A woman who testified against a Brooklyn gang that terrorized the NYCHA complex where she lived was hunted down and killed after being branded a “snitch,” federal prosecutors said Monday in revealing chilling details of her execution-style murder.
via: People
Federal prosecutors announced Monday that three men — Quintin Green, 20; Chayanne Fernandez, 21; Maliek Miller, 27 — are now in custody in connection with the targeted 2020 shooting of a Brooklyn woman. A fourth man, Kevin Wint, 27, has also been detained and charged with being an accessory after the fact.
In 2019, 33-year-old Shatavia Walls testified in a federal criminal trial that she had been shot by a gang member from the Louis H. Pink Houses housing project in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, prosecutors said.
Following Walls’ testimony, flyers were posted around the Pink Houses, where she lived, labeling her “a rat,” according to an indictment obtained by the Daily News.
Then, on the Fourth of July in 2020, Walls got into a fight with Ninedee Gang members over lighting fireworks in their housing project, during which Miller allegedly called her a “snitch” and fired a gunshot into the air.
Following that incident, prosecutors believe members of the Ninedee Gang hatched a plot to kill Walls.
On the evening of July 7, 2020, Walls was shot multiple times while walking through a Pink Houses courtyard. She succumbed to her wounds 10 days later.
Ballistic evidence recovered from the crime scene allegedly showed that one of the handguns used to shoot Walls matched the gun fired by Miller on July Fourth. Investigators believe her killing was a retaliatory act for testifying as a federal witness the previous year.
If convicted of murder in-aid-of racketeering, Green, Fernandez and Miller could face life imprisonment and the death penalty. If convicted of racketeering, Wint could face 20 years’ imprisonment, plus up to 15 years’ imprisonment for accessory after the fact to Walls’ murder.
“This investigation serves as a warning to criminals who behave as if there are no consequences to their actions,” FBI Acting Assistant Director-in-Charge Jacqueline Maguire stated in a release. “We have the ability in the federal criminal justice system to put these violent gang members away for a long time, and we will persist in our efforts to get them off the streets.”
Acting United States Attorney Jacquelyn M. Kasulis added: “It is our hope that today’s charges against members of the Ninedee Gang bring some solace to the family of Shatavia Walls as we seek justice for her senseless, cold-blooded murder.”
So sad, prayers to the family.
