Trinitarios Gang Tied To 2017 Uptown Attacks, DA Says

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS-INWOOD, NY — Members of a Bronx-based gang under the umbrella of the Trinitarios were responsible for violent assaults in Washington Heights and Inwood, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance announced Thursday.

Prosecutors are tying members of the "Los Sures" gang to attacks carried out in Fort Tryon Park and on Washington Heights streets the day after a bust netted 10 arrests. Five members of the gang are still wanted by police for their roles in the "ongoing gang conspiracy investigation," officials said Thursday.

The uptown attacks took place in 2017 as Los Sures feuded with another Trinitarios affiliate, the Washington Heights-based "F.E.B: gang. Assaults were coordinated using the encrypted messaging system WhatsApp to send orders to a group chat containing more than 100 gang members.

About 20 members of Los Sures gathered in Fort Tryon Park on Oct. 19, 2017 and chased a victim into a bodega on the corner of West 192nd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, police said. The victim hid under the deli counter as members of Los Sures armed with bats, knives and a machetes attempted to attack him. Later that night, members of Los Sures brutally attacked a man on Audubon Avenue between West 192nd and West 193rd streets, police said. The man suffered stab wounds to his head and body, a fractured skull and collapsed lungs, police said.

Another round of attacks occurred on Nov. 6, 2017, with violence once again beginning in Fort Tryon Park, police said. That night, two men were stabbed and slashed on Broadway and Dongan Place and another man was stabbed on the corner of 192nd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, according to prosecutors.

"These Trinitario members used encrypted messages to strategize, Fort Tryon Park as their meeting place, and Upper Manhattan as their hunting ground," Vance said in a statement. "They instilled fear in communities across Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, chasing their victims into bodegas and restaurants and brutally attacking them with knives, batons, and machetes."

At least six gang members indicted in the recent Los Sures bust were involved in the Uptown Manhattan attacks, prosecutors said.

The Trinitarios's Los Sures set is the same gang tied the horrific June 2018 murder of 15-year-0ld Lesandro "Junior" Guzman-Feliz outside a Bronx bodega. Gang members caught in the Wednesday bust will face charges such as conspiracy, attempted murder and gang assault charges in a Manhattan court, prosecutors said.

Patch editor Noah Manskar contributed to this report.