Brooklyn prosecutors have announced an indictment against 22 men accused of belonging to two gang subsets blamed for a long-running cycle of shootings in the borough. According to the prosecutors, the case targets some of the most dangerous individuals in the community and is described as a focused effort against the enforcers driving the violence rather than a random sweep of anyone with a gang association.
The two groups at the center of the case are linked to a wider gang network. According to the announcement, both are subsets of Folk Nation, one known as the Renegade Goons and the other as the 00s, with their activity historically centered on Flatbush and Central Brooklyn, including the Vanderveer and Flatbush Gardens areas, and extending down toward Coney Island.
Prosecutors laid out the scale of the violence attributed to the feud in a series of figures. According to the officials, the gang war involved 26 shootings, with at least 207 shots fired and 56 guns recovered over the course of the investigation, a tally they presented as evidence of how heavily armed and active the groups had become across the borough.
The human cost of the shootings was also detailed. According to the prosecutors, 22 people were shot in connection with the gang war, and three of them were completely unintended, innocent bystanders who were caught up in violence they had nothing to do with, underscoring the risk the shootings posed to the wider public.
The case centers on those accused of carrying out the shootings directly. According to the announcement, of the 22 men arrested, 17 were described as trigger pullers, meaning people who got a gun, pointed it at a person and pulled the trigger hoping to kill, which prosecutors said placed them among the most dangerous people on the streets.
The shootings were spread widely across the borough and beyond. According to the prosecutors, they took place in 10 different precincts across Brooklyn, with one additional shooting in Manhattan, and much of the fighting was described as generational, with younger members often no longer knowing why they were feuding with rival groups, as officials framed the indictment as a major step for public safety.