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Gangbusters: How a Street Tough, Elite Homicide Unit Took Down New York's Most Dangerous Gang
An elite homicide investigation unit takes on one of the most savage and destructive gangs in New York City history in this gritty true-crime narrative.
The investigation into the late-night murder of a college student on the West Side Highway leads to the Wild Cowboys, a group of young men who for years terrorized Upper Manhattan and the Bronx while running a $30,000-a-day drug business. What follows is a tale of dogged pursuit that offers a fascinating inside look at the workings of a complex police investigation, and a satisfying account of how a city took back its streets.
The investigation into the late-night murder of a college student on the West Side Highway leads to the Wild Cowboys, a group of young men who for years terrorized Upper Manhattan and the Bronx while running a $30,000-a-day drug business. What follows is a tale of dogged pursuit that offers a fascinating inside look at the workings of a complex police investigation, and a satisfying account of how a city took back its streets.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
28 people are currently reading
62 people want to read
About the author
Michael Stone
224 books22 followersLibrarian Note:
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There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 26, 2023
It is difficult to describe this book. There are two parallel stories to which Stone offers equal parts in the book. One of them is the birth, deeds, and death of a Dominican street gang in New York City. The other is the bureaucratic cesspool that is law and order in the Big Apple. Both story-lines have heroes and villains which makes me think that this book is as much about one faction of investigators sticking it to the other in something like a literary gang shooting.
The street gang was known as Red Top or Lenny's boys to the people on the street. The prosecutors called them the Cowboys in order to convey a sense of violence and lawlessness. It is difficult to determine from this book just how different the Cowboys were in comparison to other gangs. Stone mentions the excessive violence of the Jamaican gangs quite a bit throughout the book. Yes, the Cowboys were hyper-violent; but any group involved in retail drug sales has to be violent to protect their turf and punish those who steal, cheat, or betray them. As the trial showed, an industry that relies on hustlers, junkies, thieves, and other such people to keep the business operating, there is going to be many instances of problems in the production line. The Cowboys may have enjoyed dealing punishment as much as drugs; but how they compared to other gangs is unknown.
The book opens with the seemingly senseless murder of a bougie white kid along the highway in Northern Manhattan. Investigators were stumped, although some intelligence filtered back that a drug gang based in the Bronx was responsible. But a motive was totally lacking as the gang was not in Manhattan. Apparently, investigators were largely unaware of this street gang until this particular murder. Searching the web for information about the gang mentions other murders, such as the Quad Murders - but nothing a specific as the death of the wealthy white kid. The overwhelming sense is that the gang could have happily continued slaughtering Dominicans as long as they did not kill obnoxious white boys. The fact that the book begins with this murder and ends with the gunmen being sentenced for this murder says a lot.
Gang violence is nothing new or original. It is difficult to get a sense of time from this book. Stone only includes references to time at the beginning of chapters. That is roughly Fall 1991 - Fall 1996. The police [?] took down the gang in Fall 1993. Testimony shows they were active in the mid-to-late 1980s. In effect, the life of the gang was very short, roughly 1986-1993. They terrorized the neighborhood, but that seems to be the trend. There are parts of many cities that respectable citizens do not visit because of the lawlessness of the place. If the Cowboys were worse than other gangs, well, who knows?
What is clear from the book is how easy it is to take down a drug gang once, authorities decide to go after them. Deciding whom to target is not so easy. There are many gangs doing many bad things. If they kill a wealthy white kid on the street, well, a gang that is otherwise low on the targeting pole, suddenly becomes enemy number 1. Stone reveals that the police use two methods to bring down a street gang. One, they use undercover police to buy drugs, arrest lower gang members, and get them to cooperate against higher-ups. Two, they build smaller cases by focusing on victims to help them build a wider case. Both strategies require leverage over lower level members to cooperate against leaders and enforcers. Both strategies work. Thrown into the mix is the basic role of law enforcement who might arrest and convict gang members on lesser crimes in a simple single instance. This was not a heroic undertaking. It was made into a large criminal case to garner media attention. Why?
This brings up the second thread in the book: office politics. This aspect of the book was way more difficult to follow. Who was from where, why? Who sided with whom? But a few things stand out. One, cops and prosecutors all have big egos and are self-centered. A big conspiracy case full of hyper-violent gangsters can build a reputation. That is why they want big conspiracy cases that take a long time at trial - this case brought a months-long trial...maybe six months. It is hard to tell from this book. It is important to the prosecutor and that prosecutor's team of investigators. This book shows two teams. The first team is the brilliant prosecutor Arceneault and his chief investigator Quinn. They are the heroes of the book. The other team is led by Arceneault's boss, who is almost as bad as the Cowboys. Yes, this book tells the story from team Arceneault-Quinn. I strongly suspect that Quinn provided Stone with much of the inside story because of the way Quinn is portrayed in the book as being always right and always tough. I especially like the story where he put his finger in a suspect's ass to frighten him into compliance because he did not have a firearm. Yeah. He is Chuck Norris and Judge Dredd rolled into a real life police detective.
Too much of the book focused on genital jousting in the office. Despite this poison brewing among the good guys, they forged a strange alliance of prosecutors and investigators from Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. I think there were other too. But most of the crimes took place in the Bronx, so it is a mystery why Manhattan took the lead. Maybe it has to do with the one crime in Manhattan - the dead white kid. It is not clear what was going on or why. The goal was to get the Cowboys off the street. In the end, both teams seem to have lost. A new prosecutor was brought on at the very last minute and did just fine. It did not involve much. The prosecution had months to go over testimony with the shaky witnesses. Finally when the stories were straight, they went to court. Maybe that alone was the herculean task - getting the witnesses to give a single coherent story of crimes. Fortunately, they had a judge who seemed as eager (from the book) to put the Cowboys in jail as the prosecutors.
The result of this book is to demonize some individuals as much as the gangsters. Time, location, and story are distorted or ignored. It is unclear what the defendants were charged with. It is unclear if someone was charged and sentenced for murdering the white kid. The gangster pled guilty and made an apology of sorts. But it is unclear if that was why he was sentenced to life. No. This book is less about the Cowboys and more about office politics.
Overall, readers can learn a lot from this book. Stone reveals how easy it is to imprison gangsters. He shows how street gangs operate. It almost makes the gangsters victims when you read that their gross business was $30,000/week. But their net profit was closer to $3,000/week due to overhead costs and supply chain economics. Middle managers were making only three figures. Huge money was spent on weaponry. Violence was a way of life. The brief life of the Cowboys witnessed multiple gang wars as rivals invaded their small territory and rivals rose within their own gang. The office politics adds melodrama to an otherwise fascinating story. But I now see why other reviewers recommend other books on this subject.
The street gang was known as Red Top or Lenny's boys to the people on the street. The prosecutors called them the Cowboys in order to convey a sense of violence and lawlessness. It is difficult to determine from this book just how different the Cowboys were in comparison to other gangs. Stone mentions the excessive violence of the Jamaican gangs quite a bit throughout the book. Yes, the Cowboys were hyper-violent; but any group involved in retail drug sales has to be violent to protect their turf and punish those who steal, cheat, or betray them. As the trial showed, an industry that relies on hustlers, junkies, thieves, and other such people to keep the business operating, there is going to be many instances of problems in the production line. The Cowboys may have enjoyed dealing punishment as much as drugs; but how they compared to other gangs is unknown.
The book opens with the seemingly senseless murder of a bougie white kid along the highway in Northern Manhattan. Investigators were stumped, although some intelligence filtered back that a drug gang based in the Bronx was responsible. But a motive was totally lacking as the gang was not in Manhattan. Apparently, investigators were largely unaware of this street gang until this particular murder. Searching the web for information about the gang mentions other murders, such as the Quad Murders - but nothing a specific as the death of the wealthy white kid. The overwhelming sense is that the gang could have happily continued slaughtering Dominicans as long as they did not kill obnoxious white boys. The fact that the book begins with this murder and ends with the gunmen being sentenced for this murder says a lot.
Gang violence is nothing new or original. It is difficult to get a sense of time from this book. Stone only includes references to time at the beginning of chapters. That is roughly Fall 1991 - Fall 1996. The police [?] took down the gang in Fall 1993. Testimony shows they were active in the mid-to-late 1980s. In effect, the life of the gang was very short, roughly 1986-1993. They terrorized the neighborhood, but that seems to be the trend. There are parts of many cities that respectable citizens do not visit because of the lawlessness of the place. If the Cowboys were worse than other gangs, well, who knows?
What is clear from the book is how easy it is to take down a drug gang once, authorities decide to go after them. Deciding whom to target is not so easy. There are many gangs doing many bad things. If they kill a wealthy white kid on the street, well, a gang that is otherwise low on the targeting pole, suddenly becomes enemy number 1. Stone reveals that the police use two methods to bring down a street gang. One, they use undercover police to buy drugs, arrest lower gang members, and get them to cooperate against higher-ups. Two, they build smaller cases by focusing on victims to help them build a wider case. Both strategies require leverage over lower level members to cooperate against leaders and enforcers. Both strategies work. Thrown into the mix is the basic role of law enforcement who might arrest and convict gang members on lesser crimes in a simple single instance. This was not a heroic undertaking. It was made into a large criminal case to garner media attention. Why?
This brings up the second thread in the book: office politics. This aspect of the book was way more difficult to follow. Who was from where, why? Who sided with whom? But a few things stand out. One, cops and prosecutors all have big egos and are self-centered. A big conspiracy case full of hyper-violent gangsters can build a reputation. That is why they want big conspiracy cases that take a long time at trial - this case brought a months-long trial...maybe six months. It is hard to tell from this book. It is important to the prosecutor and that prosecutor's team of investigators. This book shows two teams. The first team is the brilliant prosecutor Arceneault and his chief investigator Quinn. They are the heroes of the book. The other team is led by Arceneault's boss, who is almost as bad as the Cowboys. Yes, this book tells the story from team Arceneault-Quinn. I strongly suspect that Quinn provided Stone with much of the inside story because of the way Quinn is portrayed in the book as being always right and always tough. I especially like the story where he put his finger in a suspect's ass to frighten him into compliance because he did not have a firearm. Yeah. He is Chuck Norris and Judge Dredd rolled into a real life police detective.
Too much of the book focused on genital jousting in the office. Despite this poison brewing among the good guys, they forged a strange alliance of prosecutors and investigators from Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. I think there were other too. But most of the crimes took place in the Bronx, so it is a mystery why Manhattan took the lead. Maybe it has to do with the one crime in Manhattan - the dead white kid. It is not clear what was going on or why. The goal was to get the Cowboys off the street. In the end, both teams seem to have lost. A new prosecutor was brought on at the very last minute and did just fine. It did not involve much. The prosecution had months to go over testimony with the shaky witnesses. Finally when the stories were straight, they went to court. Maybe that alone was the herculean task - getting the witnesses to give a single coherent story of crimes. Fortunately, they had a judge who seemed as eager (from the book) to put the Cowboys in jail as the prosecutors.
The result of this book is to demonize some individuals as much as the gangsters. Time, location, and story are distorted or ignored. It is unclear what the defendants were charged with. It is unclear if someone was charged and sentenced for murdering the white kid. The gangster pled guilty and made an apology of sorts. But it is unclear if that was why he was sentenced to life. No. This book is less about the Cowboys and more about office politics.
Overall, readers can learn a lot from this book. Stone reveals how easy it is to imprison gangsters. He shows how street gangs operate. It almost makes the gangsters victims when you read that their gross business was $30,000/week. But their net profit was closer to $3,000/week due to overhead costs and supply chain economics. Middle managers were making only three figures. Huge money was spent on weaponry. Violence was a way of life. The brief life of the Cowboys witnessed multiple gang wars as rivals invaded their small territory and rivals rose within their own gang. The office politics adds melodrama to an otherwise fascinating story. But I now see why other reviewers recommend other books on this subject.
July 22, 2018
New York Story
This is a very informative story about New York. As a Texan, I find hard to believe that people would be expected to live in the midst of such of such mayhem and violence. It was very redeeming to read about the courageous cops and prosecutors.
This is a very informative story about New York. As a Texan, I find hard to believe that people would be expected to live in the midst of such of such mayhem and violence. It was very redeeming to read about the courageous cops and prosecutors.
July 28, 2018
The drug gangs were merciless killrrs
I seldom read this type of true story and nearly put it down in the early pages. I'm glad that I went on the journey with Michael Stone. The group of law enforcement that risked their lives, their personal health, and time away from their families to bring these vicious killers to justice was, and continues to be, a supreme sacrifice beyond comprehension. Very well written.
I seldom read this type of true story and nearly put it down in the early pages. I'm glad that I went on the journey with Michael Stone. The group of law enforcement that risked their lives, their personal health, and time away from their families to bring these vicious killers to justice was, and continues to be, a supreme sacrifice beyond comprehension. Very well written.
December 15, 2022
At the end of the book and the end of the trial Stone writes about how the jury was exhausted and overwhelmed with all the many defendants, victims, cops, DAs, crimes and more the story threw at them. The reader feels the same despite it being an interesting recounting of a wild time in NYC.
Read
April 2, 2009this book is actually non fiction. i dont really read non fiction but this book was amazing. it tells of two stories that actually happened that was gang related. it relates it to the life that people live today that are in gangs. it give you the situation, how a person deals with it and the outcome. in this case the outcome was death, although the book wasnt that interesting it is very informative
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews