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New York.- A gang of 32 youths between 15 and 24 years old from the Queens district, in New York, were arrested in the last hours and charged with almost a hundred criminal charges, including three murders committed in the last months.
District Attorney Melinda Katz said on Thursday that it is the largest operation against a single group in the history of Queens County, according to the local press.
The accused were charged with a total of 97 counts, including murder, attempted murder, weapons possession, conspiracy, and other crimes. Six of the 32 members face life in prison.
The alleged criminals were members of the Bad-Co Ballout gang and were prowling the Queens Village neighborhood in Queens with a campaign of terror and blatant violence that they sometimes even boasted about on social media, according to allegations by the district attorney's office.
"These defendants have become the most violent gang in the Queens district, generating fear and violence throughout the area," said District Attorney Melinda Katz.
Katz added that "at least three fatal shootings were allegedly linked to the gang in an investigation that lasted a year".
According to prosecutors, the gang was led by Jahvon “Shady” Attapoku, 21, who allegedly gave orders on who should kill whom and when, and allegedly armed groups of local teenagers.
According to the accusations, the shootings that Attapoku ordered were usually in broad daylight at busy intersections, near schools or in fast food restaurants, and left innocent bystanders of all ages injured or dead.
One of these crimes was in September 2024, when the alleged perpetrator, then 15 years old, began shooting after getting into a fight with another gang.
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The shots hit and killed a 66-year-old man who was driving a car, which ended up crashing into a 23-year-old woman who was sitting on the sidewalk. She suffered serious injuries that still prevent her from having good mobility. "For years, members of these rival gangs terrorized communities in Queens, turning neighborhoods into their own deadly playgrounds and then boasting about it on social media," explained New York City Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch.
