City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito was driving her mother to the airport at 10:30 p.m. last month when the two heard a "thud" against their Volkswagon Golf as they traveled down Third Avenue. That "thud" happened to be a 9mm bullet fired by a 16-year-old boy, who indiscriminately shot 14 bullets at a rival gang member stopped at a red light. "If I would have been driving any slower. If I would have been, whatever…It just puts things in perspective," Mark-Viverito tells the Daily News. The boy has been arrested on reckless endangerment and weapons charges, but the law seems lacking in a proper statute for nearly killing someone for no reason. more ›

Yesterday over 250 mourners turned out for the funeral for Zurana Horton, the Brownsville woman who was killed in a blaze of gang-related gunfire while picking up her children from school earlier this month. Among those in attendance were NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and the Reverend Al Sharpton, whom the family asked to give the eulogy. more ›

Two teenage brothers and their 22-year-old half-brother have been arraigned in connection with the murder of Zuranna Horton, the mother of 13 who was fatally shot while picking up her kids from an elementary school in Brownsville, Brooklyn last Friday afternoon. 18-year-old Andrew Lopez has reportedly confessed to opening fire from a rooftop near the school, and police say his older brother, Jonathan Carrasquillo, instructed Andrew to get a gun, go to the roof, and "do what you have to do." Two other people were wounded, including Cheanne McKnight, an 11-year-old girl who was grazed in the face with one of Lopez's bullets. more ›

Brownsville residents, community leaders, and politicians continued to express outrage yesterday in the wake of the death of Zuranna Horton, who was killed while trying to shield children from a spray of gunfire outside a school Friday afternoon. There was a candlelight vigil and march Sunday night, and yesterday Rev. Al Sharpton met with Horton's family, praising her ultimate sacrifice and noting that two of her siblings had previously died from gun violence. State Senator Eric Adams, whom you may recall from his "Stop the Sag" campaign, also weighed in. more ›

Tomorrow is Easter, which means the NYPD is getting ready for a different kind of tradition: The so-called gang initiation rites. Last year, there were multiple brawls, shootings and arrests in and near Penn Station and Times Square, which was enough violence for Mayor Bloomberg to call it "wilding". Now, the Post reports, "The NYPD and Midtown merchants are bracing for another Easter Sunday (or 'Gang Initiation Day') wilding session -- with extra patrols and boosted security ready to take on marauding gangs looking to terrorize Times Square and nearby businesses" more ›

Gang violence broke out on Staten Island Wednesday night, sending two victims (and one assailant) to the hospital while terrifying a packed bus of witnesses. Around 8:30 p.m. seven suspects allegedly attacked two men, aged 20 and 22, with box cutters in the middle of an S74 bus which had just left the St. George Ferry Terminal. The gang is said to have been retaliating over a prior assault. more ›

Territorial gang warfare in Harlem has seemed to have gotten worse over the past year, and younger and younger teens are being recruited and initiated into groups such as 2MF, 40 Wolvez, the 137th Street Crew, and more. To try to combat the upswing in gang violence, Harlem Children's Zone has begun deploying "Safety Knights" to patrol parts of Harlem near Fifth Ave. And they're armed with bright orange vests, so watch out! more ›

Manhattan DA Cy Vance wants you to know he is tough on crime. So tough, in fact, that today he personally went before a judge to read the charges his office is bringing forth against 14 members of the "137th Street Crew," an alleged Harlem gang. "This isn't just about a threat to safety and our streets," Vance explained in a conference earlier today. The crew "targeted children and young teenagers to hold and transport firearms of individual gang members." more ›

Hundreds of officers and agents from local, state, and federal agencies, led by the FBI, conducted early morning raids in Newburgh, NY today, in an attempt to address the outsized violence in the small city. The Times Herald-Record reports there were two operations: "Blood Drive" which "targeted 60 suspected members of the Bloods, including the reputed leader Anthony 'Double O' Boykins and his 18-year-old replacement, Joseph McLean" and "Black Crown," which "targeted 18 members of the Latin Kings." Federal indictments are expected later this afternoon. WABC 7 reports, "The Bloods will be brought to Lower Manhattan, and the Latin Kings will be brought to White Plains." more ›

15-year-old Leo Perez, a student at Graphics High School in midtown, was in the wrong place at the wrong time Tuesday afternoon when a gang fight broke out on at Eighth Ave. and 49th Street, conveniently located near the Hilton Garden Inn Times Square hotel. Police sources say that around 3 p.m., Isaiah Taitt, 17, of Brooklyn, a member of the Latin Kings gang, was confronted by three Crips. "They motion for him [Taitt] to take your hands out of your pockets. He takes his hands out. He has a knife. They jump him," a source tells the Daily News. Perez was one of bystanders who saw Taitt being kicked and beaten, and when he broke free from his assailants, he brutally stabbed Perez, mistaking him for one of the Crips. more ›

There are probably some very pissed off cops in NYC today. The NYPD denies it, but it looks like a number of officers in the Gang Division were packing their bags for sunny Bermuda, to help neutralize a wave of gang shootings there. But after the tabloids caught wind of, the department backed way from the plan. And you can understand why, when the Post's lede is, "Looks like crime is so low in New York that the NYPD is reportedly loaning out officers to Bermuda." more ›

Yesterday afternoon at around 3:30 p.m., a woman—who was trying to shield her 9-year-old child at the time— was fatally shot in violent crossfire on East 146th Street in the Bronx's Mott Haven neighborhood. According to MyFox NY, "Aisha Santiago, 25, was just coming home from doing laundry when someone opened fire on East 146th Street," and some witnesses think that the gunfire was from rival gangs, possibly the Bloods and Crips based on the groups' colors, while police suspect it might be the Latin Kings and another gang. more ›

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." more ›

The Daily News has more information about the multiple stabbings in Times Square on Friday night. Apparently the opening of Saw V at the AMC Empire 25 on 42nd Street had something to do with it: "Tension built after swarms of teens and young adults were trying to exit and enter theaters, including disappointed groups who couldn't get into sold-out shows." A police source called it "a tinderbox" and a witness described, "It seemed like hundreds of kids, roaming around in packs, screaming, yelling, running through the streets like wild animals." One of the victims, stabbed in the neck, is left partially paralyzed. The police, which made a few arrests, is having its gang unit investigate; a witness explained, "There were gangs all around the area, all over 42nd St. You can tell by their bandanas." more ›

The NYPD announced a 19-year-old and two 16-year-olds were arrested in the shooting of two people, including a 5-year-old girl who had been walking with her parents, on Monday night. The incident took place on a residential street in the Ridgewood section of Queens. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said, "The so-called Blood members were coming down the street and the Trinitario group was sitting on the stoop. And this was some sort of gang encounter. Shots were fired. And, as I say, we hope to make more arrests on this matter." Newsday reports when the girl's father saw one man draw a machete, the family tried to run for cover, and the little girl was hit in the back. A 28-year-old man, believed to be involved in the dispute, was shot in the leg. Neighbors tell NY1 there's been a lot of gang violence in the neighborhood. more ›

WNBC reports that 16 people with ties to "Asian organized crime were arrested overnight by a task force of FBI, NYPD, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigators for allegedly extorting bus companies." Fifteen of the suspects were arrested in the NYC area, while the 16th was in Florida, and they are charged with "various acts of violence and extortion targeting operators of bus companies which do business between New York and east coast cities." More details will be released later, but we are guessing this is related to the Chinatown bus routes--back in 2003, one bus operator was murdered. more ›