Was that the BFG9000?
Posted on 11/11/2010 1:20:12 PM PST by Drew68
Teens from a of Brooklyn housing complexes are locked in an ongoing turf war that has left two dead and several others wounded in recent months, police sources said.
The clashes began as innocently as staredowns, growing into fist fights and then gunplay. The gang wanna-bes - some as young as 12 - hang out at the developments separated by about four blocks.
Police said the fisticuffs have exploded into gunfire between the Hood Starz, of Marcus Garvey Village, and the Brownsville Fly Guys, of the Marcus Garvey Houses. The two groups, police said, used to be allies. But there was a split late last year after one group thought the other was snitching. Over the summer, things grew violent.
Tyquan Spann, 16, who police say was tied to the BFG, was among the first victims. Sources said Culture Bermudez, 16, a member of the Hood Starz, shot Spann in the arm around 2:30 a.m. on June 27.
"They stand around. They look at each other and, hey, there's an argument," said Mark Tanis, a Brooklyn community activist. "They have to understand it's not about toting a gun."
The day after Spann was shot, his best friend and fellow Fly Guy, Isiah Tyler, 17, was gunned down while riding a bicycle on Strauss St. He was hit three times and died on Oct. 30, prompting yet another wave of violence.
A mere 24 hours later, police believe the Fly Guys struck back, killing Hakeem Gravenhise, 16, in front of his home on Union St. A source said his mother witnessed the murder while driving by in her car. Gravenhise, who police said ran with the Hood Starz, was awaiting trial in the shooting of an innocent bystander, 9-year-old Ronnell Gurley, when he was killed.
"It has to stop," said Gravenhise's aunt, Lisa Sanders. "It's very senseless."
Sanders, a community activist known as the Mother of Brownsville, said her nephew was a diligent student who enjoyed playing video games. About 50 unlit votive candles sat at a makeshift memorial yesterday in front of his Brownsville home.
Shortly after Gravenhise was killed, Bermudez was out on bail in the Spann shooting and looking for revenge. But he was nabbed Nov. 5 and charged with gun possession. The Brooklyn district attorney's office requested $10,000 bail but a judge released him with no bail.
Since then, police assigned to the 73rd Precinct have been pressing informants for any intelligence that would suggest more violence is coming, sources said.
A local bishop told the Daily News that he's been working to keep kids out of gangs. But even he is afraid, asking that his name be withheld.
"These days you have to get them as early as possible," he said, suggesting intervention as young as 11.
They ought to just fence the whole place off, set up cameras and let us watch it on Pay-Per-View.
Agree.. any loss on either side is welcomed.
Also, we need to work on getting some federal aid to these people immediately, because we share part of the blame for this tragedy. If society wasn't so racist, there would be no crime in this area and everyone would live happily ever after.
Lol.
I agree with you. They should let them kill themselves. Then remove them from public assistants.
Hakeem Gravenhise, Tyquan Spann, Culture Bermudez? WTF kind of Amish names are those?
Clearly, more midnight basketball is the answer.
My mom always said—idle hands are the devils tools...
Are kids really meant to live in bldgs all stacked up on one another?
Rats and mice when cramped together will kill and eat each other.
Seems to me some good hard work would help those kids?
Murder, Inc. (or Murder Incorporated or the Brownsville Boys) was the name given by the press to organized crime groups in the 1920s through the 1940s that resulted in hundreds of murders on behalf of the American mafia and their Jewish counterparts who together formed the early organized crime groups in New York and elsewhere. The name was a journalistic invention. In his biography The Valachi Papers, Mafia turncoat Joseph Valachi insisted Murder, Inc. did not commit crimes for La Cosa Nostra.
Methods
Most of the killers were Irish, Jewish and Italian gangsters from the gangs of the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville, East New York, and Ocean Hill. In addition to crime in New York City and acting as enforcers for New York mobster Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, they accepted murder contracts from mob bosses all around the United States.
They are working. They are selling pharmaceuticals.
I grew up in an apartment building with more than 100 units, on a row of such buildings more than 5 miles long.
My kids are now growing up in a slightly smaller building, along with many others.
I turned out ok, and my kids seem to be thriving.
The damn ARCHITECTURE is utterly unimportant. It is VALUES that matter.
Rats and mice when cramped together will kill and eat each other.
My wife is from Eastern Ukraine. Everyone lives cramped together in apartments over there --drab, concrete apartments that don't look any different that the WWII-era housing complexes that were built in our inner cities. They'll reside in the same apartment well into their mid 20s until they get married and move into their own drab, concrete apartment --likely in the same building.
They aren't killing each other.
Agree. Just exactly where is the downside in this? They weren’t going to contribute to society and likely couldn’t have if they devoted their entire lives to it.
I guess I just don’t understand city life. Not knocking it, it’s just something I never lived and don’t understand it much.
I grew up with woods, creeks, fishing, making forts, horses, and plenty of chores.
I know some couldn’t stand living in the country and I think I would go nuts to try and live in the city.
I suppose it is simply values and parenting.
Why is it always about turf, when none of these losers own any of it, or anything. Even the food in their momma’s fridge is provided by others.
LOL
I’m not going to argue the finer points of value and contribution re: the subjects of the article. It is pointless.
Exactly.
Why is it all these people are “community activists”? Mark Tanis, Lisa Sanders. How many tax dollars are going to these losers and why aren’t they doing anything. (I know stupid question)
Sorry, but a handful of high-level mob hits in Ukraine doesn't even begin to come close to the senseless, endemic violence that has plagued America's black, inner-city neighborhoods.
Darned middle/upper middle class whites. They ALWAYS cause all the trouble!
I did a psychology term paper once on the psychology, physiology, and sociology of crowding.
People that choose and enjoy living in the city are provably, objectively barking mad.
"The cultivators of the earth are the most virtuous citizens, and possess most of the amor patriae. Merchants are the least virtuous, and possess the least of the amor patriae." --Thomas Jefferson: Answers to de Meusnier Questions, 1786. ME 17:116
"Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth. Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIX, 1782. ME 2:229
B-Ville Fly Guys all the way, BEEEAAATCH!!!
lol
The real question is which gang would Marcus Garvey root for.
What was said about Reles the canary afterwards was: "He could sing, but he couldn't fly."
LOL, that IS a very good question.
Hood Starz rule! BFG drools!
If I close my eyes I can still see Peter Falk playing Reles.
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