NEW YORK, April 4 (UPI) -- Grand jury indictments unsealed in New York City Thursday charge 63 members of three gangs with waging a years-long war of retribution.
The indictments released in State Supreme Court in Manhattan show the suspects are all males between the ages of 16 and 25. Forty-nine are charged with conspiracy to commit murder, which carries a life prison sentence, and the others faces charges that could put them behind bars for 25 years, The New York Times reported.
Most of them were arrested Wednesday and were arraigned Thursday, the newspaper said.
The shooting war began after one teenager was shot in the head in East Harlem in 2009. The back-and-forth retaliatory strikes have totaled at least 30 since then, with two more youths killed, the Times said.
"God forgives, I don't ... somebodie gotta die," court documents reveal Alexander Carno, a gang member who was wounded, posted on his Facebook page.
"This isn't motivation by money," Manhattan prosecutor Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said. "They were conspiring to commit violence for the sake of violence."
