An NYPD investigation following the 2021 stray bullet homicide of Mexican mother Gudelia Vallinas led to the indictment of 23 alleged “Crips” gang members, 16 already arrested in Queens, prosecutors announced yesterday.
Vallinas, a 37-year-old Mexican immigrant janitorial worker, was killed when she was caught in a shootout between rival gang members on her way to a store at the intersection of 48th St. and Broadway in Queens on the night of March 12, 2021.
The investigation, announced yesterday by Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, Mayor Eric Adams, and NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell, focused on two subsets of the Crips gang fighting each other in a spate of gun violence.
Mayor Adams, a former NYPD, used Tuesday’s indictments to highlight the disconnect he sees between city residents and some of the elected officials who, in theory, represent them.
“The reckless criminality that we saw during this investigation is the kind of lawlessness that has killed law-abiding citizens of New York who have been caught in the crossfire of gang violence,” prosecutor Katz said during a press conference inside Queens Criminal Court. “We saw that in the heartbreaking loss of Ms. Vallinas. She was crossing the street in Woodside to go buy milk for her two young children when she was struck by the gang member who shot at a rival.“
Police arrested Benaiah Reid and Dajuan Williams for the shooting in April and May 2021, prompting prosecutors to open a separate investigation.
The dispute was determined to have started three years earlier, on Aug. 4, 2018, when Isiah King of the “8 Trey Crip” branch of Woodside Houses attacked Dijuan Price (32) of “Rollin’ Crip” of Astoria Houses, according to the Queens district attorney’s office. The next day Price and his brother Elijah, 26, went out armed for revenge. They couldn’t find King, so they shot their friend, Jaffvonta Reid, in the leg, according to Katz.
Yesterday the Price brothers were charged with attempted murder. A total of 16 arrests have been made in connection with the investigation, and prosecutor Katz promised that the remaining seven people charged would soon be in custody, the Daily News reported.