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Sixteen alleged teenaged gangsters in rival East Harlem crews were charged Tuesday with terrorizing their innocent neighbors in a months-long barrage of gun violence.
Members of the “LA World” and “Wuski” gangs — most of them under 18 — were behind 21 separate shootings from March 2024 until this February, Manhattan prosecutors alleged in two sweeping indictments.
The crews sent bullets whizzing down crowded sidewalks and into building playgrounds and lobbies — accounting for a whopping half of the 23rd Precinct’s total 38 shootings between March and September 2024, cops and prosecutors said.
“For months, these gang members turned East Harlem into their personal battleground,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters. “And now their cycle of violence and retaliation is over.”
Police seized 15 illegal semi-automatic guns — including a pistol equipped with a green laser — when they arrested eight of the alleged gangsters Tuesday morning, officials said.
Four more alleged crew members were already in custody, and four remained at-large Tuesday afternoon.
The brutal turf war erupted after Harry Mendoza, a 25-year-old member of LA World — which is based out of the New York City Housing Authority’s Lehman and AK Houses — was fatally shot, along with a 16-year-old girl, at Lexington Avenue and East 128th Street on March 24, 2024, authorities said.
Hours later, an alleged LA World crew member — who is just 16 years old and charged with committing five shootings within a single week — fired five times into the lobby of a building in the nearby Johnson Houses, where the Wuskis are based, piercing the front door window, prosecutors alleged.
The violence escalated from there, often outside and in broad daylight, authorities said.
“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,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said at a news conference.
“This brazen disregard for the lives of others created an atmosphere of terror for any other group going about their daily business.”
Bragg said it was “particularly tragic” that thirteen of the alleged gangsters were under 18 when the shootings unfolded — but he called the charges “a necessary step to achieve lasting public safety.”
Mayor Eric Adams, who attended the news conference, said he was taken aback that just a handful of teens were allegedly responsible for half of the neighborhood’s gun violence.
“Just 16 people accused of 50 percent of an entire precinct’s shootings – let that sink in,” the mayor said, adding that “We have to get the small number of people who repeatedly commit crimes off our streets.”
Nine alleged LA World members and seven alleged Wuski members are hit with charges including second-degree conspiracy with the intent to commit Murder, attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
The twelve alleged gangmembers in custody were expected to make their first appearances before a Manhattan judge late Tuesday. Their attorneys could not immediately be reached.
