Gang Bust Could Aid Troubled Area of Brooklyn
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The large-scale takedown yesterday of a violent gang that dealt crack-cocaine in northern Brooklyn could be another positive step in the police department’s battle to reduce the area’s murder rate.
Nine members of the violent gang known as the G’s Up, which is affiliated with a larger gang known as the Bloods, were converged upon and arrested on drug and gun charges in the early hours of the morning at the Marcy Houses, a public housing project situated between the Fort Greene and Bedford-Stuyvesant sections of Brooklyn, officials said.
Northern Brooklyn, where the gang operated, is one of the only sections of the city where murders are on the rise this year, increasing by about 10% compared with the same period last year, according to police statistics.
While statistics showing the number of murders committed by gangs in the city are not readily available, the commanding officer of the police department’s gang division, Chief Robert Boyce, said the Bloods, of which six of the suspects were known members, are the predominant street gang in northern Brooklyn.
The suspects, who are being investigated for possible ties to at least one murder, had been under investigation by a task force of federal agents and police for about 20 months, Chief Boyce said.
Among the nine suspects arrested was Nicholas Hayes, whom Chief Boyce called a leader of the drug ring.
Hayes’s brother, John Hayes, was shot to death along with his girlfriend inside a parked car near the housing project in July 2006, about two months after the investigation into the gang began. Chief Boyce said the shooting was likely linked to the G’s Up.
Chief Boyce also said investigators are currently questioning the suspects about their involvement in other crimes.