# NYC GANGS FOLK FINAL

## COMPLETE SCRIPT

VIDEO: NYC Gangs Folk Final.mov

REWRITTEN: 2026-05-12 23:12:52

SCRIPT 617 OF 686

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Yo, let me put y'all up on this story about the folks, the GDs from a certain section of Brooklyn. This where the blickies call home, but we talking before their timeline. Same hood, different era. Let's dive in. The folk nation is a nationwide organization that throws up different gang signs, handshakes and symbols, including a six-pointed star, a pitchfork pointing up, and the acronyms B-O-S-S, which means Brothers of the Strong Struggle, and L-O-T-S, which means Land of the Sixth. Since around 2008, the NYPD and the feds been investigating members of the Sixth Tray outlaw gangster disciples folk nation set. The Sixth Tray ran things in the Ebbets Field Housing Projects in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn for years. They had about 20 to 25 identified soldiers, several who already caught cases for gang-related crimes. From around 2007 through 2011, the Sixth Tray members were behind a whole wave of gang-related violence, including bodies, non-fatal shootings, and commercial stick-ups, both in and around Flatbush and other spots. From around the time it started through late 2009, the Sixth Tray folk nation was run by Swerve. Swerve got knocked in late 2009, his number two, D-block, took over street-level control of the operation. Members of the Sixth Tray held gang meetings about every four to six weeks, and Swerve would often run discussions about bread, new recruits, individual members' ranks, and violations that members might've committed. Each Sixth Tray member had to throw money into the gang's stash every week, and if a member missed three weeks of payments, he got violated. The gang's collective money was usually used to cop guns. Swerve, who got the letters L-O-T-S tattooed on his forearm, rose up to become the leader or big homie of the set. He was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1983. Swerve was raised by his moms under broke circumstances and got no contact with his biological pops, who lived somewhere in Texas. As the leader of the operation, Swerve ran the gang's business during a period when they were engaged in a bloody war with the Eight Tray Crips, a rival crew, which resulted in multiple murders and other violent crimes. Before we get into that though, we gotta talk about his first body. On the night of April 19th, 2008, a resident of the Ebbets Field Apartments threw a birthday party for her niece. A bunch of folk nation members, including Swerve and D-Block, came through to the party. Swerve's girl lived down the hall at the time. During the party, Swerve brought a group of new Sixth Tray inductees into a room in the apartment and conducted an induction ceremony where he gave them the oath of admission into the gang. As part of the ceremony, Swerve required inductees to pledge loyalty. A member named Bell understood that if one of the Sixth Tray members had an opp, that was his opp as well, and that in being a member one agreed to do everything up to killing rivals of the gang. Later that night, a fight broke out between Duan, who was the boyfriend to the daughter of the person throwing the party and was allied with the Sixth Tray, and would become a member a few months later, and Omar who wasn't affiliated with the gang. Shortly after Omar pulled up, him and Duan got into an argument, but allegedly hugged it out. The beef died down, but then popped off again when Omar or somebody else allegedly broke a bottle in the kitchen. At some point, Bell allegedly swung on Omar and Sixth Tray members, including Swerve and D-Block, jumped in the fight against Omar. The fight moved from the apartment out into the hallway where Swerve and other Sixth Tray members beat, stomped on and kicked Omar, who got knocked to the ground. Courtney Robinson, who was Omar's uncle, jumped in the fight on Omar's side, swinging a liquor bottle, trying to crack Omar's Sixth Tray attackers with it. Omar was able to escape back into the apartment. Allegedly Swerve, together with other Sixth Tray members, ran from the crowd toward a room next to the stairwell and incinerator shaft, where Sixth Tray members stashed weapons. Swerve then ran back from the stairwell area toward the fight. Moments later, Robinson caught a bullet. There was no evidence of the presence of any other burner than the one Swerve was carrying as he ran back toward the chaos. Coug, one of the Sixth Tray members who ran with Swerve to the stairwell where the Sixth Tray kept hidden hammers, said on seeing Robinson's body, we shot the wrong somebody. A forensic pathologist testified that Robinson's gunshot wound was a contact entrance wound, meaning that the barrel of the gun was real close to Robinson's skin when it went off. The Sixth Tray folk nation was initially allied with a set of the Crips gang known as Eight Tray Crips, but in August 2008, the two gangs became opps. The beef started after dolls, a member of the Sixth Tray leadership, got robbed while in the Vanderveer housing projects, a section of Brooklyn where the Eight Tray Crips were posted. That day, Bell, dolls, Tiger, Rarara, Gunny, and several other Sixth Tray members went to the Vanderveer projects looking for Crips. The plan was smoke. After looking around and not finding their target, Bell and some of the others bounced. Bell stayed with another group. The next day, dolls told Bell that he found the Crips member who robbed him, known as K.O., and shot him in the dome. The violent beef between Sixth Tray folk nation and the Crips got more intense after that. Specifically, they were beefing with the President Street crew and the Vanderveer Tray Crips. The Sixth Tray didn't limit their violence towards members of the Crips. They routinely took threatening and violent actions to keep residents of the Ebbets Field housing development from associating with members of any other gangs. For instance, on August 9th, 2008, Anthony Thomas, a Bloods Gang member, was working out in the Ebbets Field playground with his cousin when a Sixth Tray member, Gunny, rolled up and started letting off shots. Gunny chased Thomas as he ran away and kept shooting at him, hitting him once in the chest. Thomas eventually reached the parking lot of a nearby McDonald's, where he collapsed and died from his wound. On another occasion, D-block told members to slide to Franklin Avenue to scrap with Crips. Things would get grimier, but let's talk a little bit more about D-block. D-block was raised in a stable home until he was about seven years old. His father got bagged for drugs, which resulted in first a prison bid and then deportation. This proved to be one of the defining moments in D-block's life. A few years after his father's arrest, the family moved to the Ebbets Field houses where, despite the success of many residents who came from rougher circumstances, D-block fell victim to the peer pressure of some of his peers. The connections he formed at that time became so central to his life that, even after he was sent to a well-regarded youth home for a year where he did well academically and socially, he neglected his academic responsibilities and went back to his former connections once he got back to Brooklyn. The lifestyle he adopted was the opposite of the values of his immediate and extended family. He would dive deeper into the streets and did what he had to do to survive. On September 13, 2008, six tray members tried to locate the leader of the President Street Crips crew who went by the street name Rincles. D-block had ordered gang members to body Rincles once he learned that Rincles had been spotted on the block moments earlier. Acting on D-block's orders, Raleigh Codum and another six tray member Aaron went to kill Rincles. After grabbing one of the gang's straps, the two went to President Street where a block party was going down. The men fired into the crowd. One of those slugs hit the neck of a 10-year-old girl as she was walking into her apartment building. The child ran bleeding heavy to her apartment. She was rushed to the hospital where she recovered from her injuries. Somewhere between October 2008 and November 2008, specs, a high-ranking member of the Sixth Tray, orchestrated a robbery on Nostrand Avenue where they took jewelry and cash from an unsuspecting victim. The money was funneled straight into the gang's treasury. During this same period, the crew continued their operations with military precision, holding their regular meetings and enforcing their code with brutal consistency. Members who stepped out of line faced severe consequences, and those who proved their loyalty climbed the ranks. By 2009, the Sixth Tray had solidified their dominance over the Ebbets Field Projects and surrounding neighborhoods through fear, violence, and an organizational structure that mimicked legitimate business operations. But what they didn't anticipate was the full weight of federal prosecution coming down on them. In late 2009, the NYPD and FBI conducted simultaneous raids across Brooklyn, arresting key members of the organization. Swerve caught his case and faced serious time. D-block assumed leadership, but the organization was already fractured. Without Swerve's iron grip and with law enforcement closing in, the Sixth Tray's reign began to crumble. By 2011, most of the crew's leadership had been incarcerated. Trials dragged on through 2012 and 2013, with federal prosecutors building airtight cases against the organization's core members. Swerve eventually pleaded guilty to racketeering and murder charges, securing a life sentence without parole. D-block faced similar sentences. Other members got decades in the pen for their individual roles in the violence.

The story of the Sixth Tray folk nation stands as a chilling testament to how quickly young men from broken homes and desperate circumstances can be drawn into cycles of violence that destroy everything around them. What started as neighborhood crews protecting turf evolved into a sophisticated criminal enterprise that left bodies on the streets, devastated families, and ultimately landed nearly every player in a federal penitentiary. The legacy of the Sixth Tray is one of wasted potential and senseless tragedy—a generation of Flatbush youth who could have been doctors, teachers, and engineers instead became soldiers in an endless war that nobody won. Their story serves as a harsh reminder that gang life isn't glamorous or sustainable; it's a pipeline to the prison system and an early grave. The Sixth Tray's rise and fall echoes the same brutal pattern repeated in neighborhoods across America, where poverty, trauma, and lack of opportunity conspire to funnel vulnerable young people into criminal enterprises. In the end, the folk nation's empire in Ebbets Field crumbled not because of street rivals, but because the federal system was waiting. And that's the real story—not about honor or respect in the streets, but about how systemic inequality and institutional failure create the conditions where gangs flourish, only to be dismantled by the same justice system that did little to prevent their formation in the first place.

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