Dozens of accused members and associates of a violent gang that pistol-whipped and used hammers to attack rivals of their drug operation were indicted for crimes including a shooting that paralyzed a girl in Brooklyn, authorities said on Thursday, according to the New York Post.
A crackdown on the Gates Avenue Mafia resulted in a 146-count indictment naming 32 people, all but seven of whom have been arrested, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson said in a statement, the Post reported.
The charges range from conspiracy to sell narcotics and weapons to attempted murder, the New York Daily News reported.
The bust was the result of an investigation into the shooting in May of 11-year-old Tayloni Mazyck, who was waiting for her aunt outside a Brooklyn building when she was caught in the crossfire of gang members, leaving her paralyzed from the the waist down, Daily News reported.
"There is absolutely no reason why an innocent 11-year-old girl should be caught in a hail of bullets while sitting outside with her family on a spring evening and is now paralyzed," Thompson said in the statement, according to the Post.
The investigation exposed a criminal network where narcotics such as heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine were not only trafficked on the streets of New York City, but also transported by Greyhound bus to a small upstate New York town, Gloversville, the Post reported.
The indictments said three men allegedly broke the knees and ankles of two opponents by savagely beating them with hammers and pistol-whipping them before one of the assailants eventually shot one of the victims through a couch cushion, according to the Daily News.
The operation signaled a determination that police in New York "will not tolerate children being shot on our streets," Police Commissioner William J. Bratton added, the Post reported.
