Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell and Mayor Eric Adams announced the takedown of nearly two dozen of the borough’s most violent gang members.
Twenty-three warring Crips subsets operating out of the Astoria Houses and the Woodside Houses were busted after a two-year investigation, officials announced Tuesday, 16 of whom are currently behind bars.
“The reckless criminality we saw during this investigation is the kind of lawlessness that has killed law-abiding citizens of New York,” Katz said at a Feb. 14 press conference. “For example, street gang members walked into the Woodside Housing Development and fired at a group of Woodside gang members who were in the courtyard along with other residents, including several small children. A Woodside gang member and an innocent bystander were hit.”
The takedown, carried out by the NYPD’s Gun Violence Suppression Unit, began after 37-year-old mother of two Gudelia Vallinas was fatally gunned down while on her way to buy milk for her children. While Vallinas was not the intended target of the shooting between the feuding factions, she became the catalyst for their eventual takedown, according to Adams.
Addressing press at the DA’s office, the mayor glanced down at a table decorated with pink and blue guns, and warned that — despite their pretty appearance — they are still instruments of death.
“Our goal is to be proactive. And not just one gun at a time, but to take down these dangerous individuals who are carrying these guns. These illegal guns even when you color them, purple, pink, and lavender, they still discharge death,” Adams said. “They are endangering the lives of innocent people in our city. And they have no regard for the safety of the people who live in our city.”
The majority of the 23 alleged gang members were arraigned last week in an 85-count indictment, charging the defendants with conspiracy to commit murder, attempted…
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