche tracked down the gang and saw how poorly his odds looked against so many of them, he ordered the train conductor to lock down the train just past the Grove Street stop as he waited for backup. Once his fellow officers arrived, they were able to round up all nine of the Newark gangbangers, who were charged with everything from riot and disorderly conduct to recruitment of a street gang. Two of the female teenagers were also hit with making terrorist threat when they said that they would kill Roche as he apprehended them.

The funeral of a gang member has police on "high alert" today, according to Newsday. Melissa Williams, 28, was fatally shot last month in the Rockaways: "Williams was an associate of GIB, Get It In Bricks - a reference to bricks of cocaine - police sources said. The man charged in her shooting, Nigel Vasser, also 28, is a Bloods member with a sect known as HRG Blood, for Hood Related Gangster." The two gangs have been at fighting for a few years now and, based on "prisoner debriefings" and informants' news, the NYPD will have a number of units (including the Gang Division) present at the viewing at a Rockaways Church. Further, Newsday reports, "The NYPD is so worried it even notified New Jersey State Police because Williams will be buried in Morganville, N.J., at the Forest Green Park Cemetery, and it is not unusual for rival gangs to confront each other graveside."

The NYPD made a major gang bust in the Bronx yesterday, rounding up twenty-one Bloods on a slew of charges in connection with a pattern of gang related violence in and around the Edenwald Houses—54 indictments in total for charges on everything from murder to selling drugs. The Daily News reports that "ten of the men were hauled into Bronx Supreme Court, handcuffed together by a long chain" as at least one onlooker silently hummed Sam Cooke in their head. Five of the gang members were charged with attempted murder, including one of the accused as young as fifteen and cops say members as young as thirteen have been employed to carry out shootings. The News says that four of the men arrested are believed to be part of the gang's leadership. The group from the Wakefield section of the Bronx goes by the name "Brother for Another" and includes members nicknamed "Fizzy Woo," "Weezy" and "Drip."

Councilwoman Diana Reyna of Brooklyn is considering a bill to ban the sale of machetes, The NY Times reports. For those familiar with the recent gang activity in Brooklyn, the Williamsburg area especially, Reyna's desire to ban the weapon should come as no surprise. This year there have been a number of machete attacks, allegedly all gang-related.

A 5-year-old girl was shot in the back as she was trying to flee gunfire in the Ridgewood section of Queens, at Seneca Avenue and Stanhope Street. The child, who was apparently sitting outside when an argument broke out, was taken to the hospital and is in stable condition. A neighbor told the Daily News, "They hit this innocent little girl. These are gangbangers firing at each other like animals." The Post reports reports that it's not clear whether the girl was "hit by a low-caliber bullet or a pullet gun"; plus, witnesses saw men wearing gang colors. A second person, a 27-year-old man, was hit in the leg and was questioned by the police.

Hey South Williamsburg residents, a heads up courtesy of The NY Post today: the gangs are still around, even if you haven't spotted a machete lately. The paper reports that the neighborhood has got its own "offshoot of the notorious Bloods gang" and they're going up against the machete-wielding Trinitarios. The Pretty Boy Goonies (aka the PBGs) are about a dozen strong, and allegedly have a continuous turf war going on with the Trinitarios in Rodney Park. Councilwoman Diana Reyna says, "This is not fist-fighting we are talking about. They are using machetes to stab and slash, and screwdrivers. There are brawls in the streets, in broad daylight, stopping traffic." Police have upped their presence in the area, on the streets and on rooftops, and have also installed a Sky Watch at Marcy and South 5th Street.

A is for Apple..B is for Blood and C is for Crip? The Daily News has a disturbing story about gang-member parents indoctrinating their children from birth in gang life. Before they can even speak, some of these tots can flash their signs and are adorned with gang colors and accouterments. Are gang-themed line of onesies far behind?

Federal drug enforcement agents have arrested eight members of a Queens-based gang suspected of kidnapping and torturing more than 100 people. The men impersonated the police, by way of fake sirens and lights on cars and handcuffs, and managed, per the Post, to "steal $4 million in cash and cocaine with a street value of $20 million."

New Jersey police have arrested a number of members of the Lucchese crime family. In the process of breaking up a multi-billion dollar betting organization, cops discovered that the old school mafia family had also teamed up with the more street-level gang the Bloods. The two groups were working together to smuggle things like iPods, cell phones, and drugs into the East Jersey State Prison. The betting ring was fairly sophisticated, utilizing Internet sites, an 800 phone line, and personal interaction to process more than $2 billion in wagers annually. The smuggling ring was facilitated by a corrections officer who worked at the prison.

The early Thursday morning fight in Union Square was apparently set off by a diss. The Post reports that the victims were all affiliated with gangs and the "violence appeared to have stemmed from a show of 'disrespect.'"

Almost all of the 17-year-olds' stories make for interesting reading.

After a protest in East Harlem, baseball cap manufacturer New Era has agreed to pull Yankees caps from store shelves. A number of caps seem to refer to the Bloods, Crips and Latin Kings and became a controversy during a back-to-school shopping trip.

EVENT: GRBG is helping in the celebration of the “Gangs of New York” Fall ’07 collection. Enjoy a photo exhibit of the fall look book shot in Coney Island, a screening of The Warriors and free Rum!

A brutal crime took the lives of three young people and injured one more in a Newark schoolyard on Saturday night, saddening and angering the community. Twenty-year-old Iofemi Hightower, 20-year-old Dashon Harvey, and 18-year-old Terrance Aerial were "lined them up against a wall and forced...to kneel" before being shot in the head, according to Newark police.

A look at some noteworthy television this week:

(directed by Walter Hill)

To anyone attending next year's Puerto Rican Day Parade, we have this suggestion: Don't wear black-and-gold. At a press conference, parade organizers decried arrests of people who were not engaged in any illegal activity during Sunday's event. National Puerto Rican Day Parade president Madelyn Lugo said, "We are very disappointed and alarmed that these violations of civil rights should occur."

Early yesterday morning, 12-year-old honors student Kirsys Rodriguez was shot in the lower back when a fight broke out in the Fordham section of the Bronx. The Daily News reports "rival gangs of Dominicans and African-Americans started arguing" during a party, and the fight spilled out to the street. At least 20 men were "facing off over accusations someone had stolen the $200 cell phone."

Riders of fixed-gear bikes are as diverse as bike riders in general. Messengers are big fixie aficionados, but more and more fixed-gear bikes are being ridden by nonmessengers, most conspicuously the kind of younger people to whom the term “hipster” applies and who emanate from certain neighborhoods in Brooklyn. You see these riders weaving in and out of traffic without stopping, balancing on the pedals at a stoplight and in the process infuriating pedestrians and drivers alike.

It's yet another case of kids behaving badly - and then putting it on the Internet. Someone recorded a Bronx sophomore being beaten by a gang and then put the video on YouTube. The CW News at 11 spoke to students at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx who were there during the March 15 fight (select the video "Follow up to violent gang web video"). The students said that the sophomore was beaten after being mistakenly targeted for saying something to a girl who had been throwing acorns at students heading to the subway.

The police are still trying to understand what happened during yesterday's morning stabbing of a 16-year-old student. Mark Tyrell, who attends Chelsea Career and Technical high, was stabbed repeatedly on East 14th Street after emerging from the Union Square subway station. Police believe the incident started on the subway platform when Tyrell ran into some people. When Tyrell was chased out, he was attacked outside a pizzeria, where an employee told the NY Times, "One of them grabbed a screwdriver or a nail or something and started hitting him."

7:06PM First thoughts: Gael Garcia Bernal is so cute. Ryan Seacrest is an idiot, as are Joan and Melissa Rivers. But we want to know what Jennifer Lopez is wearing! (It turns out to be Marchesa.)

In the crossroads of the "Can't Beat 'Em, So Join 'Em" chronicles and the "____ Diner, R.I.P." annals, there's is the Moondance Diner. The NY Sun reports the SoHo fixture will be razed for - you guessed it - luxury condos. But that's not all: Moondance owner Sunil "Sunny" Sharma was originally going to sell the property, but decided to develop it himself with Extell's Gary Barnett and others.

Just in time for Valentine's Day, The Daily News has created, what they call, a list of NYC's 100 Most Romantic Movies. Movies that capture what it is like to "live and love here". One problem: the list needs to be edited.

Mitzi, by Raymond. Tag yours "gothamist" on Flickr if you want us to use them.

When City Councilman Peter Vallone is not complaining about graffiti, it seems like his other pet peeve are pit bulls. Vallone is trying to ban pit bulls from city pet owners (by way of repealing a "state law prohibiting breed-specific legislation"). NYC would join cities like Denver and Miami, and the resolution notes that pit bulls are "often a weapon of choice of drug dealers and gangs seeking to intimidate and terrorize neighborhoods." Vallone tells the NY Sun that the pit bulls' jaws "lock," which prevents people from defending themselves, their children or pets from being hurt: "It's out job to get this done before another child's face is ripped off."

Run, Santa, Run, by David Reeves.