Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell and Mayor Eric Adams announced the takedown of nearly two dozen of the borough’s most violent gang members.
Twenty-three warring Crips subsets operating out of the Astoria Houses and the Woodside Houses were busted after a two-year investigation, officials announced Tuesday, 16 of whom are currently behind bars.
“The reckless criminality we saw during this investigation is the kind of lawlessness that has killed law-abiding citizens of New York,” Katz said at a Feb. 14 press conference. “For example, street gang members walked into the Woodside Housing Development and fired at a group of Woodside gang members who were in the courtyard along with other residents, including several small children. A Woodside gang member and an innocent bystander were hit.”
The takedown, carried out by the NYPD’s Gun Violence Suppression Unit, began after 37-year-old mother of two Gudelia Vallinas was fatally gunned down while on her way to buy milk for her children. While Vallinas was not the intended target of the shooting between the feuding factions, she became the catalyst for their eventual takedown, according to Adams.
Addressing press at the DA’s office, the mayor glanced down at a table decorated with pink and blue guns, and warned that — despite their pretty appearance — they are still instruments of death.
“Our goal is to be proactive. And not just one gun at a time, but to take down these dangerous individuals who are carrying these guns. These illegal guns even when you color them, purple, pink, and lavender, they still discharge death,” Adams said. “They are endangering the lives of innocent people in our city. And they have no regard for the safety of the people who live in our city.”
The majority of the 23 alleged gang members were arraigned last week in an 85-count indictment, charging the defendants with conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder in the second degree. If convicted, they could face up to 25 years behind bars.
According to the DA’s office, the gang members apprehended have been at each other’s throats for years in a never-ending war exacerbated by taunts over social media and rap videos.
Eight of the defendants have been deemed the worst trigger-pullers in the city’s recent history, Katz said, adding that they stand accused of multiple brazen daylight shootings — incidents that have put the public, including young children, at risk.
Sources say that in June 2020, alleged gang members Devine Moore and Michael Shepherd — among those recently apprehended — purportedly emerged from a bodega near 48-16 Broadway and fired shots near a young girl who was standing beside an ice cream truck.
NYPD’s top cop called the dismantling of gangs such as these “essential” in the city’s war on crime.
“The dismantling of these gangs is essential, and as we have seen over the last year, apprehending these criminals is imperative,” she said. “These are dangerous people and bringing them to justice is a dangerous job. But nobody does that job better than the women and men of the NYPD.”
Katz also had an ominous message for other would-be criminals.
“Pick up the gun, use it in our county, use it in our city — we will find you,” she said.
