Manhattan DA Cy Vance wants you to know he is tough on crime. So tough, in fact, that today he personally went before a judge to read the charges his office is bringing forth against 14 members of the "137th Street Crew," an alleged Harlem gang. "This isn't just about a threat to safety and our streets," Vance explained in a conference earlier today. The crew "targeted children and young teenagers to hold and transport firearms of individual gang members."
The charges against the gang members—nine of whom are under 18—are many and varied and include attempted murder, attempted assault, weapons possession and conspiracy.
The gang, which operates around West 137th Street between Lenox and Seventh Avenues, has been under surveillance since July 2008 when it was actually two separate crews, the "2 Mafia Family" and "Goons on Deck", according to Vance. They have "for years has created an environment where residents lived in a state of alert and a state of fear, ready for the next gunshot, the next drug deal or the next act of violence in their neighborhood," according to Vance.
As part of the investigation police listened in on phone conversations between members of the gang and perps in Riker's—and they got some choice quotes. 20-year-old Jaquan Layne, a.k.a. "Jay Cash," who was held on violent robbery charges in December 2009 allegedly encouraged his gang members with a speech we swear we've heard on The Wire:
"Hug the block on the first—you gotta be out there in the morning ... The morning, the morning, from like the morning. Just sit in front of the stoop in the morning. You catch all the morning flow ... 'cause they'll all come see you, boom, boom, boom, cause that's the morning. That's their first high. So you know they're gonna come get that.
And though they had a "code" for phone conversations ("bricks" were drugs, "toys" were guns, and "chicken" was, uh, money) they sometimes would forget about it mid-conversation. In one conversation "Jay Cash" flat out asked "Who is bagging up the crack?"
