NEW YORK — Drill rap music videos helped cops corral 20 ruthless gang members, including four adolescents, indicted for roles they played in a vicious reign of terror against communities in the Bronx where residents were shot or stabbed in a spate of deadly violence that spanned more than three years, police and prosecutors said Thursday.
Dozens of acts of violence were spelled out in an 82-count indictment that details murders and attempted murders including the shooting death last year of a 20-year-old Bronx woman who was gunned down at close range in an apartment known to police as a gang hangout.
The indictment covers 32 violent crimes over 36 months, including brazen, broad-daylight shootings, some of which were bragged about on the drill rap music scene, authorities said.
Arrests in “Operation Drilly” resulted in the recovery of 18 guns and charges that included murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, weapons possession, assault and grand larceny.
“The defendants allegedly committed multiple shootings, some in broad daylight, killing two people and injuring innocent bystanders,” said Bronx DA Darcel Clark. “These defendants terrorized residents of the Fordham/Bedford Park neighborhoods who were forced to run for their lives as bullets flew.”
The dead included Delila Vasquez, 20, who was shot in the head in an empty third-floor apartment on Hull Ave. in Norwood on March 17, 2021.
Surveillance video showed four people going in and out of the building at the time of the shooting.
Dead, too, is James Rivera, 24, who was killed on July 20, 2020, when six attackers, including two who were teens at the time, chased him along Decatur Ave. Cops said at least four of them had guns, and used them to shoot at Rivera multiple times.
But that apparently wasn’t enough. When Rivera fell on the ground, one of the attackers stabbed him.
Rivera later died of a gunshot wound to the back.
“Today’s sweeping indictment highlights the focused efforts that continue to identify the relatively small percentage of people responsible for much of our city’s crime and disorder,’ said Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell. “We vow to keep dismantling gangs and crews, and working hard to prevent the senseless violence so often associated with their activities.”
According to prosecutors, the suspects were alleged members of the G-Side/Drilly gang, a subset of Bloods Sex Money Murder responsible for dozens of acts of violence mainly in the areas of East Gun Hill Road, Hull Ave. and Decatur Ave. between Sept. 20, 2018 and March 15, 2022.
The shootings and stabbings left six people wounded.
The defendants, who are prominent in the Drill rap scene, allegedly boasted about the acts of violence in music videos that were posted on YouTube and Instagram live videos. Often the videos would challenge rivals and directly lead to violent acts soon after, Clark said.
“It was senseless violence,” Clark said. “It was beefs and slights and disrespects that all drove some of these incidents. We’re doing all that we can to deal with and battle the guns scourge that is happening here in the Bronx. But more must be done to deviate these young people from the life of gangs and senseless violence. We do need to do more.”
Three defendants were also charged for allegedly committing an act of violence while held at Rikers Island.
Many of those arrested had previous gun charges, said Deputy Chief Jason Savino, who commands the NYPD’s gun violence suppression division. Two of those arrested, Donjuan Patterson, 17, and Omar Gibbs, 20, both of the Bronx, had six gun arrests between them. In total, the group had 26 previous busts for firearm possession. A untraceable ghost gun was among the weapons seized, cops said.
The gang, Savino said, was a particularly ruthless and violent group, conducting “wolf pack-like searches” for their targets, with six to upward of 12 people armed with multiple guns, along with makeshift weapons, chasing and firing shots at lone victims.
But there was also collateral damage. Many of those bullets often ended up in sacred, off-limits community spaces, like a nursing home on Gun Hill Road that had a door window shot out, and a school that was dismissing pre-teen students forced to run for cover with their backpacks on, Savino said.
