17 Gang Members Charged With Terrorizing Harlem, DA Says

HARLEM, NY — Seventeen members of a Harlem gang were indicted Friday in connection with what the Manhattan district attorney called a two-year "campaign of violence" in the neighborhood.

Starting in 2015, the "Lincoln Ova Everything" gang used attempted killings, robberies and other acts of violence against rival gangs to control their territory surrounding the Lincoln Houses public-housing complex, Manhattan prosecutors said.

The 17 people, who range in age from 17 to 28, face charges including attempted murder, robbery, conspiracy, assault and various weapons crimes, prosecutors said. Fifteen of them have been arrested but two are not yet in custody, a spokesman for Vance's office said.

"This case serves as a critical reminder that, despite a sharp decrease in gang activity and record-low crime, our work to dismantle violent street gangs is far from over," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement. "As alleged in the indictment, for two years, these 17 defendants mounted a campaign of violence in their Harlem community."

The gang members allegedly committed 20 shootings and a gunpoint robbery from August 2015 to August 2017, prosecutors said. In addition to protecting the gang's territory, the crimes were meant to "enhance their status" within the gang and avenge slights from rival gangs, prosecutors said.

In one June 2017 crime, Naquan Davis, Norman Williams and a third person allegedly took a man's cellphone and wallet while holding a semiautomatic pistol to his head at East 118th Street and Lexington Avenue.

Three days earlier, prosecutors say, four men — Elisah Brown, Tabran Centeno, Khalil Farrell and Trevor Gibbs — had allegedly used the same gun to shoot a man in the chest at Marcus Garvey Park.

Two months later, in August 2017, Aubrey Carter and Tayvon Hines allegedly shot at a group of young men on West 129th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, hitting one in the abdomen and another in the arm, prosecutors said.

Friday's indictment followed a long-term investigation of Lincoln Ova Everything, also known as LOE. The gang is one of dozens that are active around New York City, according to a 2015 map of NYPD data published by the New York Daily News. LOE stakes its claim over the Lincoln Houses, which stretch from Fifth Avenue to Park Avenue between 132nd and 135th streets, Manhattan prosecutors said.

Six of the people indicted were arraigned Friday morning. Bail for five of them was set at $100,000, while the sixth got $75,000, the spokesman for Vance's office said. The rest are scheduled to be arraigned by the end of this month, the spokesman said.

(Lead image: The "Lincoln Ova Everything" gang sought to control territory around the Lincoln Houses public-housing complex in Harlem, prosecutors said. Image from Google Maps)