QUEENS — Dozens of heavily armed NYPD Emergency Services Unit police and state court officers will be posted at a Queens courthouse starting Wednesday for a gang trial amid threats of violence, DNAinfo New York has learned.
The state Supreme Court on Queens Boulevard will be surrounded by ESU police while specially trained court officers will protect the judge, prosecutors and witnesses inside the building where nearly a dozen members of the “Snow Gang” will be tried on a laundry list of murder and robbery charges, sources said.
Thirty-one alleged gang members, ages 15 to 22 years old, were rounded up in September after a yearlong investigation by the NYPD and the Queens District Attorney's Office for gang activities centered in Rosedale, Laurelton and Rochdale Village.
Following their arrests, one leader of the gang, formally called "SNOW, Loyalty Over Everything and Young Bosses," was allegedly caught on tape ordering robberies from his Rikers Island jail cell in order to raise money to pay his bail, sources said.
Those robberies were thwarted, but last weekend violence erupted on Rikers Island involving the "Snow Gang," which sent seven correction officers to the hospital, one with a broken knee, sources said.
Dennis Quirk, president of the state’s court officers union, confirmed that a “Special Response Team” of court officers will be posted at the courthouse, along with additional court officers who will be on loan from trials at other courthouses.
“We will be pulling people from other places to cover this situation, but if we pull personnel from Brooklyn and Queens, people are now at greater risk of being hurt elsewhere because we are so badly staffed,” he said, adding the shortage is severe enough that officers are being denied days off to cover the assignments.
There will also be increased screening of people coming into the courthouse in addition to the extra security in the courtroom where the gang will be tried in front of Justice Robert C. Kohm, sources said.
Prosecutors and the judge decided to divide the case into two trials.
Court insiders warned the judge to reduce the number of defendants at each trial even more to further reduce the possibility of violence, but he declined the request, sources said.
