A band of teenage gang members who dubbed themselves Road 2 Riches unleashed wave after wave of gunfire on the streets of Brooklyn, killing a rival’s brother and wounding an innocent 68-year-old in a string of shootings, according to prosecutors.
Often the teens would brag about their violent accomplishments on social media, to make sure their crew got credit for the shootings, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said.
On Thursday, Gonzalez announced nine members of the bloodthirsty East New York-based gang have been indicted in connection with 10 shootings between 2023 and 2025 that left three victims wounded and a fourth dead.
“Ya homie died Yk them shots on us,” one of the gang’s members, Jevonte Jaime, now 17, wrote on Instagram, posting a group photo shortly after the Aug. 21, 2023, murder of Abdoulaye Ba, 24. The alleged shooter was gang member King Downing, now 18.
In another post, accomplice Quinn Parker, now 19, wrote, “pass that ba, we smoke that.”
“Typically, when someone commits a homicide or a murder, they don’t want to be identified as the person who did it. But in this gang violence arena, people need to take credit for the shooting of rival gang members,” Gonzalez said at a Thursday press conference. “They’re taking credit for the shootings. They want everyone to know that they’re the ones who did this.”
Downing, Jaime and Parker were hanging out at Best Food Mini Market on Blake Ave. near Pennsylvania Ave. that afternoon when Ba and his brother peered into the store, their faces obscured by hoodies and masks, Gonzalez said.
“This is part of the fact of life in places like East New York and Brownsville, that many young men are very careful entering locations,” the D.A. said. “They’re always masked up, wearing hoodies.”
Ba’s brother is a member of the rival CHOO gang, a Folk Nation set, though he wasn’t armed. Downing opened fire when he saw them, hitting Ba in the face, Gonzalez said.
Video captured the shooting, both inside and outside the deli.
In another incident, also caught on video, shooter DeAnthony Ortiz, now 18, opened fire on two rivals just before 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 29, 2023, at the corner of Powell St. and Dumont Ave. — hitting a 68-year-old woman on her way to the grocery store in her back, Gonzalez said. Her husband managed to remove the bullet, and she was treated at an area hospital.
In yet another shooting, on March 21, 2023, Jaime and Mikeem Echevarria, now 18, ambushed a 14-year-old boy, who they saw as a rival, as the youngster waited for an elevator in his girlfriend’s Sutter Ave. apartment building, then chased him and shot him twice in the leg, prosecutors allege.
“This crew, they’re rash, they’re impulsive and they’re obsessed with guns,” Gonzalez said. “They don’t care who’s around when they open fire. And the fact that we’re able to get them off the streets during the early summer means that we will slow the criminal activity of the R2R gang.”
The nine suspects were charged in a recently unsealed 68-count superseding indictment. Two of them — including Downing, who was busted a week after Ba’s killing — were already in custody, while five more were cuffed as a result of the new indictment. Another two are “on the run,” Gonzalez said.
Mayor Adams, who was also present at Thursday’s press conference, praised Gonzalez for the takedown, and took a swipe at the state’s bail reform and other criminal justice reform laws.
“In spite of all of that,” Adams said, “we’ve seen record numbers of decrease in shootings, record numbers of decrease in homicides…. What we could do if we will only have partners in the other parts of the criminal justice apparatus.”
Gonzalez said his office has conducted more than 40 gang-related takedowns so far this year.
“Brooklyn has never had fewer shootings than we had last year,” the D.A. said. “And six months into 2025, I am confident that with half the year past us, in the midst of the summer, that we can actually improve on the numbers that we had last year, that we can actually get safer. Time after time, shootings drop immediately following a significant gang takedown.”
