2 Bronx gang members charged in 2023 Garden City carjacking, other violent crimes

Two members of what prosecutors described as a violent Bronx-based street gang have been arrested and charged for their roles in a March 2023 armed carjacking in Garden City, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.

The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York said the two, identified as Abdoul Azika, 20, and Jaquell Blackwell, 19, both of the Bronx, were arraigned Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Taryn A. Merkl at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, charged with armed carjacking. Each faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted. It was unclear if either entered a plea or was represented at the arraignment by counsel.

According to the complaint and statement released Wednesday by the office of U.S. Attorney Breon Peace, both Azika and Blackwell were members of the "5zzly" crew of the Bronx-based Blood Hounds Brims gang — a gang that "has engaged in a string of armed carjackings and robberies across New York City and Long Island."

As charged in the complaint, at 3:24 a.m. on March 19, 2023, Azika and Blackwell "snuck up on" a man seated in a black 2019 Honda Civic parked near the intersection of Brook Street and Tremont Street in Garden City — opening the driver's door and pointing a gun and a knife in the driver's face, screaming at him to "get the [expletive] out of the car," before driving off with the vehicle.

Authorities said the two defendants, as well as other 5zzly members, have been named in a 110-count indictment in New York City on "murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, and additional charges." The complaint also alleges the two have been charged in the Bronx with participating in an April 2021 shooting and an October 2021 gunpoint robbery of an on-duty parole officer, whose gun "they then used during a shooting that afternoon."

Additionally, prosecutors said, Azika and Blackwell were involved in three gunpoint robberies in May 2023 — one of those incidents ending with a victim being "pistol-whipped." A June 2023 robbery involving the pair left the victim "severely beaten and in a coma for three days," according to the criminal complaint.

Court records show that both Azika and Blackwell entered not guilty pleas in connection with the Bronx cases and were ordered remanded without bail on Sept. 20, 2023. Both had court-appointed attorneys in that case.

Records were not immediately available for the arraignment Wednesday.

In a statement Wednesday, Peace, whose office announced the complaint along with the FBI and Nassau County Police Department Commissioner Patrick Ryder, said: "For more than a year, Azika and Blackwell terrorized and traumatized innocent members of our community through a pattern of violent, armed carjackings."

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”