ASBURY PARK The carefully-plotted shooting involved two bicycles, a stolen car that was set ablaze after serving as the drive-by vehicle and a determined pair of masked killers, authorities said.
But surveillance cameras around Asbury Park picked up the movements of the two suspects. And the footage provided detectives with a detailed map and a blow-by-blow account of the gunning down of 21-year-old God Justice Allah in Asbury Park on a February afternoon, according to a court document.
The slaying of Allah involved a deep-rooted rivalry between two gangs in Asbury Park, the Bloods and the Crips.
The investigation into the murder, as well as a recent trial involving gangland slaying charges, provide a rare glimpse into how gangs operate in Monmouth County and how their influence spread. It also illustrates the clues authorities seek to identify gang members, and the ever-widening net of surveillance used to catch those accused in crimes, including gangland slayings.
►'Much loved' Asbury Park gang slay victim a doting father, but no stranger to the streets
Most gang activity in Monmouth County takes place in Asbury Park and Neptune. Gangs operate in Long Branch on occasion, which used to be a gang stronghold. And they at times show up in Freehold Borough, Keansburg and randomly in other areas, Detective Sgt. Keith Finkelstein of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office said during a recent trial about the slaying in Asbury Park.
The dominant sets in Monmouth County are all Bloods: G-Shine, 9-3 Headbusters, Double II Bloods, Fruit Town Brims, Crenshaw Mafia Bloods, Neighborhood Bloods, and Sex, Money Murder.
The Crips in New Jersey on the whole have never had the numbers of the Bloods, but they haven't had the divisions and factionalism of the larger group either, which has allowed the Crips to keep a lower profile and remain relatively unified, authorities said. The Rollin 60s Neighborhood Crips and the Grape Street Crips are among the largest sets in the state.
“Membership comes down to their associations: friends, relations, somebody they served in prison with, whoever has more power or the newest and coolest thing,” Finkelstein said.
Detectives like Finkelstein invest a lot of time in figuring out who is who and in developing intelligence that is shared with law enforcement agencies around the county.
“You can reference a person’s history, see who they were stopped with in a car stop or on a corner, who they were with at a certain house during a certain investigation, so the associations link people together,” he said.
As the investigation into the slaying of Allah shows, developments like the ever-growing web of video surveillance from phone cameras, Ring cameras and security systems have also greatly aided law enforcement, although privacy advocates have raised concerns.
“As the technology proceeds, there won’t be a lot of places left where you can hide,” said Edwin Torres, a street gang expert and special agent with the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation.
Video surveillance in particular is "really good at finding that needle in the haystack,” Torres added, mentioning arrests in a recent biker gang slaying made possible primarily because of surveillance footage. “Five, 10 years ago, it would have been a mystery.”
During the recent gangland execution trial in Monmouth County Superior Court, which ended in a mistrial, Finkelstein outlined how advances in technology merge with traditional gumshoe work, like constant cross-referencing, to draw in that wider net.
“We paint a picture of that group or gang or group of other gangs and the associates of those gangs and their criminal activity,” Finkelstein said.
Those techniques were critical in solving the murder of Allah in Asbury Park.
Death of God Justice Allah
At 2:25 p.m. on Feb. 2, a Thursday, six shots were fired near the corner of Springwood and Ridge avenues, in front of Sisters Academy of New Jersey, a middle school for girls.
Police found Allah on the ground with a single gunshot wound to the chest. Attempts to save the young father, whom family called a much-loved and caring person, failed.
Detectives found five spent 9mm shell casings and a fired bullet at the crime scene.
Investigators quickly began collecting video surveillance footage from private cameras as well as camera systems operated by Asbury Park City and Neptune Township. Those cameras recorded the path of the two now charged with being the killers, authorities say.
Here’s what the cameras showed, according to an affidavit of probable cause:
Shortly before 2 p.m., a black Honda Accord with damage on the driver’s side drives past a group of people at Springwood Avenue Park. Among those people are members of the Crips criminal street gang.
The Accord is known to be driven by Eddie Vilus. Both Vilus, 30, and his passenger that day, Quamere M. Smith, 21, are known members of the MOB Piru set of the Bloods, authorities said.
The Accord leaves, parks on Langford Street and Smith gets out and goes into a building, remerges and walks to Mattison Avenue where the black Honda Accord has driven and where Vilus lives. Smith’s gray sweatpants, puffy black jacket, a black mask and black shoes later help investigators identify him.
Vilus and Smith leave the black Honda on Mattison and get on two beach cruiser bicycles, one red, one blue.
Surveillance cameras pick them up along the 10-minute bike ride: from Mattison to Atkins Avenue to Prospect Avenue to Springwood Avenue to Myrtle Avenue where they ditch the bikes.
Moments later, a blue Nissan Altima is stolen from the front of a home on Myrtle Avenue and is seen heading toward the group of men that the Honda Accord had passed about 15 minutes earlier.
Surveillance cameras record that group of men approaching a beige minivan, a cab.
The men duck and flee as the stolen blue Nissan passes with a gunman’s arm reaching out of the front passenger window, shooting.
Allah stumbles to the ground, gets up and tries to run, then clutches his chest and collapses face down.
The blue Nissan speeds away eastbound on Springwood Avenue. It eventually turns onto Washington Avenue, driving the wrong way on the one-way street, and pulls into an alley.
Smith and Vilus are picked up by a silver Nissan Rogue. Before they get in, they pull off their face coverings and are recorded by surveillance cameras, aiding investigators in their identification of the killers.
The Rogue drops them off at Mattison Avenue, where they first got on the bikes. They get into the black Honda Accord and drive to Washington Avenue about 40 minutes later.
The stolen blue Nissan Altima is hidden from view in the back of the property. They are seen entering the backyard moments before the blue Altima is engulfed in flames and smoke.
About 35 minutes later, at 4:05 p.m. that day, Neptune patrol officers stop the black Honda Accord carrying Vilus and Smith.
Vilus was released but Smith was charged with a drug offense and jailed. On February 10, both men were charged with Allah’s murder, the theft of the Nissan, the arson and other crimes. Vilus was arrested later that day after being pulled over in a traffic stop and found with a loaded handgun, authorities said.
A grand jury handed up indictments against both men for Allah's murder and other charges, the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office announced May 3.
Both Paul Zager, a Red Bank attorney who represents Smith, and the Monmouth County Public Defenders Office, which represents Vilus, declined to comment on the charges.
Allah was remembered by family and his longtime girlfriend as a doting father holding down a night-shift job to support his daughter, but someone who as also no stranger to gang life.
How the Bloods’ got started
The Bloods began as a gang in California in the early 1970s and spread into individual chapters or sets that identified with a certain street, neighborhood or area, according to the Department of Justice. Among the original sets was the Queen Street Bloods, which was started in Inglewood, Calif.
Part of the New Jersey origins of the Bloods was outlined in a 2003 federal racketeering indictment against 20 members or associates of the Double II or I set of the Bloods. The U.S. Attorney’s Office under Chris Christie won convictions in the case. One of the lead defendants was sentenced to 26 years in federal prison, where he remains.
Two members of the Queen Street set came to East Orange around 1993 to recruit members. Soon local gangs like the Gutter Rats shifted over to the Bloods in the new set known as the Double II Bloods, according to the indictment. The two I’s derived from the birthplace of the set in Inglewood along with the local nickname for East Orange, “Illtown,” the indictment reads.
Recruitment also took place at Riker's Island, the largest jail in New York City, around that time, although the Blood sets that came out of the jail identify as East Coast sets, adopting slightly different hierarchies and other changes from their West Coast peers. Rancor between the two groups continues.
Murder trial of Denzel Morgan-Hicks
The murder of Allah was hardly the first time the rivalry between the Bloods and Crips sparked a killing in Asbury Park.
On the night before Thanksgiving in 2017, Denzel Morgan-Hicks, 27, of Barnegat, a reputed member of the Crips, was gunned down in the city in what was said to be a retribution killing.
Charged with his murder were Avery Hopes, 27, of Asbury Park and Vernon Sanders, 37, of Brick.
Authorities say that Hopes is a member of the Rollin’ 20s Neighborhood Bloods and Sanders is an "OG,'' original gangster or high-ranking member, of the Queens Street Double II set of the Bloods. Both sets operate in Asbury Park.
Much of Finkelstein’s testimony focused on Sanders identifying himself as a member of the Queen Street Double II set.
“Cuz, you MOB or Neighborhood (Bloods) or what?” an Instagram user asks Sanders in reference to a post.
“I’m Queen Street,” Sanders replies.
“You an OG or something?” the user asks.
“Yeah,” Sanders replies, according to Finkelstein.
Finkelstein also testified about a rap music video Sanders and others made in which the number 235, linked to the Queen Street Double II set, is shouted.
It derives from the two founding members who lived on 17th Street and 18th Street in East Orange. Add the numbers together and put the two for the founding members in front of it and you get 235.
“It’s used to pay homage to the origins of the Double II Bloods,” Finkelstein said.
So is a hand sign formed into a W — made up of the index finger and pinkie spread apart with the middle and ring fingers together — that signifies the Bloods set’s West Coast origins.
War on gangs includes a tech battle
Gang members were early adopters of social media and continue to use it to conduct business and communicate through apps, said Torres, the special agent for the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation.
“It has inhibited the ability to surveil them,” Torres said, although it has also helped in identifying them.
Developments like license plate readers and cell phone location technology have added to the arsenal.
Here are ways gang investigators compile data:
- Social media: When social media took root, it supplanted gang graffiti as a way to communicate what gangs were present where. Gang members will announce their membership in coded language that is not hard for investigators to decipher, like using q's instead of o's in the word woop to signify an allegiance to the Queen Street Double II bloods. Disputes play out on social media that sometimes lead to violence — or intelligence. Posted pictures of associates add to that intelligence.
- Tattoos: Used by gang members to identify what gang they belong to, which are recorded during arrests or seen on social media.
- Beefs: Monitoring “beefs” between disputants through various means can forestall violence and extend the intelligence database.
- Surveillance: “Hours and hours of it at certain locations to see who’s there, who frequents it, what’s going on there,” Finkelstein said. “There are certain locations in Asbury Park and Neptune that a certain gang will frequent, their territory if you will.”
- Wire taps: “You’re listening to their actual conversations,” Finkelstein said. “You take that and match it up with, say, surveillance.”
- Informants: Both people “working off a charge” and paid informants. “There was a cooperating witness who was working with us, getting out of the gang life, whom I spoke to on a daily basis for a very very long time,” Finkelstein said.
- License plate readers: One proved key in finding the men charged with killing two people sitting in a car in Neptune in January.
But all this technology doesn’t mean old-school tactics don’t work, Finkelstein said.
“First and foremost the most reliable way (to identify a gang member) would be by speaking to them,” he said. “There are times when people actually will admit to their gang membership.”
Ken Serrano covers crime, breaking news and investigations. Reach him at 732-643-4029 or at kserrano@gannettnj.com.
