VIDEO: NY Goons 9 Final.mov

REWRITTEN: 2026-05-12 23:04:46

SCRIPT 615 OF 686

============================================================

Yo, the streets of Upper Manhattan were drowning in blood—young, violent drug crews battling over territory with calculated terror campaigns that left roughly 523 corpses scattered from '83 to '88. Investigators called it bloody proof of the rising drug violence plaguing the entire city ever since crack started flooding the blocks around '84, '85. Cats were bodying rivals, silencing snitches, and keeping law-abiding citizens too shook to complain about the open-air drug markets poisoning the streets. Word was these gangs were responsible for about one out of every three murders north of 96th Street since '83. The Manhattan DA's Homicide Investigation Unit, the squad that focused strictly on drug gang hits in northern Manhattan, had pegged more than a dozen crews suspected in the bulk of these bodies—outfits with names like the Vigilantes, the John Johns, and the Preacher Crew. These organizations moved in broad daylight for maximum intimidation, usually on packed streets. The tool of choice? Semi-automatic pistols. The methodology? Multiple close-range shots to the dome. While most hits stemmed from internal gang warfare, territorial disputes, or money beefs with customers, several victims were just civilians caught in wild spray. In at least one incident, a 66-year-old Harlem restaurant owner, Thomas Wilson, got bodied in '85 after he complained to police about street drug operations by a crew called the John Johns outside his restaurant and bakery on Amsterdam Avenue at West 158th Street. Using identical tactics, violent drug syndicates operated throughout New York—the rest of Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens. Although law enforcement had been hip to the Manhattan gangs for years, they were becoming increasingly concerned about the violence escalating in northern Manhattan and potentially spreading to other parts of the city. From '83 through '88, law enforcement officials estimated that drug gangs in Upper Manhattan were suspected of involvement in anywhere from 359 to 523 bodies. People acknowledged it was difficult to nail down a precise figure within that range because the circumstances of specific homicides weren't always clear, and estimates had to be based on information gathered from informants, police departments, investigators, and homicide detectives. The homicide unit in Manhattan was the only prosecution squad in New York City that exclusively investigated drug gang murders. While similar gangs existed in other boroughs during this period, Upper Manhattan was experiencing the most serious problems at the time. Investigators in the Koch administration expressed frustration facing the rising violence, citing lack of manpower and problems that went beyond local law enforcement. Investigators acknowledged that most drug gang homicides might be unsolvable because witnesses feared retaliation against themselves or their families if they testified against gang members. Years before the homicide unit was established in '84, drug-connected homicides in Manhattan were generally handled separately. Without coordinated efforts by prosecutors and police, the creation of the unit was triggered by two developments—police intelligence reports about the emergence in '83 of extraordinarily violent heroin and cocaine drug gangs north of 96th Street, and the execution in November '83 of Bobby Edmonds. Bobby Edmonds was a key prosecution witness at a homicide trial. Two suspects, Nathaniel Walker, 22 years old, and Delray Ross, also known as Pop, 20, were charged with second-degree murder in connection with the killing. That night, hours before he was scheduled to testify, the witness Bobby was shot twice in the head. Mr. Walker, Pop, and another suspect, Alexis Lee Perry, 23, from Anthony Avenue in the Bronx, were charged with conspiracy as well—plotting to body three fictitious rivals for an undercover detective posing as a cocaine dealer. The three men were also charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance. A fourth suspect, Frank Sweeper, 31, also from the Bronx, was arrested and charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance. We'll elaborate on this situation later. The homicide unit consisted of six members and worked closely with police department homicide and narcotics investigators on drug-related homicide cases in Upper Manhattan. From evidence obtained through secret listening devices, informants, and court testimony, investigators noted striking similarities among the gangs. Each crew sought to control a specific area. They ranged in size from six to 30 principal members, most in their teens to mid-twenties. Members were forbidden to use drugs on the theory that doing so would make them unreliable and vulnerable to arrest and being flipped into police informants. To demonstrate toughness, the gangs normally killed in daylight, often on crowded streets. The hitter preferred clapping a victim in the head at close range without attempting to disguise their identities. The current favorite weapon for gang gunmen, investigators said, was a 9mm semi-automatic pistol. The 16-shot pistol at the time sold for about a grand in the underworld market. Just to re-identify the major gangs that operated above 96th Street in Harlem and give you a scope of the time period—we had the New Vigilantes, a loose amalgam of the original Vigilantes and the PC Boys, also known as People's Choice. There was the John Johns, the Dewwops, the well-known Preacher's Crew, the Brunson gang, two Jamaican posses known as the Spanglers and Kirk's, and three significant Dominican gangs—the Gums Brothers, Willie's Crew, and the Scarface gang. All ran networks that sold powder and rock. Some also pushed dope. There was fierce rivalry in Harlem between the John Johns and the Dewwops that led to several gun battles. In time, two suspected Dewwops members were slightly wounded in a barrage of gunfire as they emerged from a Mercedes limousine in the Baychester section of the Bronx. An 18-year-old woman who was in the car was shot and paralyzed. Her six-month-old fetus was killed. By '84, the homicide unit focused on the Vigilantes, then considered by law enforcement experts to be the most dangerous drug gang in Harlem. Investigators secretly videotaped reputed gang members discussing their motivations and tactics and carrying out murders. Yo, we mixed up in homicide and drugs, said Pop, the reputed member of the Vigilantes, as he poured himself another glass of champagne one day in '85. We sell drugs and we kill. This was Pop's secretly recorded boasts to undercover detectives, which gave the Manhattan homicide unit fresh insight into the minds and methods of the Upper Manhattan gangs. According to court documents, the Vigilantes were formed in the late '70s by William R. Underwood, or Bill, who was then in his mid-20s. Convicted on gun possession charges in '73 and '76, Underwood was released each time on probation. When he was arrested in '88, he listed his occupation as a music manager. Indeed, he was that. And if he hadn't gotten caught up, he would probably be a prominent music figure today. During his time in the business, according to Don Diva magazine, he promoted top acts such as Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Earth Wind and Fire, Kenny Loggins, Wham, New Edition, and Guy. He managed the R&B funk band Slave and lead singer Steve Arrington. He later went on to discover and manage R&B singer Johnny Gill, ultimately aligning Johnny with the boy band New Edition. The flip side of this was the drug game. After they were busted, the media described them as the Black Murder Inc, named after the infamous organized crime group that was believed to be responsible for between 400 and 1,000 contract killings until the group was exposed in 1941. From the investigation, police determined that the gang operated out of three old tenements at 390, 392, and 394 Manhattan Avenue near 117th Street. The Vigilantes were selling 20 bands worth of dope a day until the investigation started. Once surveillance began, sales declined to between $3,000 and $6,000 a day. The gang, he added, stamped a brand name "Vigilante" on the packages of dope it sold. An investigator in the case said the Vigilantes recruited boys as young as 15 or 16 who would stay with the gang into their late 20s or early 30s. Gang members routinely moved up in position when a colleague went to jail or otherwise left the gang. Members earned respect from their peers and advanced by catching bodies. Despite the gang's violent reputation, it did not terrorize the area it controlled along Manhattan Avenue from 114th to 119th Street, nor did it extort shopkeepers. The detective said the gang was formed in 1975 and its existence was common knowledge in Harlem. Members commonly wore military fatigues and military surplus bulletproof vests. The highest-ranking members were known as gold hatchets. Next were silver hatchets, then bronze hatchets, according to the detective. Some of them wore a charm around their necks bearing the Vigilante insignia—a mark of status and bloodshed that echoed through the streets of Upper Manhattan like a death knell.

By the late '80s, the feds had dismantled most of the major operations through coordinated federal and state investigations. The crack epidemic that had fueled the violence began to wane, though its scars remained etched into the fabric of northern Manhattan. Many of the key players, including founder William Underwood, landed lengthy prison sentences. Pop, the cold-blooded enforcer who boasted about his body count over champagne, went down hard. The once-mighty Vigilantes, the John Johns, the Dewwops, and the Dominican and Jamaican posses that had ruled Harlem with absolute brutality—all fell into history. The legacy of NY Goons 9 and the Upper Manhattan drug wars of the '80s wasn't measured in the money made or the territory controlled. It was measured in the 500-plus bodies stacked in morgues, the families destroyed by loss and grief, the neighborhoods hollowed out by fear and despair, and the generation of young Black and Latino men lost to violence or prison. These weren't mythical figures or folk heroes—they were murderers who destroyed their own communities in pursuit of profit and power. The Manhattan Homicide Investigation Unit's work ensured that many paid the price, but the real cost was paid by the people living on those streets, the innocent bystanders caught in wild spray, the witnesses too terrified to speak. Today, the story of NY Goons 9 remains a brutal reminder of how quickly neighborhood violence can spiral into an epidemic, how the drug trade devours communities from within, and how a generation of young people can be consumed by a system designed to destroy them. Their names have mostly faded from memory, their operations dismantled, their reign of terror over. But the streets they once controlled still remember the blood they spilled, and the families they destroyed still carry the scars. That's the real legacy—not glory or respect, but devastation, loss, and the cautionary tale of what happens when violence becomes currency and human life becomes worthless.