Transcript: Mayor Adams Makes Public Safety-Related Announcement with D.A. Bragg and NYPD Commissioner Tisch

April 8, 2025

Watch video here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3ZVaps_IlU

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg: Good afternoon. I'm Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and I'm honored to be joined today by Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. We are here to announce two indictments that were unsealed earlier today. The indictments charged 16 defendants with 21 shooting incidents in a murder conspiracy that plagued East and Central Harlem last year.  
 

This case is the result of outstanding work by the NYPD and detectives and our team here at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Some of them are in court right now. Assistant District Attorneys Sean Flatow and Rachel Movius are working in the arraignment part. Joined on stage from the DA's office to this side, Deputy Chief of the Trial Division Christopher Prevost. We have Detective Joseph Kenny, Detective Leeani Capote, and not joined on stage but want to thank them for the great work, Inspector Craig Edelman and Sergeant William Bush.  
 

The two indictments unsealed today contain a total of 108 counts. The charges include conspiracy in the second degree, attempted murder in the second degree, and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. I mentioned that two assistant district attorneys are in court now. We expect the majority of the defendants to be arraigned later this afternoon in Part 73, which for those of you who do not know is located on the seventh floor of 111 Centre Street.  
 

Before I go into the facts, I do want to really talk a little bit more about the team and this phenomenal collaboration. We take all shootings, regardless of whether someone's struck or not, extremely seriously and have devoted a significant amount of resources to that end, along with our partners at the NYPD, and this investigation reflects that priority.  
 

The work that goes into this, reviewing video evidence and photo evidence, the drafting and execution of search warrants, is rigorous and hard but produces the type of results that we see today.  
Between March 25th and September 30th, 2024, the defendants allegedly accounted for 50 percent of the shooting incidents in the 23rd precinct. Let me just say that again, 50 percent of the shooting incidents in that precinct, which is located in East Harlem.

That is an astonishing number, I submit to you. And while the conduct did go beyond that precinct, it shows, it gives you a sense of the concentrated impact that this conduct had in East Harlem.  
In total, there were 15 weapons recovered pursuant to this investigation, some of which are here before you today. Thirteen of the weapons recovered were fired, we allege, by one of the defendants in this matter. The root of the alleged violence was retribution between two rival gangs, L.A. World and Wuski . A double homicide in March 24, involving an L.A. World member, quickly spiraled out of control. L.A. World allegedly trained its sights on one of their main rivals, the Wuski gang. And over the next several months, we allege, the two gangs continually exchanged gunfires.  
 

Bullets flying everywhere, on crowded street corners, near innocent bystanders, at playgrounds, near children, through the windows of a NYCHA lobby, and a residential unit, and a bus stop. This brazen disregard for the lives of others created an atmosphere of terror for any other group going about their daily business, and it will not be countenanced here in Manhattan.  
 

What is particularly tragic about this case is the ages of the defendants. Thirteen of them were under the ages of 18 when the charged conduct occurred. It is sobering for me to bring such charges, serious charges against defendants who are so young. I do not want to continue to have to make these types of announcements. I want our young people in all of our neighborhoods to live healthy, stable, and productive lives, free from the trauma of gun violence.  
 

Bringing these indictments and removing individuals from the community who we allege repeatedly endanger the lives of others, including other young people, is a necessary step to achieve lasting public safety. But it's only one piece of the puzzle.  
I'm proud of our strategic investments we have made to stop youth gun violence before it occurs, including our youth gun violence prevention funding, which funds community-based organizations who conduct meaningful, evidence-based intervention with youth who are at risk of gun violence, both victims of gun violence and also those who might go on to commit it, intervening before anything bad happens.  
 

We're continuing our conversations with our community partners in all parts of Harlem, East Harlem, Central Harlem, and West Harlem, about deepening these gun violence prevention efforts. The centerpiece of all that we do here is focus on our victims and our survivors. We are committed to supporting victims and witnesses of gun violence so that untreated trauma does not lead to a continuing cycle of violence.  
 

We know that Black and Latino men in particular disproportionately bear the scars of traumatic gun violence. I know that personally. That's why our Survivor Services Bureau has a dedicated men of color response team whose counselors and advocates have the cultural competency to build trust and provide the support that we need to give survivors so they can heal.  
 

In closing, just draw everyone's attention to the totality of the work. The combination of the prevention work and the essential, essential enforcement work that we announce here today has yielded significant public safety results. Between 2021 and 2024, homicides in Manhattan decreased 20 percent and shootings decreased 45 percent. And as we all know from the mayor and the police commissioner's briefing last week, this year has gotten off to a very encouraging start.  
 

But we know there's a lot more work to do, and we will continue to use every tool available to keep our community safe from gun violence. I'm privileged to do that work alongside the mayor and the police commissioner, and we will now hear from the mayor of the safest big city in America. 
 

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you so much, district attorney and your entire team. And we communicated with the detectives early in this room who were working on this case for about a year. And I think that when you think about Lehman Houses and Johnson Housing, you think about public housing. And far too often, they have been the victim of a numerical minority that depends on or that carry out illegal behavior. And the focus on these entities have allowed us to drop crime in our public housing.  
 

It's something that's important to us. And when you match this, what I think the DA stated, and I hope it wasn't lost, it is intervention and prevention. We cannot just have intervention policies when we do apprehensions and arrests. What are the preventive models? And the unorthodox methodologies that this DA has decided to use, how do we stop the flow of violence? That is what we want to do in this city.  
 

For far too long, we have to respond to crime scenes in hospitals where victims of violence and victims of shootings. If we don't stop the flow, we will never be able to deal with many of these things that young people are experiencing. It breaks our heart when you have to sit in a hospital room where a young person is a victim of a shooting or some form of violence, or you have to go visit a parent or a loved one because they lost a child to violence. We want to be ahead of this. But when we can't do that, we have to be strong and firm in making the arrests and the prosecution. And that's what the symbolism is showing us today.  
 

Listen, something was important to us. Over 21,000 illegal guns, guns like the ones in front of us, was removed off our street. It was important to us not only to hit a benchmark of five straight quarters of decrease in crime, but also this quarter, the lowest number of shootings in recorded history, second lowest number of homicides in recorded history. That's the consistency that we must have.  
 

And when you have good partners, such as the Manhattan district attorney and his team, detectives who are on the ground to close these cases, do the proper investigation, and everyday men and women in the blue uniform who are willing to carry out the action to get these dangerous guns off our streets, not only those that are coming from manufacturers, but those who are being manufactured through ghost guns. That is the pursuit we must do. Without this partnership, it's just not going to happen. With this partnership, we're going to continue to be the safest big city in America.  
 

Look at those numbers. The 16 committed 50 percent of the shootings in that precinct during that particular period of time. That is the recidivism that we're talking about. That's the fight in Albany around making sure discovery is right. We have to get the small number of people who repeatedly commit dangerous crimes off our streets, and we are encouraged by today's indictment and the continued collaboration that we will experience. Again, thank you District Attorney Bragg. 
 

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch: Good afternoon. Under Mayor Adams, New York City saw historic crime declines in the first quarter of this year. Major crime is down in every borough, with steep reductions in our patrol precincts, in our subways, and as the mayor just said, in our housing developments. The women and men of the NYPD are delivering real results, and that is clearly reflected in our fight against gun violence.  
 

Shootings in New York City are at an all-time low because the NYPD has been relentless in our efforts to get illegal guns off our streets and build strong, targeted cases against the trigger pullers. This is another one of those cases as we stand with Mayor Adams, D.A. Bragg, and members of the NYPD's Gun Violence Suppression Division to announce the takedown of two violent street gangs.  
 

Nine members of the gang L.A.World and seven with the rival Wuski gang are indicted today. And this morning, detectives took eight people into custody, with four more being sought. For months, these gang members turned East Harlem into their personal battleground, terrorizing families living in Manhattan's A.K. Houses, Lehman Houses, and Johnson Houses.  
 

And now, their cycle of violence and retaliation is over, and they face charges including attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. In all, this investigation closes out twenty one separate shooting cases. They fired across courtyards, they fired into lobbies, and down sidewalks. They targeted their rivals at all times of the day and night with a complete disregard for innocent life.  
 

And on a single day last March, they committed four separate shootings in four different housing developments. But today, thanks to meticulous investigation, relentless detective work, and strategic use of every tool available, the neighborhood of East Harlem just got a lot safer. As part of this case, the NYPD recovered 15 illegal semi-automatic firearms. And through ballistics analysis of those guns and the 85 shell casings we recovered, we were able to forensically link five guns to multiple shootings.  
 

With this intelligence, detectives connected incidents, identified patterns, and built leads. And on my theme of recidivism, they also found that nine of the sixteen defendants have fired a gun on at least three separate occasions. They even bragged about it on social media and shared screenshots from the Citizen app when shootings were reported. They were calculated, clear about their deadly intentions, and they wanted the credit.  
 

So today, we are more than happy to give it to them. Detectives used one particular tool in this investigation that some in the City Council want to abolish. And that is the NYPD's Criminal Group Database. This database helped our investigators understand the members of these gangs and, importantly, their rivalries. Calls to get rid of this tool are dangerous. They fly in the face of public safety.  
 

But the NYPD will never waver in its crime-fighting mission. When we talk about precision policing, this is it. When we talk about targeted enforcement, this is it. And this is how we stop the next shooting before it happens. From his first day in office, Mayor Adams made it quite clear that ridding our city of illegal guns and holding the criminals who use them accountable would be the central focus of his public safety agenda.  
 

I want to be very clear, that strategy paid off. And it's the major reason why we have seen historic shooting declines in our city. Today, that work continues. And we can add these illegal firearms to the more than 21,000 guns we've taken off of our streets under the mayor's leadership. So again, I want to thank Mayor Adams for the trust he's placed in me and for his unwavering support of the brave women and men of the NYPD.  
 

I also have to commend lead Detective Leanni Capote and her GVSD team for their truly exceptional work. When I was briefed on this case, I loved hearing about how a no-nonsense female detective took on these violent gang members and brought them down. The people of East Harlem are very fortunate to have her and her team fighting for them. Great job.  
 

Finally, I want to thank Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his entire team for their partnership and their continued dedication to keeping the people of Manhattan safe. This case is yet another example of the NYPD and the Manhattan D.A.'s office doing what we do best and better than any other Police Department in the world. So to every member of the NYPD, thank you and stay safe. 
 

Question: This is a question for [inaudible]...Can you tell us a little bit about the history of these gangs? How long have they been here? Are they part of a subset of a [inaudible] crew? And just a little bit more about how they operate? 
 

Joseph Kenny, Chief of Detectives, Police Department: So, in total, L.A.World currently has 30 members listed in ECMS in our criminal group database where Wuski has 31 members. So if you look at it, we essentially knocked out almost 30 to 35 percent of the gang with this takedown. There's been historical violence back and forth between these groups for many years. This incident basically initiated over drug territory where Johnson was selling it Lehman, Lehman was selling it Johnson, and that's what started the violence. 
 

Commissioner Tisch: Can I add one thing? I just want to add that Chief Kenny would not have been able to answer that question without the use of the criminal group database, which allows us to understand and associate people to gangs.  
 

Question: [Inaudible.] 
 

Chief Kenny: So currently, right now, we have 507 identified gangs and crews operating within New York City, with 13,304 members being in that database as of right now. We have a very strict criteria. You have to meet certain criteria to get into the gang, meaning that you have to be vetted out. You have to either self-admit. We identify you through social media or through law enforcement.  
 

We just can't, you know, just add people into the database because we want to. If you can imagine, 12 years ago, there were 40,000 people listed in the criminal group database. So we are vetting that list. It is very, very precise. So if you want to go [from] 2021, 1,497 people were added to the database, but 4,488 were removed. So we stick to a very strict criteria. We just don't add anybody into the database. 
 

Question: [Inaudible.] 
 

Mayor Adams: Yeah, that's so important. It was important to us to go after those communities that historically had issues with youth violence. Everything from our 100,000 Summer Youth Employment, we had in a special [category] for those who were living in public housing, as well as our Summer Rising program, and our prevention work. What we're doing with justice-involved young people to give them proper training.  
 

We did several announcements in Queens on how we are identifying those young people who are justice-involved to put them back on the right path. And Commissioner Holmes over at the Department of Probation, some of her preventive work that she's doing as well. And Deputy Commissioner Stewart that's in Community Affairs.  
 

Everything from teaching our young people real estate license, how to fly a plane. There's a series of events that we are zeroing in on our young people, which is beyond the scope. What the D.A. is doing here is beyond the scope of traditional district attorney's office. What we're doing in the Police Department is beyond the scope of what our primary functions are. We know we have to prevent crime in order to make our city safe. And there's a host of other things that we're doing. We could turn that over to you as well. 
 

Question: [Inaudible.] 
 

District Attorney Bragg: I'll [answer] the first question first. We have to engage in motion practice in our youth part in the New York Supreme. We'll do that, make motions given the serious nature of this conduct. We'll make the motions to retain them. But you hit on a really important point. This is not a one-off, right? We were before you, I think you particularly were here when we talked about Johnson and Jefferson two years ago. We brought, I think it was twelve prosecutions targeted, as the police commissioner noted, targeted prosecutions at those who were driving the violence.  
 

And then we paired that with strategic investments in the community. And we had a period that stretched into the next year with not a single shooting in that neighborhood. I was at this very podium a few months ago talking about interventions in Washington Heights and that we had, along with the great work of the NYPD, made a very significant dent into a group that was doing horrific, we allege, conduct in Washington Heights and Inwood. 
 

50 percent of the shootings in the 33 and the 34, Washington Heights and Inwood, last year. So, yes, we are seeing this, and we are deploying our resources accordingly. Like, working on cases where there is sort of, you know, a series of shootings, in particular, where there are two factions or groups that are opposed to each other, mindful of retribution, and building cases to disrupt that cycle. We are taking this model to other neighborhoods, and it's working. It's working. 45 percent reduction in gun violence. 
 

Police Commissioner Tisch: I'll just add, one of the reasons that the stakes are so high with this proposed legislation in the city council to abolish the criminal group database is because 60 percent of all shootings in New York City are gang-related.  
 

District Attorney Bragg: So, I can actually talk specifically about that matter. That matter was brought while I was here. We talked with our federal counterparts. We announced jointly at the U.S. Attorney's Office sort of a division of labor on that matter, with them taking more of the sort of narcotics trafficking and us doing more of the gun violence.  
 

So, we continue to be in discussion with our federal partners. As you may know, I was a federal prosecutor, and we collaborate. We're trying to use our resources, you know, jointly where we can, mindful [that] there is unfortunately a lot of work to be done. So, we're not going to spend time, you know, arguing with each other, but rather want to spend time collaborating, focusing our resources, working together where we can, or mindful of the other's work so that we can be maximizing each other's work in an area. 
 

Chief Kenny: So, what we see is that 15 of the 20 shots fired incidents took place between 9 and 5. 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon, where people are going to work, you have children going to school. We actually have videos of mothers with strollers running for safety as these incidents are taking place.  
 

Completely brazen, no regard for human life. Their sole mission was a call to arms for them to kill each other, and that's what they were out there doing. They didn't care who was in the way. 

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