A group of trigger-happy Brooklyn gangbangers were so intent on raining lead on their rivals that they shot four innocent bystanders in a string of 16 separate shootings, and accidentally killed one of their own with friendly fire, according to prosecutors.
Fifteen reputed members of the 59 Brim Bloods gang were charged in a 113-count indictment alleging they waged a bloody war and loosed more than 180 bullets over the past two years, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced Monday.
Four of the seven people shot in the “gang war” were innocent bystanders. One of them was a 16-year-old boy who was paralyzed for life outside a Starbucks on E. 16th St. and Avenue J on Nov. 30, after Christopher Smart, 16, and another suspect, shot at a perceived rival but missed, instead striking the innocent teen, police and prosecutors allege.
“What’s troubling is how trigger-happy these young men appear to be,” Gonzalez said. “These men were ready for war.”
In one bleak, caught-on-video shooting, one gang member fatally shot fellow gangbanger Tamari Carmona in the back of the head by mistake, then fled with his pals and left the 17-year-old victim to die on the pavement.
Carmona and three others, one of them Tyquan Holmes, 18, headed to the Flatbush Gardens Housing Complex on April 29, 2025, invading their rival Folk Nation’s territory, hoping to get revenge for the killing of another gang member, Javon Johnnie, 18, two days earlier.
Video shows the gun-toting quartet walk into the housing development courtyard, then pull out their guns, hopping as they each shoot at two hooded figures, who flee down a walkway.
Carmona gets off a shot, but steps into his friend’s line of fire and drops to the ground, shot in the back of the head. The other three shooters run off.
Carmona died two days later.
After the shooting, prosecutors say, fellow gang member Smart messaged Holmes on SnapChat, “They kept saying u shot yourself and m40 got hit,” referring to Carmona’s nickname. “How much you threw last night?”
Holmes responded, “6,” then said, “My s— jammed on da last shot,” according to prosecutors.
Holmes also texted his mom, “Somebody life got took… And I was envolved (sic),” prosecutors said.
It turned out their rivals in Flatbush Gardens had nothing to do with Johnnie’s murder.
“They assumed it had been a rival gang member because on social media some of the rivals had been celebrating and belittling Johnnie’s life,” Gonzalez said. “Unfortunately, they were wrong. There was someone else involved in his killing.”
The 15 suspects named in the indictment are members of a pair of Coney Island offshoots of the 59 Blood Brims, the Fly Ooter Gang, or FOG, and the Koney Sides, prosecutors allege. All but two pulled the trigger in a shooting, Gonzalez said.
“We know at least 182 times this small group of men fired shots in our community,” the D.A. said. “It’s a staggering amount of bullets fired in Brooklyn.”
Brooklyn DA
A group of alleged gang members fire at the Canarsie home of a rival on May 30, 2025. (Brooklyn DA)
Gonzalez released several other shooting videos, including one from May 30 of last year showing, prosecutors allege, Kristian Blackstock, 17, Smart and two others as they walk up to a rival’s house in Canarsie and fire at least 18 shots.
Chilling video from a doorbell camera shows them level their guns at the house and open fire.
Another video clip, from Feb. 20, shows Isef Richards, 27, Christopher Moore, 21, and a third gunman blast at least 30 shots on Newkirk Ave. near E. 34th St. in East Flatbush, to avenge the shooting of another gang member earlier that day, prosecutors allege. They, too, missed their mark and hit a 16-year-old bystander, wounding the teen.
Brooklyn DA
A gunman, alleged by prosecutors to be Christopher Moore, chases a group of rivals outside the Center for Justice Innovation on Elm Place in Downtown Brooklyn on March 2, 2026. (Brooklyn DA)
And on March 2, Moore ran into three Folk Nation members in the lobby of the Center for Justice Innovation in Downtown Brooklyn, where he was meeting a counselor as part of his supervised release, prosecutors said.
Having come to the meeting armed, he whipped his gun out as he left the building, then chased the trio out around the corner, shooting at them as they ran but not hitting them, prosecutors said.
“Across these shooting scenes, investigators recovered more than 180 shell casings,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. “In one incident alone, more than 30 rounds were fired into a Brooklyn neighborhood. And behind every one of these numbers is a real victim and a real community forced to live with the consequences of this violence.”