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I am so thrilled and honored to be standing here today. Growing up, my dream was to serve as an assistant district attorney in the Brooklyn DA’s office. That’s it. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that one day I would be sworn in as the District Attorney. I am humbled and honored beyond my ability to express.
I want to thank you all for being here today to share this special moment. I believe, and I know that all of you in this room believe, that we can keep our communities safe while treating people who come into contact with the system – victims, witnesses and people accused of crimes — with fairness and respect. During my campaign for DA, I saw that the clear majority of Brooklynites share this belief.
I want to thank the consultants, staff and volunteers of my campaign for district attorney. They gave their all to a hard-fought campaign that I was so proud of; it was an inclusive campaign focused on safety and justice for all the communities of Brooklyn.
I also want to thank the staff of the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. I am so proud of the commitment of every person in the office, to keeping Brooklyn safe and to promoting a fairer system of justice. It is an honor to be your leader, and I look forward to the great things we are going to accomplish together.
To my incredible wife Dagmar, our boys Evan, Dean and Cole, my mother and my mother-in law, both named Carmen! and all of my family — thanks for your endless patience, for keeping me grounded and real. I know that without you and your love and support, I would not be standing here today. Mom–thanks for always believing in me and loving me. Dagmar–thanks for being my true love and best friend.
I also want to acknowledge, and to remember, one towering figure who isn’t with us today. And that is my friend and mentor, the late Great Ken Thompson. We all imagined that today would be Ken’s day, his second inauguration, and that we would be looking back on his accomplishments, and looking forward to the future. So this is a bittersweet moment for me, and for many of us.
I know that Ken would be so proud of where the Office stands today, of how the staff held together to carry on his legacy of reform. We stand tall today on Ken’s shoulders, and we look forward to a bright future because of the groundwork he laid in the far too short time he held the office of Brooklyn District Attorney.
I was proud to work with Ken on the reforms for which the Brooklyn DA’s office continues to be known around the country:
Our Conviction Review Unit, with 24 wrongful convictions vacated thus far, is the national model.
Our Begin Again program, in which we vacated in a single day nearly 150,000 warrants in Brooklyn, has contributed significantly to reducing the enormous backlog of warrants that have prevented thousands of our fellow New Yorkers from moving forward with their lives.
Our Young Adult Court is one of the most innovative in the country, helping young people get the services they need to avoid further criminal justice involvement.
We have pursued all these reforms while keeping Brooklyn safe. We closed out 2017 as the safest year in my lifetime, and very possibly in yours: shootings and homicides hit record lows. Assaults, robberies, larcenies were all down.
As we consider this tremendous increase in public safety, we must acknowledge the extraordinary work of our partners in law enforcement, the New York City Police Department. The NYPD has shown a willingness and ability to adjust to changing times—all while developing and employing new strategies to reduce crime in our city. Stop and frisks are down, arrests are down, police use of weapons is down, and yet in 2018 we are safer than ever.
I want to thank the great men and women of the NYPD for their dedication and their hard work.
Even with all these tremendous accomplishments, there is more work to be done. I know we can move beyond what we have already achieved and make the Brooklyn DA’s Office the national model of what a progressive prosecutor’s office can be.
That’s why, today, I’m announcing the Brooklyn DA’s Justice 2020 Initiative, which is aimed at keeping Brooklyn safe and strengthening communities’ trust in our criminal justice system by ensuring fairness and equal justice for all.
I intend to make significant progress toward this vision by the end of the year 2020, and this is how I’ll do it:
In Brooklyn, what we won’t do, however, is be passive in the face of cruel and misguided policies handed down from Washington DC, especially on immigration. Our recently-formed Immigration Unit is being adopted by prosecutors across the country and rightly so — it helps our friends and neighbors in immigrant communities avoid unjust deportation and sends a message to the rest of the country that when it comes to our immigrant communities, doing what’s right and fair doesn’t conflict with our commitment to public safety. Rather, it enhances it! it makes us safer!
We also won’t criminalize poverty by keeping people in jail just because they can’t afford to pay bail. In keeping with my support for, and commitment to, closing Rikers, we are leading the city in reducing reliance on cash bail.
We will continue to find new alternatives to incarceration for people whose issues can be addressed in better ways. We will reduce our reliance on jails and put an end to mass incarceration!
Next week, I will be launching our Brooklyn CLEAR program. Under CLEAR, we will divert people with drug possession cases into treatment and other services before they are charged, so they can avoid getting a criminal record. We will treat drug addiction as a health issue and not a crime.
We want to be able to measure the results of what we do, so we can hold ourselves accountable and continue to improve and to achieve our goals. So we will make better use of data to support and guide innovation in our approach to community safety and alternatives to prosecution. We will do this in collaboration with stakeholders and community partners.
This week I will be announcing the members of the Justice 2020 Launch Committee, whom I will task with making recommendations in keeping with my vision. The committee will be made up of community leaders, criminal justice experts and reformers, service providers, prosecutors and defense attorneys, representatives from the police department, and formerly incarcerated people.
The committee will work over the next few months to produce recommendations that I will share with the public.
I am so excited to begin this part of my journey, and the journey of the office I am honored to now lead.
While it feels like a time of incredible peril for our country, it is also a time of enormous promise. Even as we all share deep concerns about what is happening in Washington and the impact it is having on the most vulnerable among us, we also have, here in Brooklyn, a chance to be a national model of a criminal justice system that keeps us safe, is fair, and earns the respect and the trust of the community we serve. It is my great privilege to be leading this effort, but I cannot do it without all of you.
I want to take a minute to thank all those who helped make this ceremony special…
Brooklyn, thank you so much for putting your trust in me. Thank you for your support, now and in the future. Thank you for having my back and for lifting me up.
Thank you for joining me on this journey toward Justice 2020. I will not let you down!
Acting District Attorney
Kings County
August 30, 2017
Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced today that a 72-year-old man has been indicted on charges of menacing as a hate crime, criminal possession of a weapon, and other offenses for allegedly shouting homophobic slurs at a passenger on the A train and following him after he got off at the Nostrand Avenue station.
Arnold Moody, of Flatbush, Brooklyn, was arraigned today in Brooklyn Supreme Court on an indictment in which he is charged with menacing as a hate crime, criminal possession of a weapon, aggravated harassment and related charges.
The Acting District Attorney said that, according to the investigation, on August 9, 2017, at approximately 8:50 a.m., Moody began verbally harassing and threatening the victim who boarded a Manhattan-bound A train at the Broadway Junction subway station in East New York, Brooklyn. The defendant harassed the victim by shouting homophobic slurs, such as “You’re a [expletive deleted], why are you standing like that? I’m going to cut you.”
The defendant continued to hurl verbal insults at the victim, and allegedly followed the victim off the train at Nostrand Avenue while brandishing a knife. Several plainclothes police officers on the subway platform saw the defendant with the knife and quickly arrested him. He is being held on bail of $15,000 bond or $10,000 cash and is due back in court on October 18, 2017.
Acting District Attorney Gonzalez said, “In Brooklyn, everyone regardless of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender or religion must be free to walk the streets and ride the subways without fear for their safety. Brooklyn’s beauty and strength lies in its diversity and we will not tolerate hate crimes, of any kind.”
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An indictment is an accusatory instrument and not proof of a defendant’s guilt
Read the full press release here.
Acting District Attorney
Kings County
August 22, 2017
Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that nine alleged members of the Brownsville- based Loot Gang have been variously charged in a 69-count indictment with conspiracy to commit murder, murder, attempted murder, weapons possession and other charges in connection with seven separate shootings that left one innocent man dead and 13 people injured. Four of those shot were women, all innocent bystanders.
The Acting District Attorney said that, according to the indictment, the defendants, who range in age from 15 to 25, are alleged to be members of the Loot Gang, which operates out of the New York City Housing Authority Ocean Hill Houses in the 73rd Precinct in Brownsville.
The defendants are charged in connection with 10 incidents, including seven shootings and one assault, between November 2015 and August 2016. Fourteen people were shot, including one fatally. One person was beaten. The defendants mostly targeted rival gangs, including, on multiple occasions, shooting at members of True Bosses Only (TBO) in Bushwick, which is TBO territory. In addition to Bushwick, the shootings occurred in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Fort Greene, Canarsie, and Jamaica, Queens. In one instance an innocent 22-year-old man who was a student at John Jay College was shot and killed.
During the course of the conspiracy, the defendants allegedly agreed to commit crimes to maintain their dominance over their claimed geographic area, their social media dominance and superior positioning among budding rap artists.
Furthermore, Loot members allegedly used social media extensively to communicate about getting guns and ammunition and committing acts of violence against rival gangs. Loot used public Facebook postings and music videos posted to YouTube and SoundCloud to antagonize rival gang members, boast about previous acts of violence against rival gangs and show Loot loyalty through hand signs, clothing and lyrics.
It is alleged that at least one shooting, on November 27, 2015, was in retaliation for the shooting death of Armani Hankins, a.k.a., Rocky, in Fort Greene, a month earlier. The victim was allegedly a friend of some of the Loot Gang members, and they released a rap music video entitled “Rockyworld” on YouTube which is a song about retaliation against a gang known as 900 for his death.
Acting District Attorney Gonzalez said, “This indictment underscores our commitment to prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law the violent gang members responsible for most of the senseless shootings in certain pockets of Brooklyn. Our targeted approach to enhancing public safety focuses on the shooters and gang leaders who drive the violence. We simply will not tolerate such lawlessness and bloodshed in our communities, which put hardworking residents at risk.”
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Read the full press release here.
Acting District Attorney
Kings County
August 3, 2017
Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez and New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today called for the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to stop conducting raids in New York courthouses and to recalibrate their priorities so crime victims and witnesses are not targeted for removal proceedings. Instances of arrests and attempted arrests by ICE in courts have spiked approximately five-fold this year compared to 2016 and a growing number of victims have expressed reluctance to move forward with criminal prosecutions due to fear of being deported.
While ICE has designated certain locations such as schools, medical facilities and places of worship as “sensitive locations,” where it does not carry out enforcement actions, it has so far refused to designate courthouses as sensitive locations. The result is that a large segment of New Yorkers are now discouraged from appearing in state courts, including in housing disputes, to obtain orders of protection or to settle important matters such as child custody.
Acting District Attorney Gonzalez said, “The federal authorities claim they are making America safe again, but the truth is that their immigration enforcement policies are making all of us less safe. We encounter more and more victims and eyewitnesses to crime who are fearful of moving forward because of immigration status, and we see arrests by ICE spiking in our courthouses, including Family Court and courts dedicated to helping human trafficking victims and those with mental health issues. We must not allow a large number of our residents to live in the shadows and stop cooperating with law enforcement – but the Trump Administration is now creating this dangerous reality. ICE should treat courthouses as sensitive locations, like it does schools and houses of worship, to allow everyone free access to our justice system and stop the chilling effect felt by victims and witnesses.”
Acting DA Gonzalez has been a leader in prosecutors’ work to protect immigrants, creating a policy this spring to offer non-citizens plea offers that avoid collateral immigration consequences, hiring two immigration attorneys to advise his staff and holding monthly Immigration Forums to educate community members about common scams and how to avoid them. On August 8, 2017 The Brooklyn DA’s Office will hold a symposium for legal professionals on the intersection of criminal law and immigration law.
The Acting District Attorney thanks the New York Immigration Coalition, the Immigrant Defense Project, the Legal Aid Society, Safe Horizon and Sanctuary for Families for their work and advocacy on immigration issues.
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Read the full press release here.
Acting District Attorney
Kings County
July 27, 2017
Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, along with Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark, New York County District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., and Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown yesterday announced that nearly 700,000 summons warrants that are 10 years or older will be vacated in the next few weeks. The warrants in question were issued for failure to pay a ticket for a minor infraction, subjecting individuals to arrest as well as carrying other negative consequences.
The announcement marks an important step in the work of the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office to clear low-level summons warrants, building upon the Begin Again initiative started by the late DA Ken Thompson in 2015. Begin Again became a model for similar warrant-clearing initiatives by other District Attorney’s Offices around the City.
The dismissal of the warrants poses no risk to public safety as those individuals whose warrants are being dismissed have not been arrested in the past 10 years or their warrants would have been triggered. Furthermore, the warrants stem from summonses issued for minor infractions such as riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, drinking beer in public, disorderly conduct, and being in a park after dark.
There are approximately 1.5 million open summons warrants citywide. These summons warrants, when left unresolved, subject those who have them to an automatic arrest when questioned by police on the street or during a traffic stop. They may also carry a number of negative consequences, including impeding one’s ability to apply for citizenship, to secure employment or obtain public housing, and subject undocumented immigrants to deportation.
Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Gonzalez said, “I have been working in Brooklyn to build trust between law enforcement and the community, and to focus our resources on violent crime. Dismissing these old warrants is an important step in advancing both of these goals. The bulk of these summonses have been issued to mostly poor, black and Latino individuals, many of whom may not even be aware that they have become open warrants that could trigger an arrest for minor infractions dating back many years. Vacating these warrants enhances public safety and promotes fairness.”
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Read the full press release here.
Acting District Attorney
Kings County
July 17, 2017
Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that a 19-year-old man from Coney Island has been indicted on murder, assault and other charges for causing the death of his 16-month-old daughter, Nylah Lewis. He was previously charged with assault and charges were upgraded following the child’s death.
The Acting District Attorney said that, according to the investigation, the defendant, Shaquan Taylor, 19, took custody of his daughter Nylah starting on June 16, 2017. On June 18, Father’s Day, he contacted the toddler’s 17-year-old mother via Facebook Messenger and asked her to pick Nylah up from his West 32nd Street home.
The mother found the child unresponsive and told the defendant to call 911, but he refused, the investigation found. The mother took Nylah out of the apartment and the defendant allegedly struck her, handed the child to a bystander and continued to assault the mother, who had an order of protection against him based on a previous incident, according to the indictment. Nylah died five days later at the hospital.
When interviewed by detectives, the defendant claimed that Nylah fell from the bed. Her injuries are allegedly inconsistent with such a fall.
Acting District Attorney Gonzalez said, “This father was supposed to protect his innocent baby daughter but instead he allegedly violently and senselessly took her life and then assaulted her mother when she tried to come to her rescue. I intend to hold him fully accountable for this unspeakable crime.”
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An indictment is only an accusatory instrument and is not proof of a defendant’s guilt.
Read the full press release here.
Acting District Attorney
Kings County
July 6, 2017
Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that Brooklyn continued to experience major declines in crime during the first half of 2017, outpacing statistics from 2016, which was the safest year since record keeping began. There were double-digit drops in shooting incidents, shooting victims and homicides, as well as decreases in nearly all other crime categories, according to the latest statistics compiled by the New York City Police Department.
The Acting District Attorney said that 50 murders were recorded in Brooklyn so far in 2017. That figure is down 11 murders (18%) compared to this time last year and is on track for the fewest in the borough’s history (there were 128 murders in 2016 and 122 in 2014, the lowest year on record). There were 32 fewer shooting incidents compared to this time last year (a total of 136, down 19.2%) and 48 fewer shooting victims (a total of 155, down 23.7%).
Like in 2016, Brooklyn was the only borough to register declines in all three categories over this time period and the percent decreases outpaced the impressive citywide declines except for homicides, where the citywide drop was 21.6%. [All statistics are as of June 30, 2017, according to CompStat analysis]. It is notable that seven of the 50 murders are reclassified homicides that took place in previous years, meaning the number of murders actually committed during the first half of 2017 in Brooklyn stands at 43 (there were three reclassified homicides in all of 2016).
In addition, the Total Index Crime in Brooklyn (representing the seven major felony crimes) is down 4.5% for the year so far with declines in all categories except for rape (two additional reported incidents or a .9% uptick compared to this time last year).
In the past few years, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office has increased its focus on the drivers of crime – individuals responsible for most of the shootings – and has partnered with the NYPD on a number of initiatives to reduce violent crime. Those include the work of the Crime Strategies Unit that keeps track of known gang members and other drivers of violence; long-term investigations by the Violent Criminal Enterprises Bureau, together with the NYPD, to target all criminal activities by gangs and to stop weapons traffickers; creation of the Firearms Prosecution Unit, which operates in the only Expedited Firearms Court in the city with the goal of prosecuting gun possession cases faster and more efficiently in Brooklyn; and other initiatives.
So far in 2017, The Brooklyn DA’s Office established the Public Housing Crime Suppression Unit to help drive down crime in housing developments by using data-driven intelligence and working with resident associations, community members, NYCHA and the NYPD. A Cold Case Unit was also created to investigate unsolved homicides and a DNA expert was hired to assist in this effort and to help in forensic analyses in other cases, including those involving guns and shootings.
Together with the focus on violent crime, the DA’s Office has been implementing numerous criminal justice reforms, including a change in its bail policy under which no bail is requested for nearly all misdemeanors and a new policy to protect non-citizen defendants by considering collateral immigration consequences of convictions with the assistance of two newly-hired immigration attorneys. The Office also previously announced that it will soon launch a program to allow certain drug-dependent defendants to be sent to treatment in lieu of prosecution, an innovative approach that will keep these offenders from ever setting foot in a courtroom and provide them with necessary help.
Acting District Attorney Gonzalez said, “I am very proud that crime has continued to plummet so rapidly in Brooklyn, a trend that shows that the targeted approach employed by the NYPD and my Office in fighting violent crime is working. It is also proof that we can implement criminal justice reforms while still enhancing public safety. We have launched innovative new programs to reduce reliance on bail, to protect immigrants and to divert low-level offenders from incarceration as we continue to drive down violence and improve the quality of life in all parts of Brooklyn.”
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Acting District Attorney
Kings County
July 5, 2017
Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced today that a 31-year-old Bedford-Stuyvesant man has been sentenced to 31 years in prison for a spree of armed robberies over a nine-day period in Windsor Terrace and Kensington in 2015, during which he robbed four women at gunpoint, including one whom he pistol-whipped in the head.
In four separate incidents between August 20 and August 29, 2015, the defendant, Justin Farrow, robbed four women who were walking alone at night in Windsor Terrace and Kensington. The defendant committed all of the robberies in a similar fashion, approaching the victims – in most cases from behind – brandishing a silver handgun, stealing property and telling the victims to walk away and not look back. After each robbery, according to video surveillance, the defendant entered the Fort Hamilton Parkway subway station using a MetroCard he stole from the first victim.
During one of the robberies — of a 28-year-old woman — the defendant hit her repeatedly with the butt of his gun when she didn’t immediately hand over her possessions. The victim suffered injuries to her ear, head and hand.
Acting District Attorney Gonzalez said, “For more than a week, this defendant preyed upon vulnerable women walking alone at night, robbing and terrorizing them at gunpoint. Such cowardly acts of violence have no place on the streets of Brooklyn. Today’s sentence ensures that this defendant will be off of our streets and in prison for a very long time.”
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Read the full press release here.
Acting District Attorney
Kings County
July 3, 2017
Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced today that a 27-year-old man has been indicted on charges of assault as a hate crime, and other offenses for allegedly punching a woman in the face and knocking her unconscious while shouting homophobic slurs on a Brooklyn-bound Q train.
The Acting District Attorney said that, according to the investigation, on May 20, 2017, at approximately 7:30 p.m., the defendant, Antoine Thomas, 27, of Flatbush, boarded a Brooklyn-bound Q train at Union Square, and sat next to the victim and her girlfriend. The defendant, it is alleged, began shouting anti-gay slurs at the victim and her female companion regarding their sexual orientation. During the train ride the defendant continued shouting at the couple, and at one point aggressively bumped into the victim when the train made a sudden stop. The defendant then allegedly punched the victim in the face as the train arrived at the Dekalb Avenue station in Downtown Brooklyn.
The defendant attempted to leave the train by walking between cars, but was arrested at the station after the conductor called the police.
Acting District Attorney Gonzalez said, “Brooklyn is a model of inclusion and diversity where bias and bigotry will not be tolerated. This defendant’s alleged actions were an attack on everyone’s right to be who they are, and to love whom they choose. He will now be held accountable for this alleged attack that left a woman unconscious.”
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An indictment is only an accusatory instrument and is not proof of a defendant’s guilt.
Read the full press release here.
