BAIL REFORM AT WORK

Gang member carries out three shootings after being freed without bail

 

By Vincent Barone

 

New York Post

August 5, 2020

 

He was set free and allegedly went right back to shooting.

A Brooklyn gang member, released without bail in May on an attempted-murder charge, participated in at least three drive-by shootings after he was freed, federal prosecutors allege.

Darrius Sutton, 23, was initially arrested in connection with a May 16 shooting in the courtyard of an East New York building that left a man seriously injured.

Despite the attempted-murder rap, Sutton was set free without bail the same day of his May 20 arrest. The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office said the lone witness in the case recanted.

“At the time of arraignment, the sole eyewitness had recanted so we did not have sufficient evidence to keep the defendant in custody,” a spokesman for the DA said in a statement. “The investigation is continuing and we hope other witnesses come forward.”

Less than two months after being sprung, the purported Bloods gang member allegedly joined others in three drive-by shootings this summer.

The gunplay took place between July 13 and 14 and were just a few of the six shootings in which Sutton participated over the past year, federal prosecutors allege.

Sutton was seen on surveillance-camera footage in one of the attacks, on April 20, when he snuck up behind a rival gang member and shot him three times from the back in broad daylight, prosecutors allege. 

The victim narrowly escaped death.

“The defendant’s violent spree over the last year has left at least seven individuals with gunshot wounds,” federal prosecutors wrote. “That these events did not lead to seven deaths is entirely fortuitous — the videos described above make clear that the defendant shoots to kill.”

Sutton is now being held in federal custody pending his trial after being arrested again last week, days after law enforcement officials executed a warrant at his East New York apartment. He faces up to 10 years in prison on federal charges for criminal possession of a weapon by a felon.

Shortly after he was released in May, the suspect appeared in a hip-hop music video, uploaded to YouTube, for the song “Crime Rate” by Brooklyn Rapper BK Eaz, prosecutors said.

The video is an homage to rising crime in New York City in 2020. At one point, the rapper Billy DntShootEm refers to Sutton by his alleged alias, “Blizz Meecho,” as he makes a gun-like hand gesture.

“Meecho say get him, I got him,” he raps.