Bed-Stuy Heroin And Gun Bust Started With Wild Shootout, Feds Say

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — A wild Bed-Stuy shootout last summer led to the bust of a violent heroin ring that's been operating in the neighborhood for at least a year, prosecutors announced Monday.

Cops nabbed eight men, 12 guns, $25,000 in cash and suspected stashes of heroin and cocaine — dubbed “Breaking Bad,” “World Wide” and “Fire" — during the raid of two Bed-Stuy homes Monday morning, according to New York City’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan.

Cops raided the suspects homes Monday morning and found 12 guns at a suspected heroin mill at 134 Thomas S. Boyland St., heroin and cocaine at 400 Hancock St., and $25,000 at 94-04 80th St. in Queens, prosecutors said.

The investigation was launched after a wild daylight shooting on Bainbridge Street near Malcolm X Boulevard on Aug. 27, 2018, when prosectors allege brothers Michael Watson, 50, and Marvin Watson, 53, shot more than 20 bullets trying to take out their rivals.

Prosecutors also link Michael Watson to a follow-up shooting two days later on Bushwick Avenue and Halsey Street.

Undercover officers bought about $6,000 in heroin, fentanyl and cocaine from the suspects between September, 2018, and March, 2019, in the investigation that followed, prosecutors said.

The operation appears to have been a family affair, court records show. William Bowman, 51, and his son William White, 33, have been charged with dealing drugs, which were allegedly supplied by the Watson brothers and their nephew Jerry Watson, 31, said prosecutors.

The remaining three suspects are Jose Castillo, 22, Jeffrey Merritt, 55, and Victor Starling, 30, court records show.

The suspects are slated to be arraigned on a 59-count indictment — which includes drug trafficking, attempted assault and weapons possession charges — in Manhattan Supreme Court Monday afternoon and Tuesday, said prosecutors.