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25 Charged in Crown Heights Gang War That Wounded 13-Year-Old Girl, DA Says

 A woman ties balloons to a lamp post in January 2015, where 19-year-old Jaquay Bennett was shot and killed in Crown Heights. The Brooklyn District Attorney said 25 people have been charged in a gang investigation of five shootings, including the one that killed Bennett.
A woman ties balloons to a lamp post in January 2015, where 19-year-old Jaquay Bennett was shot and killed in Crown Heights. The Brooklyn District Attorney said 25 people have been charged in a gang investigation of five shootings, including the one that killed Bennett.
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DNAinfo/Rachel Holliday Smith

CROWN HEIGHTS — Twenty-five members of rival Crown Heights street gangs have been charged in a three-year investigation of a turf war wounded a 13-year-old girl in March, killed a young man last year and injured five others, prosecutors said.

The two gangs, the Bergen Family and Lincoln Family, are responsible for at least five shootings in the neighborhood since the fall of 2013, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney.

"This indictment underscores the continuing commitment of this office and the NYPD to take back the streets of Brooklyn from mindless gang and gun violence that puts so many people at risk, including in this case an innocent 13-year-old girl," said Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson.

Often, the violence sprang from territorial disputes, prosecutors said. Both gangs claim swaths between Classon and Kingston avenues and the defendants would taunt each other by posting photos on Facebook of themselves in rival, or off-limits, areas, prosecutors said. 

Above, the territories of the Lincoln Family street gang (gray) and the Bergen Family street gang (blue) in Crown Heights, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney's office.

The defendants, whose ages range between 16 and 23, frequently responded to the social media barbs with gunfire, sometimes in broad daylight and on busy neighborhood streets, prosecutors said.

In the most recent shooting, the Lincoln Family opened fire near Clara Barton High School in March and wounded both a rival gang member and a 13-year-old girl, who just happened to be nearby, prosecutors said.

The Lincoln Family also gunned down rival 19-year-old Jaquay Bennett in 2015, officials said. Investigators believe the Lincoln shooters were retaliating for a Bergen shooting that wounded one of their members three days before on Franklin Avenue.

Gang members also opened fire on each other from bicycles, wounding three people in June and October 2014, prosecutors said.

Fifteen of the defendants were arrested and arraigned Tuesday on a slew of charges including murder, attempted murder, weapons possession and conspiracy, the DA’s office said.

The others are in custody and awaiting charges, officials said.

Three suspects, Scott Hunter, 19, Elyejah Orr, 19, and Ebony Brown, 21, are still at large, officials said.