Fourteen gang members in Brooklyn involved in a feud that riddled the borough with bullets and blood were indicted for their roles in numerous shootings, law enforcement sources announced Wednesday.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the suspects were involved in a gang war connected to the 59 Brims and Bloodhound Brims street gangs, two sets of affiliated with the Bloods that ran roughshod over Sheepshead Bay and Coney Island.
The gang war was exacerbated by the shooting murder of 17-year-old Devonte Lewis in 2021 as he was leaving Urban Dove Charter School in Midwood.
Over the next several years, authorities said, the Sheepshead Bay and Coney Island communities saw no fewer than 19 separate shootings that left families and small children ducking for cover as bullets whizzed by their heads. This sparked a two-year investigation by the NYPD Gun Violence Suppression Division.
“These violent criminals showed zero regard for human life, and in many of these cases, they aren’t first-time offenders,” Tisch said. “Several of the defendants are shooting recidivists, people who have already proven they’re willing to pick up a gun and pull the trigger again and again.”
The gunmen — some of whom were as young as 15 years of age — had such disregard for human life, prosecutors said, that they fired near innocent bystanders and into apartment lobbies with children clearly inside.
The recklessness even led gang leaders to admonish their own crews for pulling the triggers and failing to hit their targets, prosecutors noted.
On May 29, 2022, rival gang members were on Instagram live on West 25th Street and Mermaid Avenue when they were ambushed by a group of masked individuals who fired at them wildly. The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office reported that one of the intended targets returned fire before running into the building at 2926 West 25th St., the alleged home of G-WAY.
No one was injured, but several pedestrians, including a family with a young child, had to duck for cover and narrowly avoided being hit by the crossfire. Yet the episode seemingly outraged a high-ranking member of the gang.
“One of the crew members says it’s ‘a bad drill.’ Now, a drill is often gang terminology for a shooting against a rival, and they say it’s a bad drill. Antoine Favorite says, ‘How was it a bad drill?’ He’s asking, how was it a bad drill because they shot at their rivals. He says, ‘Because nobody got hit,’” Gonzalez said.
In addition to the arrests and indictments, 18 illegal firearms were also recovered, including the murder weapon that fatally gunned down Davonte Lewis and an attachment that drastically increases the ammunition cap capacity of a handgun.
District Attorney Gonzalez says that he believes violent crime will continue to fall in the borough as a result of the apprehensions.
The defendants include:
Davonte Manson, 23, of Brooklyn Karon Evans, 21, of Brooklyn Timothy Briggs, 22, of Brooklyn Antoine Favorite, 20, of Brooklyn Jaquell Scales, 21, of Brooklyn Omogoriola Omotosho, 21, of Brooklyn Omarion Harvey, 21, of Brooklyn Logan Cadore, 20, of Brooklyn Jordan Thomas, 30, of Brooklyn Jermel Solise, 18, of Brooklyn Tashawn Ware, 19, of Brooklyn Ron Thomas, 22, of Brooklyn Rashiem Brown, 16, of Brooklyn Albiero Garcia, 15, of Brooklyn
