8 suspected of PBC gang activity are arrested

Men also linked to series of retaliatory shootings

Vowing to crack down on gang activity in Palm Beach County, sheriff’s officials and prosecutors have announced the arrests of eight men with suspected gang ties and connections to several shootings over the past four years.

The men taken into custody range in age from 20 to 25. They are suspected of carrying out a series of retaliatory shootings in response to the 2019 murders of two teens at a park in suburban West Palm Beach, and conspiring to kill a man who died in an unsolved 2021 homicide in Royal Palm Beach, Maj. Talal Masri of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said.

PBSO officials described a two-year investigation by the agency’s gang unit and a cycle of violence by suspected gang members that stretched to various reaches of the county.

“We were able to take some very, very dangerous people off of the streets and out of the neighborhood, “Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said during at a Nov. 9 news conference at PBSO’s Satellite Office in suburban West Palm Beach.

“It’s an ongoing initiative. Sometimes people don’t see exactly what we’re doing because it’s a lot of undercover (work). But these are some dangerous people that we’ve taken off the street.”

Seven defendants face charges of attempted first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and another faces a single count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Two were juveniles at the time of their alleged crimes, according to court records.

During the news conference, officials described their efforts to stop gang violence in Palm Beach County.

According to PBSO, two defendants are relatives of Moltere Charles Jr., one of two teens fatally shot in the early