It was a heart-rending killing in a summer of overwhelming grief: Davell Gardner, a 1-year-old boy sitting in his stroller last July during a nighttime barbecue in Brooklyn, was shot in the stomach after two gunmen hopped out of an SUV and opened fire on the gathering.

Davell died at 2:30 the next morning and became the city’s youngest gun violence victim last year, two months shy of his second birthday. The shooting, captured on surveillance video, jolted a city already beaten down by the pandemic and roiled by unrest over police brutality.

On Thursday, 10 months later, police announced charges against two men in the killing: a gunman who is also charged in connection with two other murders, and a driver. The gunman, Dashawn Austin, 25, was among 18 young men hit with murder, conspiracy and weapons charges in an indictment to be unsealed Thursday morning in Brooklyn, which detailed the violent gang feud behind the killings.

Mr. Austin and the others charged in the indictment are members of the Hoolies, who have been engaged in a bloody rivalry with the 900 gang in Bedford-Stuyvesant, according to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office. The conflict has left at least six people dead, 14 wounded and many others fearing for their safety in the neighborhood since 2018. Nineteen members of the 900 gang were charged in January.

The killings included two shootings that occurred eight hours apart in 2018 and left a Hoolies leader and an innocent man dead, prosecutors said. Half the victims were not involved in the gangs’ beef.

“Insidious gang violence as we allege in this case has taken and traumatized far too many lives, including many innocents such as Davell Gardner,” Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, said in an emailed statement. He was scheduled to speak at a news conference with police officials on Thursday morning.

Much of the violence occurred over the last year amid a historic surge in shootings that has left New York and many other cities reeling. The N.Y.P.D. recorded 1,531 shootings in 2020 — almost double the 777 shootings in 2019 — and Davell was one of 468 people killed, the most since 2011.

Shootings have continued their sharp rise this year, jumping to 416 through May 2, from 227 over the same period last year, an 83 percent increase, according to police statistics. Murders have increased slightly. The violence has become a key issue in the mayor’s race as the city struggles to mount an effective response.

The young men charged in the two cases, who range in age from 16 to 33, dueled through rap songs posted on YouTube and in tit-for-tat shootings, according to prosecutors. The feud escalated on December 4, 2018, when the Hoolies leader, Jahlil Grant, 21, was shot in the neck and killed in the early afternoon in front of the Roosevelt Houses where the gang operates. Investigators believe the 900 gang was behind the shooting, in which a 22-year-old man was also struck in the hip and survived.

Eight hours later, prosecutors said, the Hoolies retaliated and killed a man walking in front of the Sumner Houses nearby — 900 Gang territory. The victim, Tyree Walker, 35, was affiliated with the Bloods but he was not involved in the feud between the Hoolies and the 900. He was shot in the back of the head by assassins he never saw, the police said at the time, and left behind a wife and four children.

Police and prosecutors had been investigating the gangs’ feud for more than a year by the time Davell was killed, according to earlier indictments unsealed in January.

He was one of nine children younger than 3 killed last year, but he was the only victim of gun violence among them. On what would have been his second birthday in September, his father held a memorial decorated with golden paper footballs, a sport he said the boy showed an early love for.

Davell’s paternal grandmother, Samantha Gardner, said in an interview last year that she hoped for justice, but even that would not be enough to handle the pain of the boy’s death.

“This is something that’s not going to go away,” she said. “This is something that’s going to be here until we close our eyes. So we have to live on and keep his memory alive, keep justice going on for him. We take it day by day. That’s all we can do.”

Mr. Austin was charged in the killing with his driver, Akeem Artis, 24. A police official who spoke with The Times last year said investigators believed the second gunman was an 18-year-old who has been charged with another murder, but the teenager has not been charged in Davell’s case.

Mr. Austin and another man, Jayquan Lane, were arrested last year and charged with killing Janile Whitted, a rival who worked as a bouncer at a local strip club, the Amour Cabaret on Nostrand Avenue.

Mr. Austin was also arrested and charged with robbery in 2009, gun possession in 2011 and public drinking in 2018. It is unclear how the cases were resolved.

Mr. Lane, who was also named in the indictment to be unsealed on Thursday, was previously arrested for a shooting on May 3, 2019, and charged with attempted murder. At the time, he was on probation after pleading guilty to criminal forgery charges in 2018. He was sentenced to three years of probation.

Mr. Artis was arrested in 2019 in Connecticut on larceny and identity theft charges. The charges indicate that he was found with a payment card that did not belong to him and may have been counterfeit. It was not immediately clear how the case was resolved.

Sean Piccoli contributed reporting.

Source: Read Full Article