Latest news with #BloodhoundBrims
Yahoo
22-02-2025
- Yahoo
Inside a Brooklyn gang war: How one teen's death sparked a bloody, years-long battle
A Brooklyn indictment offers a rare and detailed look into how a gang war exploded from the killing of one teen into a cascade of escalating tension that played out over several years in music videos, social media posts and bloody confrontations on the streets. Two allied Bloods crews, the 59 Brims and the Bloodhound Brims, had long battled with their rivals as they held onto turf in Sheepshead Bay and Coney Island. But the April 29, 2021, shooting of Davonte Lewis, 17, outside his high school in Midwood, supercharged their beef against Folk Nation and other gangs, according to prosecutors. Davonte, who went by the nickname 'Dior,' was a member of the Bloodhound Brims, prosecutors said, and his teenage accused shooters are facing trial next month. Indictment documents against 14 reputed Brims members lay out several examples of how the gang's members pledged to avenge Davonte's death. The gang members called their hunt for Folk Nation members 'Drenching for Dior,' according to the indictment, and on May 1, 2021, just two days after Davonte's killing, one of the members, Jaquell Scales, indicated on Facebook he was itching for violence. 'I love you baby bro,' he posted in a caption showing himself and two other suspects in the case showing gang hand signs. 'The celebration over I'm outside……DRENCHIN4DIOR.' The next day, another person in that photo, Karon Evans, ventured into Folk Nation territory in East Flatbush and shot and wounded a rival gang member, prosecutors say. Scales and Evans, who go by the names 'Bully Hound' and 'Kenzo Hound,' celebrated the excursion into enemy territory with a May 20 drill rap video on YouTube called 'Trip 2 the Kirk,' an apparent reference to the gang's activity in Folk Nation turf around Newkirk Ave., prosecutors said. Evans is being held on $300,000 bail after pleading not guilty to conspiracy, attempted murder, assault and multiple weapons charges. Scales is currently in state prison on a 2024 weapons case out of Brooklyn. Davonte's mother, Carlene Watts, vehemently denies her son was involved in a gang and she called the D.A.'s remarks that his death fueled a gang war 'despicable.' 'They are trying to make my son a scapegoat,' Watt told the Daily News. 'They are exploiting my son's case for their own benefit.' The teens who shot him did so out of simple jealousy, Watt maintains. 'My son had a good mother and a good grandmother. I have a good job. He had a lot of things that these kids didn't,' she said. 'They were mad…. They just didn't respect it.' The gang members used Davonte's nickname as a rallying cry for years in music videos and social media post, prosecutors say. They called a group chat 'D4D', short for 'Drenching for Dior,' and put out a music video titled with that same acronym, according to the indictment. Two Brims members involved in the ongoing clash are accused of murder. Ron 'Reko' Thomas, 22, who appears in the 'Trip 2 the Kirk' video, and Tashawn 'Ty Prime' Ware, 19, executed a rival from the Folk Nation gang on Halloween 2022, according to prosecutors. But prosecutors said Thomas and Ware didn't have to stray from their territory to kill Jamel Nicholson. He came to them. Nicholson, an up-and-coming drill rapper who went by Melly Gzz, was dating a Brims member's ex-girlfriend and was visiting her at the Nostrand Houses in Sheepshead Bay when he walked into an ambush, Brooklyn D.A. Eric Gonzalez said. 'So he's a member of a rival gang dating a woman in Bloods territory,' Gonzalez said. Thomas and Ware showed up as Nicholson and his girlfriend left their building and video shows the couple running for their lives as the two masked gunman open fire. Nicholson was killed, while his girlfriend suffered wounds that left her hospitalized for weeks. The girlfriend's mother told the News in 2022 that she needed to be hooked up to a ventilator, and had surgery to her abdomen. The accused killers then moved to Vermont, where Thomas was involved in two separate police pursuits last year, one of which left two of their fellow young New Yorkers dead on the road, police there say. Ware and Thomas are now both locked up in Vermont awaiting extradition and indictment on conspiracy, murder and other charges. Meanwhile, the gang war in Brooklyn raged on, with more taunts on Instagram, and bullets flying in Sheepshead Bay and Canarsie as recently as October. Still, the Brooklyn D.A. has pointed out in press statements, gun violence and murders have dropped across the borough, with 287 shootings last year, a sharp drop from 338 in 2023, and 449 in 2022. Gonzalez credits the drop in part to a string of gang takedowns. 'There's really a small handful of people in every part of our borough who are the shooters and the real significant drivers of violence,' he said. 'If we can identify them and target those individuals, we can see tremendous decreases in gun violence, and that's what we've been doing.'
CBS News
06-02-2025
- CBS News
14 alleged members of 59 Brims and Bloodhound Brims gangs arrested, NYPD and Brooklyn DA announce
NEW YORK -- For the second time in just two weeks, there has been gun and gang takedown in New York City. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez on Wednesday announced that more than a dozen gang members were taken off the streets for violent crimes, including murder. Last week, police and the Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced a separate takedown that resulted in members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua arrested and 34 firearms were seized. 59 Brims and Bloodhound Brims targeted in Brooklyn Surveillance videos show brazen gunmen opening fire on Brooklyn streets, in a crowded apartment building lobby, and the Coney Island boardwalk over the past few years. "These takedowns are significant 'cause they target the shooters and those directly responsible to the violence," Gonzalez said. The Brooklyn district attorney and the police commissioner said they are now off the streets, following a two-year investigation called Operation Baywatch. The takedown includes a 129-count indictment in which police say 14 alleged members of the 59 Brims and Bloodhound Brims street gangs terrorized residents in Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay. Officials said a rival gang member was also killed and 18 illegal firearms were seized. "If you pull a trigger in New York City, the NYPD will find you. We will arrest you and you will face justice," Tisch said. Criminal group database key to the bust, NYPD says Gonzalez said the gang members indicted are connected to 19 shooting incidents in Brooklyn that left nine people injured, including several that were innocent bystanders. "These guns are obviously coming from down South. Recently we've seen a little bit of an influx of guns coming from the Midwest," NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said. Gonzalez added, "We are starting 2025 on the heels of the safest year in the history of Brooklyn, in terms of gun violence." The NYPD said the city's criminal group database was key in connecting the crimes and criminals. However, the City Council wants to abolish the database, saying it is racially discriminatory.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Yahoo
14 ‘Brims' gang members busted for murder, bloody shootings in Brooklyn takedown
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.
