Drug charges against 4 reveal details of Paterson gang activity

PATERSON — On a summer afternoon with temperatures in the 90s, a young man on a bicycle wearing a face mask, hooded sweatshirt, and sweatpants confronted a mail carrier last July in Paterson’s 2nd Ward.

After getting off the bike, the masked man pulled out a gun, pointed it at the postal worker, and threatened to shoot if the victim did not hand over a key that would open all mailboxes in the area, according to the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Despite the threats, the mail carrier refused to surrender the key, so the young man wearing the mask got back on the bicycle and pedaled away on Liberty Street, authorities said.

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The attempted robbery was recorded by nearby surveillance cameras and federal officials said the suspect was a member of a drug-dealing street gang that operates on North Main Street in Paterson’s 1st Ward.

The criminal complaint about the mail carrier was one of two made public on Thursday by the United States Attorney’s Office in Newark, as it announced charges against four alleged Paterson street gang members.

The complaints contained rarely revealed allegations about gang activities in Paterson, including the assertion that the 2016 killing of a truce-seeking gang member precipitated a violent, longstanding feud between two groups that operate blocks apart, separated mainly by the city’s best elementary school.

100k and Blockboyz engulfed in bloody battle

The young man who allegedly tried to rob the mail carrier was a member of “100k,” which operates on the five blocks of notorious North Main Street between Haledon and Clinton avenues, federal authorities said.

Officials said 100k took its name from one of the nicknames of Kasiem McCaskill, who was shot and killed two days short of his 23rd birthday in 2016, months after winning a community group’s Paterson Cares award for his efforts to create a truce among the city’s gangs the year before.

McCaskill’s death caused a split within the gang that had been known as the “Brick Squad,” which splintered into 100k on North Main and the “Blockboyz” at the nearby Riverside Towers on Presidential Boulevard, the federal complaint said. Those groups have been engulfed in a bloody battle “ever since each gangs’ founding,” the complaint said.

Federal authorities said 100k also has had a violent feud with two 4th Ward gangs — the 230 Boys from the corner of Rosa Parks Boulevard and Godwin Avenue and Up Top, which operates on 12th Avenue. Both the 230 Boys and Up Top have been the targets of previous federal gang crackdowns in Paterson.

But the complaint said 100k has an alliance with a third 4th Ward gang, known as So Icey, from 10th Avenue, which was the targeted of a New Jersey Attorney General gang operation more than five years ago.

Conspiracy to sell fentanyl, heroin, cocaine through social media

The federal charges against four alleged gang members detailed their suspected conspiracy to sell fentanyl, heroin and cocaine — including their use of social media to conduct business, and their business practices, such as switching phones to elude police detection, the use of “coded language,” and meeting drug buyers outside 100k turf.

Sometimes, one gang member would arrange a sale, and another would complete the transaction, with lookouts deployed to make sure police weren’t around, the complaint said.

The drug dealing crimes allegedly took place from August of 2023 through March of 2024, the complaint said. The allegations about the attempted gunpoint robbery of the mail carrier said police were able to track the suspect’s escape in video recordings from cameras on houses, businesses, and the street.

About six minutes after leaving Liberty Street, the suspect shed his mask, revealing his face, authorities said. Next, he removed his hoodie as he pedalled down Matlock Street, then dropped the bike on Clinton Street, and walked in between two houses, the complaint said.

The suspect emerged from the ally wearing bright orange shorts, instead of the sweatpants, authorities said. He ended up at a corner known as 100k turf, the complaint said.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Drug charges reveal details of Paterson NJ gang activity