14 ‘Brims' gang members busted for murder, bloody shootings in Brooklyn takedown

Yahoo

05-02-2025

Members of a violent gang that terrorized several Brooklyn neighborhoods for years were arrested and charged in connection with a slew of shootings, including one that killed a rival gang member and others that wounded innocent bystanders, authorities said.
The 14 members of the 59 Brims/Bloodhound Brims gang who were arrested were responsible for 19 shootings in and around Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay, gunplay that left nine people injured — including four innocent bystanders.
One of those shootings, on Oct. 31, 2022, at the Nostrand Houses in Sheepshead Bay, caused the death of Jamel Nicholson, 25, a prominent drill rapper, and injured his 19-year-old girlfriend, who suffered gunshot wounds to the thigh and lower abdomen. She remained in critical condition for weeks.
That shooting was part of an all-out vicious gang war that left rivals and residents wounded and bloodied, and parents and children ducking for cover, officials said.
'Today's takedown highlights the NYPD's relentless fight against dangerous street gangs that terrorize our neighborhoods with gun violence,' said Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
The NYPD's joint operation with the Brooklyn DA's Office, she said, netted 14 arrests and the removal of 18 illegal firearms 'from the hands of criminals, including repeat, violent offenders who had no business being back out on the streets in Brooklyn.'
The investigation stretched back to February 2021.
The Brims street gang feuded with rival crews, including Folk Nation, FNO, WOOO and GWAY, a subset of the Gorilla Stone Bloods.
Officials tied much of the violence to the April 29, 2021, homicide of purported Bloodhound Brim gang member Davonte Lewis, a.k.a. Dior, outside his high school in Midwood.
The 17-year-old was back at school after weeks of remote classes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic when he was gunned down by two armed teenage rivals waiting for him outside the Urban Dove Charter School in Midwood at dismissal.
The shooting sparked an intense war signaled through music videos, recorded jail conversations, cellphone texts and Facebook and Instagram posts, officials said.
A text message from one of the defendants even chastised another gang member over a May 29, 2022, shooting that failed to place the intended victims in 'critical condition.'
'Gun violence hit a record low last year because of strategic enforcement and gang takedowns like today's, which removed 14 alleged shooters responsible for a staggering level of violence in Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay,' said Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez. 'These defendants allegedly carried out 19 separate shootings, murdered a rival and wounded innocent bystanders — lawlessly endangering our communities.'
Charges against those arrested include murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and weapons possession.
One of the more notorious shootings occurred outside a sneaker store in Bay Ridge on June 23, 2023. Cops said Omogoriola Omotosho and a fellow gang member were there for the release of a new sneaker when they spotted a rival gang member inside the store.
After they watched him leave the place and get into a parked car, they opened fire at the vehicle, missing their target, but wounding someone else in the car, as well as a person in line waiting to buy sneakers.
Omotosho, 21, was also indicted in connection with a Feb. 8, 2022, shooting at a residential building in Coney Island. Cops said he and an associate followed a rival gang member into the building and opened fire inside a lobby filled with residents of all ages, sending people ducking for cover in fear for their lives.
Miraculously, no one was injured.