Ganging up on the gangstas: Cops monitor texts and Facebook messages, ramp up stop-and-frisks
Violent gang warfare between the Bronx gangs 'Dub City' and '280' prompted an NYPD crackdown on guns
Thursday, September 6, 2012, 4:00 AM
Marc A. Hermann for New York Daily News
Left to right: Paul Samuels, Baheem Teichera, and Dramel Elliot are arraigned in Manhattan Supreme Court for their involvement in a Bronx gang known as "Dub City." The crew allegedly dealt drugs and committed assaults and shootings.
LThe case brought against a gang in Morris Heights last week illustrates everything going on in the Bronx, and in neighborhoods across the city, with kids, guns, stop-and-frisk and victims who won’t cooperate with police, generating more gunfire on the streets.
It’s frightening, and depressing. The parade of alleged Dub City gangsters being arraigned on conspiracy, assault, weapon and drug charges included six aged 18 and under.
“It’s like they’re living in a video game, the disengagement, the dehumanization,” said Bridget Brennan, the city’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor.
Their guns — aka “grips,” “slammers,” “jackies” — were so precious to them. They used communal weapons, hiding them in places they could readily access, or using younger kids to carry them, choosing “thick” girls who’d conceal weapons in their bodies.
In text messages, they’d ask not about one of the crew’s well-being, but whether the gun he was packing was safeguarded. “Put jackie in a cab and get her home,” was one.
In a series of texts, defendant Dramel (Fats) Elliot reassured a 15-year-old girl that she was “not just a groupie” of the Dub City gang but was “jackin the hood right.”
The girl responded, “I jack DC and I don’t want people saying ima DC groupie im not havin it.”
Elliot responded “Nobody can tell us s--- if you really jackin the hood.”
This was on Mar. 10, and on Mar. 29, she went on Facebook to say “I’m on the strip with it.”
That day, at Morris Ave. and Mount Eden Parkway, she was arrested with a loaded 9mm pistol in her pants. The teen also had a bookbag with notebooks with “Dub high or duck low” scrawled on them.
“This is not something I’ve seen before...we’ve seen kids used for carrying guns, but not under the illusion they owned the gun,” said Brennan.
But if the case shows a sinister resourcefulness of young gunslingers, it also illustrates the resourcefulness and determination of law enforcement to stem the violence.
After the killing of Dub City member Dontae “Tay” Murray, 16, on April 12, 2011, cops nabbed a member of the 280 gang.
But then there were 14 retaliatory, non-fatal shootings between Dub City and 280.
Angel Maysonet (aka Mayo Bloomberg) was nabbed with a .25-caliber pistol April 3, 2012, near the one-year anniversary of Murray’s slaying. Prior to his arrest, his Facebook page indicated he was preparing to shoot members of 280 in retaliation. Messages referred to “shower hour” and that he was “busting his gun,” also “RIP TAY!!”
“They were going back and forth for quite some time,” said Inspector Kevin Catalina, commanding officer of the 44th Pct.
“Fats” Elliot was shot in the chest and leg on Walton Ave. on Sept. 21, 2011. At least four of those arrested had been gunshot victims.
“It’s very rare we get a shooting victim from a gang to cooperate,” said Catalina.
“The victims were not just uncooperative, but pretty hostile,” said Brennan.
Catalina spoke with Susan Lanzatella, co-chief of gang prosecutions in Brennan’s office.
“Rather than go out and target them for minutiae on a daily basis, we put together a big indictment,” he said.
“There are a lot of gang members; not all have shot someone, and if we can extract the shooters from the equation, we would make a significant impact,” Catalina said.
“That’s why investigating the drug dealing was very productive,” said Brennan. “We used conspiracy to prosecute people for violence.”
Most of those arrested were born in the mid-1990s, when the city was raging with drug-related violence, when Brennan’s office worked cases of sophisticated organizations motivated by profit, who would shoot to protect it.
Dub City would sell drugs to make money to buy guns.
Catalina said: “They’re shooting each other over territory, girls, past disputes, everything but drugs.”
Relentless stop-and-frisks forced them to be resourceful to avoid arrest.
“To the extent those guns were in an Adidas box under someone’s bed, it made the neighborhood safer,” said Brennan.
“If we didnt stop them from carrying, they’d shoot somebody every day,” said Catalina, who added that the possible long prison terms for the shooters “is an investment in the future.”
Brennan is still shaking her head at the Dub City gangstas’ lifestyle: “It’s not even life imitating art; it’s life imitating bad videos.”