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When the sun sets, Naomi Benjamin scurries home.
And tries not to take the same route twice.
“Even just standing out here … You can’t come outside,” said Benjamin, 32, a schoolteacher from the Howard Houses in Brownsville, Brooklyn. “Being on the street is enough to get you shot. When you go out, you got to take a different way every time.”
The main threat, she said, is 8 Block — a mini-gang of about 10 baby-faced thugs who take their name from the nearby building where they live at 1800 Pitkin Ave.
Gunfights erupt as often as five times a week, Benjamin said, including Oct. 21, when 8 Block member Andrew Lopez, 18, allegedly blasted wildly at rival gangsters but killed hero mom Zurana Horton, who tried to shield children outside PS/IS 298.
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“They’re sparking all the violence,” Benjamin said.
They’re not the only ones.
In Harlem, The Bronx and Brooklyn, small, independent gangs are popping up with increasing frequency — arming themselves to protect their turf, which sometimes amounts to a single block or housing unit, and lashing out at the slightest insult or challenge.
Though they make money by mugging people or dealing pot or cocaine, their motives are more territorial than financial.
“It’s consistent around the city: young guys doing their own thing, mostly around the projects,” said Lou Savelli, a crime consultant who founded the NYPD’s Gang Unit. “A lot of them are friends who grew up together. They think up a name, and that’s their gang. It’s like the old days of the 1950s, when you had guys who defended their street corner.”
But there’s a big difference. This new generation, often referred to collectively as “Young Guns,” has turned away from traditional gangs like the Bloods, Crips and Latin Kings and is more rash, violent and dangerous than their older counterparts.
“The big shootouts we’ve seen in the last couple of years, it’s almost always a Young Gun,” said one gang investigator.
“They’ll go to a house party and get into it with another crew, or they’ll see a rival gang on their block. That’s all it takes. Someone pulls out a piece, and you get guys firing at each other, sometimes in the middle of the day with other people around. It’s amazing how many times the victims are bystanders.”
The crews, with odd names like Very Cripsy Gangsters in East New York, Wave Gang in Brownsville and From the Zoo in Harlem, aren’t guided by any of the codes or hierarchy of established gangs — a deeply troubling development, cops say.
Over the last 25 years, Bloods, Crips and Latin Kings have dominated gang life in New York. Like the Mafia, you have to be proposed for membership and evaluated. And there are initiation rites and written rules of conduct. Certain colors and words must be used, and others avoided. Transgressions are punished.
If you fall in line, there are benefits: protection, support and money-making opportunities.
Murder, for the most part, is not an impulse decision. Hits are thought out and planned because resulting police scrutiny is bad for business.
But the Young Guns reject organization, cops say. If they see a threat, they respond instantly.
The killing of Horton, a mother of 13, was typical.
It began when Lopez informed his half-brother, 8 Block leader Jonathan Carrasquillo, 22, that a set of Young Guns from the Howard Projects had appeared on Pitkin Avenue to “front,” or show themselves, on enemy ground, cops say.
Lopez allegedly took aim from the roof of his building and fired at the offending crew, spraying bullets onto the street below, hitting only Horton, another mom, and an 11-year-old girl.
The gang — formed seven years ago by Carrasquillo’s older brother, Ismael, who is serving 20 years in prison for a 2008 murder — is now under intense investigation by police.
Detectives from various units have joined the probe. Some believe there were multiple motives, including the involvement of a new and previously unknown crew called the Elevens, a mix of Blood and Crip members.
Edward Talty, homicide bureau chief at the Bronx District Attorney’s Office and one of the most experienced gang prosecutors in the city, has been tracking the Young Gun movement since its emergence 10 years ago in the South Bronx.
Many of the young gangsters have dropped the custom of getting a “YG” tattoo between the index finger and thumb to avoid heat from the cops.
“They might be going out and ripping off iPods or selling marijuana,” said Talty. “But there are no long-term vendettas. These kids don’t do that. They grew up together and think their projects, are tougher than [other] projects.”
Their youth — some are as young as 10 — and recklessness is what makes them so dangerous, experts say. “They can’t control themselves,” Savelli said.
Fights break out over tweeted boasts or Internet taunts, such as those posted on thehoodup.com.
Cops say many of the trigger-happy Young Guns eventually graduate to a bigger gang, usually the Bloods or the Crips.
“They don’t want to keep going to jail,” Savelli said. “When they get older, they get smarter.”
Additional reporting by Candice M. Giove