 All right, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here. I'd like to thank Eric Adams for joining us. Also here is Chief of Detectives, James Essek, and Deputy Chief Jason Savino. I'd also like to acknowledge some of the detectives and some of the prosecutors who worked directly on this case for the past two years. We're here again to talk about gangs and guns and the violence that they caused throughout Brooklyn. I remain fully committed, working with our police department to find these perpetrators of gun violence and hold them accountable so we can prevent more gang violence from happening in our county. This is a historical indictment we're about to announce going back and solving past shootings. Much of these gang members are involved in the violence that we all read about, we all experience, and the kind of violence that causes families to be afraid to let their children go out in the evenings. Today, we announce the indictment of 32 women and men who are responsible for two dozen violent incidents with 13 people being injured, one critically wounded, and ultimately, someone who passed away from gunshot wounds. Also, three innocent bystanders were shot as a result of this gun violence. During the course of this investigation, we believe 32 firearms were used or possessed by these gang members. You see a number of them here on the table. About 20 of them are here today. This is really, quite honestly, a continuation of the type of gang violence we're seeing in our county. We're two gangs joined together to become more prominent, to have more geographical dominance, and really, quite frankly, to have more access to these deadly firearms. The main gang involved in this case today are the H.R.A. Crips. They're there, and there you'll see them on the board. In the top center, sort of in the black shadow, you'll see Michael Williams. Now, many of you are familiar with Michael Williams, because he's a fairly successful musician. He rap music. He's in the center. To his left, you'll see another person named Tegan Chambers. Tegan is known as Sleepy Hollow. He's also a rapper of prominence. Chef G became, Michael Williams is also known as Chef G. He became a prominent member of this gang and became central to our investigation, quite frankly, as his music career continued to shine. He established a record label, ultimately joining with Tegan Chambers. That record label had a deal with RCA Records, which is owned by Sony Music. And quite honestly, if you ask your children of their listening to these guys, you'll hear Chef G and Tegan Chambers Sleepy Hollow on their playlist. So these are fairly prominent musicians. What we allege and what we learned during the course of this investigation is that Chef G used a lot of the money that he earned to help facilitate further gang activity. He encouraged gang members to participate in violent crimes. We'll talk more about Chef G in a few minutes. But before I do that, let's talk about the other members that joined with the A-trays. I see the second Facebook. Those are nine-way gang members. It's another crew that joined together. And together, this crew formed an alliance. This alliance waged war against their mutual enemies, the notorious Falk Nation gang, and ICG babies. Let's see a map. It's a map of central to southern Brooklyn. What you'll see is the different geographic areas where these gangs operated out of. And so what you see is that this really contained a large swath of Brooklyn, from central Brooklyn down to southern Brooklyn, really from Crospect-Lefferts Gardens, all the way into Flatbush, into East Flatbush, down to Canarsie, and into Brownsville. And so you can see where they operated out of as these gangs create this geographic dominance. As they continue to expand their territories, there are more conflicts and more rivalries happening. And so we're starting to see this happening. These gangs are joining together to become more powerful, and as a result, we're all a lot less safe. Now, before we talk about one of the serious incidents and covered by this indictment, part of what's happening in these cases is that social media beefs and taunts continue to happen. In this particular case, we alleged that Chef G. Michael Williams was engaged in social media taunts with another rapper who belongs to the Falk Nation gang. Those taunts became serious and acted upon. And it's a pattern of encouragement that we've seen through the social media postings and some of the texts that were obtained during the investigation. There's a shooting that took place in October of 2020, and that shooting is classified as a mass shooting. The lead up to that mass shooting started about a week earlier, where Chef G was engaged in taunts with this Falk Nation rapper. And during that incident, it was decided that the Falk Nation headquarters, where they hung out on Hawthorne Street, would be targeted. As a result of that targeting, six people were shot, one of them fiddly shot. In the video you're about to see, you're going to see a stolen white infinity drive up the block back into a parking driveway. And then you will see a person pop out of the sunroof, the open sunroof, start shooting. There'll be also people shooting from the passenger from the driver's side windows. In total, we estimate over 30 shots were fired. You'll see there are a number of people across the street that they're shooting at, including men and women. And then you'll see something that will show you how dangerous and coordinated these attacks are. You'll see a second vehicle that's also stolen. It was an SUV that was used as a blocker vehicle to block the police or block anyone from following the shooting car. And you'll see that the blocker vehicle, as the shooting begins, blocks the intersection and allows the shooting car to escape, driving the wrong way up a one-way street onto traffic where it's been sort of porting off for them to escape. One of the people identified in charge with the murder in this case is that man, Kamandre Dekatu. He is a member of the Atrey gang. And if you see prominently on his neck, he has the symbol of his gang and eight and a three. Let's play this video. Okay, that is the vehicle. You'll see the vehicle now reverse into this driveway. And we're gonna see this from two different angles. And now out the sunroof and out the windows, three gunmen are firing. The car goes up the one-way street in the wrong direction. Here's another angle. By the way, this car was stolen and the license plates were changed. Here's the blocker car, the SUV. It's now going to cut off the intersection to allow the car that's gonna commit the shooting to escape coming up the one-way street. Then it immediately follows. Across the street, you'll see a lot of people hanging out. The shooting vehicle is gonna be all the way to the far left of the video. You won't be able to see that that clearly, but you'll see the people running. And if you see closely, you'll see the vehicle turning in the opposite direction and flee. If you're watching, you'll be able to see a man who gets shot right there fall to the ground. Fortunately, that person survived the shooting. Pure mayhem, women and men. There was a female victim of that shooting as well. Again, pure mayhem. A 23-year-old man named Theodore Sr. was fatally killed during the shooting. I've already said five other people were wounded. Some were serious injuries to their bodies. Defended they caught to, is charged with murder, as well as his co-conspirators, including in the conspiracy is Chef Gee and his sister, Crystal Williams. They're charged with conspiracy to commit murder for these shootings, as well as for their roles in encouraging other shootings. Specifically, before this homicide took place, they're messaging that we allege Crystal Williams sent to her brother, Chef Gee, who told her brother that one of the main folk nation members had to get hit or killed, and only after one hour after the shooting, Michael Williams, aka Chef Gee, is communicating with a trusted gang member, and he's asking if the atreus had scored, and he's asking for proof of that score to be sent to him by screenshots. Just a few days later, Chef Gee takes the shooters from this incident and some other gang members for a very lavish, expensive steak dinner where they celebrate the score against their rivals. There's video of that, and we're not showing that today, but that dinner was paid for in cash by Chef Gee celebrating the score that they had shot six people two days earlier. Now, I'll tell you a little bit more about Michael Williams, aka Chef Gee. He's a Brooklyn kid. He grew up in Flatbush. We believe he became gang involved at a very young age. He got some notoriety as a drill rapper early in his life, but by 2017, he really started to have commercial success. He was really playing music that had been reached the masses, and as I've already said, he formed a record label with his friend RCA Records, bought that label, and obviously RCA Records is owned by Sony Music. He teamed up with Tegan Chambers, who's known as Sleepy Hollow, and their music is all over Spotify and that, but I think the import here is that Chef Gee is not a wannabe drill rapper. He is a legitimate person who made it good. He has gold records. He's made a lot of money. He rented a very large house, some dear quality mansion in Short Hills, New Jersey, where he was staying. He has millions of monthly listeners and over 100 million views on social media, including on YouTube and Spotify, but instead of using his fame and his fortune for the betterment of himself and his family and those close to him, we allege that he used that fame and fortune to elevate gang violence in Brooklyn. We learned that Chef Gee encouraged shootings, often by offering money or jewelry, by hosting extravagant affairs like the dinner we mentioned and using rap songs to help hype up fellow gang members. We also have direct information that Chef Gee had access to a large number of firearms and weapons, which we believe may have been used to further supply the gang with these deadly firearms. Most importantly, we also allege that he had direct and active involvement in some of these shootings. Let's see a photo that was captured for one of his phones. There you can see some of the photos that are in his cell phone. This is one of the cell phones that he had when he was arrested. Obviously, you see the AK style rifles on top. There's some handguns down below. You see a number of brand new firearms in the case with the tag still on them and also with other accessories like ammunition on the bottom. There are two photos in the middle of Michael Williams, Chef Gee holding and displaying guns. And then to your far right in the black hoodie on and the chef gold chain, that's a video. Let's quickly, and there was a lot of these videos, we're just gonna play one of them. Let's just show that video. This was a direct taunt at one of his rivals in the car with him in the back is Sleepy Hollow, the other rapper and the guy Dikatu who was charged with murder, the one who popped out of the infinity sunroof. Now, the issue for us is why would someone of his stature continue to engage in this kind of violence? We're gonna play a very short video of Chef Gee buying a very expensive Jeep Cherokee. It's only relevant because that vehicle is later used in the shooting that we believe the evidence shows that he was directly responsible for. So let's play this video. This is posted on YouTube. That's Michael Williams, Chef Gee. It's a very upscale Jeep grand Cherokee. I think it's called a track hawk. So remember this video of this vehicle because you're gonna see it involved in the shooting that took place on April 6th, 2021. What's important to know about this shooting is that a day before or two days before Chef Gee's home in Short Hills was attacked and was shot up and he believed and the gang believed that rivals were responsible for shooting his home up in New Jersey. Recovered text messages between Chef Gee and a guy named Olivelle Martinez, who's a fellow gang member, but also the boyfriend of his sister, Crystal Williams, surmised that one of their fellow gang members had to betray them to give up Chef Gee's secret house in Short Hills. And so there's a lot of conversation around getting revenge on the gang member who had betrayed them. And the gang, the A-trays, in nine ways spent months trying to track this individual down for retribution for giving up his home. What you're gonna see in this video is Michael Williams, who we allege is the driver of the vehicle, Tony Darden and Olivelle Martinez and the other folk, Kendrick Austria. Those two men are first cousins to Michael Williams, Chef Gee, and then like I said, Olivelle Martinez dates his sister. They're trying to get revenge on the person that they believe is responsible for giving up Chef Gee's house in New Jersey. And when that house was shot up, they were family members in the home. And so what you're gonna see is there's three guys there. They start to shoot up the block towards the top of the TV monitor. That white SUV you see on the right-hand corner is actually on the same side of the street that they're on, it's just there so you can see it. So that's further up the block towards the checkers. And you'll see one victim get shot there, a 43-year-old woman innocent bystander then up the block by the checkers. There's a 53-year-old male who gets shot completely innocent bystander. You'll then see the three men after they engage in the shooting run back to this Tomahawk Jeep that you just saw in the other video in that car drive away. I can tell you right now that the license plates and the info GPS on that car puts it at the scene before, during, and after the shooting. And there's a lot of other evidence, including when the car is ultimately abandoned, evidence that we have that Chef Gee gets an Uber back to Short Hills after this directly connecting him as the getaway driver. Plus there's other evidence. But let's play the video. Those are the three men. That's a woman who ends up getting shot, Victor, one. And there's a guy right there, Victor, two by the checkers who get shot in his shoulder. The three men run, again, all related to Chef Gee. They get into that vehicle right here, which is the Jeep that we've been talking about that Jeep takes off. The Jeep is followed, the police department do a great job in getting the video following, getting the license plates, doing everything they need to do, gets on the highway. What I should say is that when they're shooting up the block right there, if you know the neighborhood, the pre-grounds is there. And there's a bunch of children playing soccer and the scores of kids in the park who had a scatter from the shooting. Anyway, the Jeep takes off and ultimately it's tracked into Manhattan where it's ditched and ultimately recovered by the police department. I'll talk about this, what they believe, this turncoat who gave up Chef Gee's address ultimately 10 members of the gang, captured him one day, kidnapped him, drove him off to a cemetery in Brooklyn and started to beat him to death. He was saved because some random person called 911 and the police responded. And video of the beating was captured. We're not gonna show it because it's so graphic but to say that he came with an interest of his life is not an understatement. Those individuals were charged with kidnapping and assault. But the revenge went beyond this turncoat. They wanted to get revenge at the group they believe shot at Chef Gee's house. That was this group called the Babies. You'll see a text message between Chef Gee and his Alvo Martinez, which is the guy again who dates his sister where they discussed targeting a rival ICG Babies gang member. Just the import of this is the exchange ends with Chef saying S and M say no more. This gets done. I got five K for you. Later the same day, the shooting takes place. Now it's gonna be hard to see the shooting but I'll orient you. So white SUV stolen. It's a man crossing the street. He's a rival gang member from the group that they believe is involved in the shooting of Chef Gee's house. That vehicle is stalking him and as he starts to cross the street that vehicle will make a left hand turn. As they make the left hand turn you will not be able to see the shooting because the shooters are in the car but he's shot seven times point blank in his chest. Let's play the video. Right there he's being hit by the gunshots and see him, he tries to run away and ultimately as he gets to that corner he collapses. He was shot seven times in the chest. He had multiple, multiple surgeries and was in the hospital for a really long time for weeks upon weeks. He did survive the shooting, fortunately for him and really fortunately for all of us. Chef Gee is currently in jail on a unrelated gun charge. He was arrested by the police department and inside one of his vehicles that he was driving at that time inside a trap in the car. He had a 45 caliber handgun. He's pled guilty to that case and he will now be arraigned on this new indictment but his involvement with the gang didn't end while he was incarcerated. Tegan Chambers, among others, Tegan Chambers asleep a hollow, continued to communicate with him and give him information about the activity of the gang. In fact, the investigation showed that after Chef Gee was arrested with the gun he was very worried about what would be recovered from his cell phone and he asked Tegan Chambers to wipe his phone to get rid of all of the data including location data and financial data off his phone, which Tegan Chambers had agreed to do. I want to be clear because we spent a lot of time talking about Chef Gee. This is not an indictment about rap music. In fact, this investigation did not rely on a single lyric to prove any of the alleged crimes but it is an indictment of how when someone does well for themselves and could do real good in our community they use their fame and they use their money to further gang violence. We believe that much of the violence perpetrated by this gang was made possible because Michael Williams had a lot of cash and he promised members that if they put in the gang work they would be rewarded, either financially or appear in some of his videos or even get a record contract for themselves like Sleepy Howell did. The very last slide that I'm gonna show you because for those who think these cases do not make a difference, this is a text message between Chef Gee, Alvo Martinez and other gang members revolving around a press conference that we had right in this very room just two years, roughly two years ago and there's a link to a YouTube in that they're talking about how one of their fellow gangs had been arrested and taken down and they're talking about the dangers of using social media and apps to communicate and convey and to do gang business and in this particular case they're talking about they got the information off the telegram application meaning the police in the DA's office. I think that's a photo of me there. So these things do matter, these gang members do pay attention to these cases and they're simply mistaken. So I'll make this clear. It doesn't matter which social media company you use or what apps you use if you're engaging in street violence, if you're taking guns and you're shooting rivals if you're hurting innocent bystanders the NYPD will eventually track your case and bring you to the court of law. These individuals are being reigned as we speak and they will be held accountable and they should expect long prison sentences we surely will ask our judges to hold them accountable for what they did. Chef G is looking at a minimum of five to 25 years for his involvement as are many of the 32 members that were arrested today and obviously anyone who was involved in the homicide is looking at a life sentence. So I wanna be clear. Wiping your phone is not going to dissuade a prosecution these cases take time but we will ultimately solve these cases. I am confident that this will improve public safety. This crew continued to shoot at each other and unless they're stopped we know that the summer months are our hardest ones for public safety and shootings. And so I am positive that this will have a measurable impact on public safety in Brooklyn in particular in the Flappage section where many of these young men are from. City of New York under the mayor's leadership and the police department's tool has continued to focus on shootings and shootings are done, are down. Shootings are down in our city, they're down in our county and we will continue to fight this good fight. I wanna thank the NYPD for working on this case. These cases are very complicated, they're pieced together and very specifically the NYPD's violence reduction task force and the gun violence suppression division for putting this case together. For the ADAs in my office for about two years now they've worked to piece these 13 shootings together to make sure that families get justice, that these crimes don't go unsolved but most importantly, that we prevent future victimization. So thank you mayor for being here, we're gonna have the mayor speak and then chief Essek and the deputy chief civilian. Thank you. Well done, well done. The clear layout of a coordinated effort that we see the district attorney's office and the New York City Police Department. People often talk about the alliances that violent gangs bring together. Let's be clear we have an alliance of our own. It is the coordination of both these offices of the men and women who are here, understanding that if we focus on the small number of extremely violent people who have made up their mind that they will continue to do violence no matter what happens. Doesn't matter if they reach fame and fortune, they're going to use that fame and fortune to enhance their ability to have access to dangerous guns. 21 guns, there's not four 21 guns to shoot our neighborhoods and our families in a total disregard for everyday New Yorkers who are walking our streets. And the intersectionality of what we have been talking about for some time is revealed in this case. This is a textbook case of all of the mechanisms that are being used. I'm strongly believer that TikTok is a ticking bomb when it continues to use and exploit inner city conflicts to promote violence. When you have millions of views, young people are listening and watching the views and there's a duplication of the behavior that is spreading like a cancer throughout our communities. It is not specifically drill music itself. It is those individuals who are using any platform to promote retaliatory violence. And that is what we are seeing over and over again. And all of us should be alarmed. We have communicated several times to our various social media platforms and stated that there is a moment of responsibility that comes with the impact that social media has on all Americans in general, but specifically on young people. If it's the IKEA car challenge, if it's young people doing challenges and burning themselves 85% of their bodies, or if it's what we saw today using the platforms to assist in criminal behavior and reaching hundreds of millions of people that are already dealing with some very dark moments when you look at post pandemic. I cannot thank the DA enough and the team that's here. We saw several years ago, immediately after major game takedowns, we witnessed a substantial decrease in the shootings and violent crimes. We've done a great job of removing close to 9,000 guns off our streets. We've seen a double digit decrease in homicides. We've seen a decrease in double digit decrease in shootings, a decrease in homicides. But if we continue to have this, and as we saw the brand new guns awaited, we are constantly having to catch up. When you match the very accessibility of guns and those who are willing to use them anytime and anywhere in a very coordinated effort, you saw the sophistication of blocking off streets, targeting people, plotting out for months, the vicious beating in the cemetery. They're dangerous people. They're dangerous people. And it's a small number of them. They're repeated recidivists. That as soon as you let them out, they're back on our streets, we can have it. We are not going to give up. We're not going to surrender our streets to violence. And that has proven today about the real alliance that matters, and that is this District Attorney's Office and the New York City Police Department, and all of the innocent people that live in this city that are applauded today that we remove dangerous people from their neighborhoods. Again, District Attorney, thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Been standing up here for the better part of 10 years working with the DA, Eric Gonzalez and his staff, and none do a better job throughout the city of doing these type of cases. Also want to thank Jason Savino, the commanding officer of gun violence suppression division who'll be here in an update you're on the case. These are long-term, difficult, in-depth cases, but the benefits are tremendous. In each and every case, violence in the infected area, in this case, East Flatbush and the Flatbush section, violence will be dramatically decreased. We know this by previous cases. In this particular case, gang members, whether they were the eight-trade, the nine-trade or G-stone Crips, terrorized these neighborhoods for the better part of three years. This investigation began shortly after the gang-related shooting of six people in October 2020 at 265 Hawthorne Street, one of which resulted in a homicide. No longer will these 32 individuals shoot their guns in the streets of New York City, and we, as a city, are safer for that. I just want to introduce the commanding officer of gun violence suppression division, Jason Savino, who'll take you through the case. Well, thank you, and certainly thank you to everybody out there. You know, when I had a vantage point just watching everybody, and the reactions that we see to these videos, that's what it's all about. We want to make our streets safe, and we thank everybody for your coverage. So, good afternoon. Our members at Gun Violence Suppression Division, along with our partners standing before you, we share a mission and obligation to decrease an attempt to eliminate completely gun violence, to bring justice and protection to our beautiful members of this city, to do everything possible to keep our members safe. And as promised, we studied here not too long ago, as promised, we are standing here collectively once again, just so proud and honored to announce that today, our beloved Brooklyn is once again, a bit safer, with some of the worst, of the absolute worst now in custody. But just before I go into the investigation, I just want to just extend extreme gratitude to our case detectives. We wouldn't be here without them, a detective, newly promoted sergeant, Joe Calabres, Christopher Kelly. These two individuals just worked so tremendously, along with our partners, which I'll circle back to. But these detectives just showcased absolutely exceptional drive, dedication, and determination towards one goal and why we took this job, keeping our public safe. I also have to mention, just briefly, the team leaders who supervised the case, Captain Ryan Gillis, along with Lieutenant Sal Skiovi and Sergeant Dave Zayas, who just provided enormous guidance throughout the entire investigation and in essence, enabled this accomplishment. And I have to just note that we're just so blessed with an entire team at Gun Violence Suppression Division, we consider and treat the members of our community much like family. We take it personal and we will certainly fulfill our mission. So this takedown, and we have some more in the hopper, shows our team will remain absolutely relentless in combating this irrational gun violence. Let's get right into the case. So A-Tray is an investigation into several violent gangs that fall under the blood and Crip umbrellas. Namely, as mentioned earlier, A-Tray Crips, G-Stone Crips, and Nine-Tray Bloods. Now these gangs are aligned and all represent the woo. Now that woo may sound familiar to many people and for good reason. It's just tremendously, tremendously popular and really recognized world-wide that woo name. So the case was initiated to combat violence in and around East Flatbush and Flatbush and certainly extends into Canarsie, Crown Heights, Brownsville, so really covers a significant portion of Brooklyn. Now with this case, as all of our cases, we utilize our next level precision policing policies and address the trigger pullers. Those few individuals, as the mayor alluded to earlier, that make it downright hazardous for all the great people in our community. Case in point, when you look at those boards that were up earlier, 32 subjects, 24 of those 32 are being charged with attempted murder or worse on at least one occasion and very much worth noting, eight of the 32 have allegedly fired a gun on more than three occasions. Now think about that. Eight individuals have allegedly fired a pistol endangering our public on at least three occasions. Simply put, these are the shooters. That small group of individuals, the alphas of each gang, those very few that endanger themselves and everybody around them. Let's speak to the gangs as a whole. I like to use the three yards. Reckless, ruthless, and relentless. These are subjects that woke up and lived every single day with one objective and that was to benefit the gang, gain clout for the gang. How do you do that? You shoot ops for the gang and all this was done strictly to send a message of gang dominance. Much of this violence was fueled and rewarded by rapper Chef G who was quite often seen with his prodigy, Sleepy Hollow. Now, these are no small-time rappers. Sleepy Hollow on one song, upwards of 125 million YouTube views. Chef G, upwards of 42 million YouTube views. That's on one song alone. Such a large following. Individuals are looking to impress them. And Chef and company used the gang to carry out their threats. Just possessed just tremendous control, influence, power over the entire neighborhood. You have to remember, they were idolized by so many and feared by so many more. But what did they do with this power? They used it to dictate and orchestrate violence. Let's speak once again to the tragic incident that really was the catalyst to initiate this case. The murder of Theodore Sr. One of six shot that horrific night. You saw the video, including several that were really just enjoying themselves out there. As gang members were directed, the quote that bears repeating, one of the main gotta get hit. That text alone fueled these shootings. The gang ventured to the ops home base and fired bullets without remorse towards that large crowd that you saw. Three guns discharged. Showed zero regard for life. Now to add insult, and it was mentioned earlier, to all the victims, two days later, all of the participants of that murder were then treated to a gourmet steak dinner celebrating their accomplishment. That celebration hosted and paid by Chef and Sleepy. They actually wore matching outfits during it. One participant in particular was rewarded even further with a custom made gold chain with the homicides victim nickname on it. What an ultimate insult. In fact, promises of money, you saw them earlier, 5K, bounties as they were referred to. Not an ordinary. We had an individual known to us just out of jail. Really that individual that they thought was a snitch offended Chef that he had so much control and made it known. The response, Chef's gang ventured to where he routinely frequented and shot at him, striking those two one intendants. Now you're talking about a 40, somewhat year old and a 50, somewhat year old minding their own business. Just caught in the crossfire. These are the individuals we focus our cases around. Just no regard of anybody who was in close proximity. And that's just so potentially horrific. I've said it almost at every press conference, but I'm gonna repeat it. Fired bullets have no names. Again, fired bullets have no names. Now the gang did not stop there. They remained absolutely relentless sending a message and continued to hunt that same individual, kidnap him, throw him in the back of a car, bring him to a cemetery and dictate and initiate quite possibly the most ferocious and vicious beating I've seen. Now I've been doing this 25 years. There's good reason we didn't play that video. Thank God for the Good Samaritan calling 911 for a prompt police response to interrupt it because like the DA said earlier, it would have been grave. Now these incidents amongst so many others illustrate just how these gangs dominate and terrorize our community. But today, we stand here quite proudly to say no more. So in all 25 subjects now in custody, as a result of this investigation, now these are individuals that lived and affected our Brooklyn neighborhoods. Now these same individuals that showed little to no remorse as they carelessly fired guns and endangered all the great people of our Brooklyn communities are now behind bars. Just like to mention, this is one of numerous takedowns our gun violence suppression team has initiated and there's much more to come. Summer is approaching and we will remain at the forefront. Our teams will not let up and we will continue as always to address every gang in the city, every street in the city and every trigger puller in the city. We stand proudly and firmly to say criminality does and will have consequence and this is exactly what it looks like. So a lot of kudos just to go around that made this happen. Former Brooklyn investigative chief Joe Galata currently Andrew Arias, good a partner as they are. Along with those Brooklyn squads and the homicide squad, we really all worked as one throughout this investigation. Our DA, Eric Gonzalez, dedicating your team's partnership, our degenerates in particular, Kate Spoda, Roman Gelper, Edward Currens and Amel Spahia, just an absolute God said, a challenging and robust investigation and you really seamlessly held everything together. Our very own chief of detectives Jimmy Essek founded Gun Violence Suppression Division. We simply couldn't ask for a better mentoring coach, period. And our mayor, you really hold our torch so proudly and your genuine passion towards keeping this great community safe is so heartfelt. We're honored to have you as a leader. And lastly, a special thanks to the community with that we serve, our community. This is why we became cops. This is why we became cops to improve the quality of life of all individuals, be the city's gatekeepers and keep all of our members safe. There's a reading reason that shootings are trending downwards. Now traditionally these cases just have a tremendous influence to pleading violence. And now while even one shooting is too many, historically we see that dramatic change after the strategic investigations, not only in the immediate area, but it actually affects citywide. We're seeing that. So if history repeats itself to our community members, you will experience a better quality of life. You will have that neighborhood feel that you just so well deserved and you will feel safer. We're gracious to be a partner. So we all collectively tackle this mission as one cohesive team. And as a result, our city is safer. Thank you. Are there any on topic questions? Well, I think in general, as Chief Savino said, gang life is all encompassing. And he was involved in gang life since he being a young man and the influence that he had over the gang is something that I believe gave him and his family pride. This is, it's hard to understand, but as the gang got more influence, it was a source of pride for him. But I'll let the chief answer that more specifically, but this is something that we continue to see is that people who could exit gang life choose to continue to stay active in the gang life. And ultimately, when you have the amount of money and influence in the community that these rappers had, they actually make the gang more powerful because people want to join to be around them. They're famous. Yeah, and that's a great question. That's something that even we consider and we kick around to tell you the truth, there's no straight answer. What I can tell you is throughout our investigations, we see this repeatedly, where individuals are kind of up and coming, doing well, but they refuse to leave that gang life. And once again, I mentioned earlier, Chef G, 42 million views, predominantly before he went into jail on guns. So he's trending, he's making bones for himself, he has the respect of the entire neighborhood and is feared by others. And a lot of individuals let that dictate their actions and they just cannot give up the gang life. We have seen it successfully and we applaud it. There's tremendous programs out there. I was part of the mayor's task force. There's venues for individuals, but you have to give up the gang life. Otherwise, this is the consequence. It's a little bit of everything. There is obviously narcotics are increasingly being sold, but often it's about their own safety by formalities alliances. They're allowed to travel into neighborhoods that they probably could not travel safely if they were ops within the organization. Now, that's the benefit to them. The downside is that they also then take on their alliances enemies. So it expands the number of people who are now shooting on site. We see a lot of financial fraud in these gang activity and quite frankly, I think many of these gangs are moving more and more towards bank fraud, financial crimes, and even crypto currency fraud. Mr. Mayor, I'm noticing in this case, when you're thinking about the defendants, you're condemning their actions, speaking to how dangerous they are. It strikes a contrast with how you spoke about Daniel and you've kind of avoided talking about the specifics like this case specifically said, you have a lawyer doing that because you're concerned about tainting the kind of prosecution of that statement. Why are you not concerned about tainting this prosecution? What's the difference? Chris, thank you for your question and let's stay focused. Any other questions? Well, it's a hot issue whether or not courts and prosecutors should be allowed to use rap lyrics to help prove their cases in court. I obviously think that those decisions should be left to a judge after weighing the probative value of the lyrics. When we see what drill rap and with other music that there are actual threats to name people made, but I wanted to be very clear for those who have those concerns that none of the lyrics used in this case. And if you go on and you listen to either Chef G or Sleepy Hollow clear references to gang retaliation and actually mention of some of their rivals in the songs, none of that was used as evidence, none of that was presented to the grand jury in terms of our case. So this is just based on the investigation, the fine investigation conducted by the police department using surveillance and social media and text messaging and appropriate use of recovered cell phones. And of course, the guns, right? Because the guns also tell a story. And we should say, I didn't mention this, but there was a member in the gang who seemed to be one of the prominent traffickers of guns. He would go down, I believe, with South Carolina, if that's correct. He would go down to South Carolina and repeatedly bring guns back a number of the guns he purchased legally in South Carolina, legally in the sense that he had some kind of ID in South Carolina, were recovered in short order. So that iron pipeline is present in this case, yes. We have seven outstanding individuals. We also have a Warren Squad, a regional fugitive squad, along with our gun violence suppression division that are actively seeking those individuals. We're making arrangements as we speak, but that's about as far as I can go into it. You should turn yourselves in. Yes, it's a great point. If you are out there, if you're out there, now's the time, now's the time. Come see us, if not, we'll come see you. Can we finish anything? First of all, they have done a herculean job. The part of our success of driving down shootings those who are able to stop the retaliatory shootings. And we are now going to roll out where Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright and A.T. Mitchell from MANUP are the next phase of how we're going to utilize our violent interrupters. We believe there's a broadest plan of being more proactive and they are excited about these new changes and how we're going to really partner more with the police department and ensure that we can prevent some of these cases and connect people to some of the services that they need, those who are on the peripheral, but also zero in on those who are the violent ones. These gangs, when you look at these gangs, they are shooters, they are extremely violent people, and then there's a body of people who are just caught up in the aura of it. We need to save those so that they don't go down the pathway to violence. I wasn't invited to the dinner. But it is a fine Manhattan steak, restaurant, which I'm not going to give the name of the restaurant. It was a fine restaurant, expensive restaurant. I've been there once in my life and food is very good. But it's recorded, our young people, and these aren't the youngest of the young people, but our young people record everything. And so there's a celebration. It was centered around the score of hitting the rival, the Folk Nation Rivals Hawthorne address. That's the man shooting when the six people were shot, and they celebrated the score. It's really not much more to say other than it is how, in part, Chef G and Teagan Chambers, Sleepy Hollow assert influence, because they take people out and they're able to spend money and they're able to encourage others to do some of the gang violence that's just critically important to them and their status in the community. In response to your question about Bill, Bill transitioned today. I spoke with his wife. He was a very dear friend. We served together in the state Senate. We would ride back and forth from Albany on a train together and just, I just have so many fond memories of a person who dedicated his life on uplifting people and fighting for justice. He had a very balanced approach. He would feel extremely comfortable standing here to talk about reading guns from his lovely village of Harlem. And he was also very proud to stand up to fight on behalf of those who were wrongly accused like the Central Park Five. He has a very rich history and legacy and we lost a very strong, committed fighter for justice in the city. I wish his family well and I'm going to miss him. Again, he was a very dear friend. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you, man. Good job, Bill. Thank you.