Bloods Attempted Takeover of a Long Island Indian Reservation Smoke Shop

Bloods Attempted Takeover of a Long Island Indian
Reservation Smoke Shop
By Timothy Bolger on September 2nd, 2011

It was Sunday, shortly before daybreak, last Labor Day eve when three gunshots pierced the peaceful morning
quiet on the Poospatuck Indian Reservation in Mastic.
One of the bullets struck a 23-year-old security guard in the abdomen, toppling him to the ground outside one of
many tobacco shops dotting “The Rez,” as locals call it.
The attack was caught on video by a nearby surveillance camera, revealing the grainy image of a man in a white
t-shirt standing alongside a black automobile as the triggerman. The victim was left, slumped over, bleeding into
the ground.
Two months later, three masked gunmen robbed another smoke shop on the 56-acre reservation along the Forge
River, home to the Unkechaug Indian Nation.
The violent outbursts were rare for the typically tranquil narrow streets bustling with shoppers and orange flag-
waving men hawking cheap cigarettes. Most action on Poospatuck is the constant parade of tobacco seekers
patronizing the rows of Native American-run smoke shops for low-cost cigarettes. In modest houses, bungalows
and mobile homes surrounding the two-block strip, working-class families go about their daily life on
Poospatuck same as their neighbors outside the territory—except for a heightened distrust of outsiders that
sometimes seems to stretch back to colonial times.
Without a court system or police department of their own, the Unkechaug tribe relies on Suffolk authorities to
investigate crimes committed on its reservation. But relations with outside law enforcement, never smooth to
begin with, have been strained by an ongoing battle with the state over the collection of sales taxes, which
threatens to put this impoverished tribe’s livelihood in jeopardy. So besides the struggle for its right to exist, the
tribe’s sovereignty and its economy all come to the forefront of the issues facing the Unkechaugs, practically
every day. Embattled from the outside, they now found themselves in the thick of a fight from within, made
harder because trust has to be earned.
“Something was amiss, we just didn’t know what,” Suffolk County District Attorney Tom Spota tells the Press.
The situation became clearer once the security guard recovered, however; identifying his assailants and giving
investigators an inside look at the crisis facing the tribe: Long Island’s gang problem had bled onto The Rez. The
alleged shooter and his getaway driver were members of a particularly violent Bellport-based subset of the
nationally recognized gang, The Bloods. The crew had taken over a smoke shop called Indian Creek and
converted it into a front for drug dealing—a sequence of events Spota characterizes as unprecedented.
“It’s the first time that we actually saw evidence of a street gang infiltrating a reservation,” Spota says.
According to the district attorney, the cigarettes were secondary. “This group here was into violence, drugs.”
JUDGE NOT BY THE EYE BUT FROM THE HEART
Being an outsider on the reservation is a lot like being onstage: All eyes are on the visitor. Every member of the
tribe watching their kids play in their front yards or in the street is also keeping watch on the cigarette shop
patrons. Those unsure of what they’re looking for are met by local merchants eagerly hoping to score a sale from
passing drivers.
The reservation doesn’t look that different from its neighbors on the Mastic Beach peninsula. Sidewalks are few
and far between. Hot-rods in need of tune-ups are parked on front yards and home repairs are in need of
completion.

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Colorful signs light up the reservation like a mini-Las Vegas strip, but the only game here is figuring out which
of the dozens of smoke shops has the best prices. Morning Dew, Dream Catcher, Native Tip. These are but a few
of the stores, which range in size from a tiny trailer to a two-story ranch house. Most shops defy stereotypes, but
one has a classic large wooden Indian standing outside its door to greet customers. The Rez used to have a
restaurant; it closed long ago. Today the only appetite that feeds the local economy is smoking tobacco.
Unkechaug means “The people from beyond the hill,” but the tribe inhabiting the Poospatuck (which means
“Where the waters meet”) Reservation these days feels more like they’re between a rock and a hard place. Since
having their land stolen by European settlers, tribes across Indian Country have seen their share of hustlers take
advantage of them, be they fur trappers who plied aboriginals with alcohol to get their natural resources, or
modern-day international drug-trafficking gangs that flood poverty-stricken reservations with the same drugs
they use their land for smuggling.
“In the past, the tax-free cigarettes attracted outsiders, and it was very difficult for the tribe to protect themselves
against that kind of intrusion, and that’s what you see here, apparently,” says John Strong, a local historian and
author of a series of books on LI’s ancient tribes. His latest, The Unkechaug Indians of Eastern Long Island, was
released earlier this month.
The tribe includes about 500 members, nearly half of whom live in surrounding neighborhoods, although the
tribal rolls are currently being updated. But bloodline questions are always dogging some among the Unkechaug
as well as other tribes.
“They’re very proud of their Indian heritage and they really bristle at the racist notion of them being no longer
Indians,” says Strong. Descendents proudly point to their ancestor, William Cooper, an Unkechaug sachem, or
chief, who died in battle aboard the USS Constitution during the War of 1812.
Although they have not applied for federal recognition from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, and state
lawmakers have proposed legislation to strip Poospatuck of state recognition amid New York’s ongoing
cigarette-tax controversy, the Unkechaug are not down and out. In dismissing a lawsuit filed by NYC-based
supermarket mogul John Castimitidis, who claimed that Poospatuck smoke shops were stealing his business, a
federal judge in Central Islip ruled that the tribe has what is referred to as common-law federal recognition.
While the gang infiltration may be unique on Long Island, also home to Southampton’s Shinnecock Reservation,
larger tribes in Indian Country in the western United States battle drug trafficking rings that dwarf the
Poospatuck problem. Until then, prior investigations on the reservation had been aimed mostly at cracking down
on untaxed cigarette sales, a highly litigious issue that has torpedoed relations between this and other sovereign
Indian nations with federal, New York State and Suffolk authorities. At LI’s other reservation, the Shinnecock
Indian Nation in Southampton, tribal leaders in 2007 requested Spota investigate members operating a drug ring
out of smoke shops there.
In the absence of their own police force, the Unkechaug had hired
Ground Zero Security, a private firm. The company did not return
repeated calls for comment. The wounded security guard was not their
employee. The tribe has also just gone through an election that replaced
its longtime chief Harry Wallace with Matthew Carroll.
Despite numerous requests, Chief Carroll would not comment for this
article.
“We have a nice council—very strong people,” Carroll told the Long
Island Advance shortly after winning the post. “I am looking forward to
working with them for everybody, the whole community.”
                                                                              Without a paddle: Suffolk authorities said a gang
Suffolk County investigators say that buyers from off the reservation         converted this smoke shop, Indian Creek, into a
would call and order their drugs in advance before coming onto                front for drug dealing on the Poospatuck
Poospatuck to pick up their illicit take-out orders. According to Spota,      Reservation in Mastic last year.

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the Indian Creek smoke shop became a one-stop shop for a carton of smokes, a vile of crack, a bag of weed, a
few hits of Ecstasy and a packet of pills.

 From left: Kreem “Ghost” Jackson, alleged leader of the Bellport set of the bloods; Howard “Mousey” Davis, his sidekick; Helen
 “Pell” Davis, Mousey’s sister; and brothers David and James Brown, the alleged triggerman and getaway driver in the shooting of a
 security guard on the Poospatuck Reservation.

LEADER OF THE PACK
One gang member in particular was sought out to work the smoke shop “because of his perceived strength on the
street,” Spota’s spokesman Robert Clifford tells the Press. How much the unidentified Unkechaug knew about
the drug dealing, however, remains unclear.
David Brown, 31, was the gang member who was asked to run Indian Creek Smoke shop and who later shot the
security guard, prosecutors say. Brown answered to his leader, a 29-year-old named Kreem “Ghost” Jackson.
Ghost was the reputed ringleader of The G-Shine or Gangsta Killa Bloods. Well before the gang went into retail,
Jackson—whose nickname is emblazoned on his wrist and ankle in a pair of ghost tattoos—had earned persistent
felony offender status, which means stiffer sentencing. He is a level 2 sex offender. His rap sheet includes
convictions for attempted assault, drugs and raping a 14-year-old girl.
Jackson is also an accused pimp.
“This is a bad guy,” Spota says, pointing at a printout of Jackson’s mugshot sitting on a coffee table in the
Hauppauge office from where the DA took down a half dozen local politicians in the past decade, including the
current county executive. He adds that documents and a series of wiretaps helped his team piece together exactly
what had happened at The Rez—and who was calling the shots.
“Paperwork showed that [Indian Creek] was owned and operated by a Native American Indian of the Poospatuck
reservation,” explains Spota. “In reality, the wiretap clearly disclosed that Ghost was running the smoke shop.”
It was Jackson who, along with Brown and his 28-year-old brother, James, offered a $10,000 bribe to the
wounded security guard to lie to police and say he mistakenly fingered the wrong suspects, according to Spota.
The bribe also came with a catch, say authorities: If the guard refused, there would be more bloodshed.
This threat and the G-Shine’s smoke-shop takeover were revealed in subsequent wiretaps implemented by
prosecutors following the Brown brothers’ arrests for the security guard shooting. The arrests came down before
any money could exchange hands or stories could be changed.

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Prosecutors allege a laundry list of nefarious deeds taking place within the smoke shop’s walls: feeding drugs to
prostitutes to maintain the gang’s control of them, leading a platoon of drug dealers, waging war on rival gangs,
and, of course, witness intimidation.
“[JACKSON] had his fingers in a lot of different pies,”
William Madigan, deputy inspector with Suffolk police
assigned to the District Attorney Squad, tells the Press.
“He had a very extensive drug trade,” Spota adds.
Suffolk police have taken turns stamping out gang violence
flare-ups in Huntington Station, Central Islip and most
recently, Brentwood, where four people were slain by street
violence in a six-week span this spring. Both Mastic and
Bellport have seen enough bloodshed to garner added
police attention as well.
The Bloods, one of the largest gangs on LI, are among the
usual suspects. The silver lining in the Poospatuck case is
that no one was killed—this time. Nor are The Bloods the
first bullies to muscle their way onto the smallest
reservation in the state.
Poospatuck’s most notorious smoke shop operator, Rodney
Morrison—who married into the tribe—was sentenced last
year to 10 years in federal prison for gun possession after
being acquitted of murder, robbery and arson.
Federal authorities say Carlos Pascal, a half brother of
Morrison, laundered $30 million of Morrison’s cash in
Costa Rica. Pascal, who allegedly used the money to buy a
Costa Rican soccer team and build a real estate empire in
the Central American nation, was arrested in June.
By mid-December, Suffolk authorities had heard enough on A surveillance camera captured a suspect allegedly shooting a
                                                              security guard on the Poospatuck Reservation last year
the wiretaps to begin executing eight simultaneous search
warrants to make sure those arrested didn’t tip off their
alleged co-conspirators. Also seized in the raids were a sawed-off shotgun, a crossbow and two handguns—
including a 9mm pistol linked to a Sayville home invasion.
When Jackson was apprehended, he was armed with a loaded .45 caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol,
according to the criminal complaint against him.
Howard “Mousey” Davis, Ghost’s lieutenant who is also a convicted felon, was also taken in, along with Davis’
sister, Helen, and mother, Karen. The women are two of a dozen alleged drug-runners in the case, although
Karen is not a member of the Bloods.
Additionally, Jackson and another suspect were accused of firing guns into a Shirley house in a gang dispute
days before the Poospatuck shooting last September. And that’s not the end of his legal woes.
Christopher Cassar, the Central Islip-based attorney representing Jackson, says police have been “harassing” his
client, who has also been questioned about a Halloween party murder at a Hampton Bays night club last year—
although Cassar says Jackson is not considered a suspect.
“We believe that these charges are extremely weak,” Cassar says. “Everything is based on telephone
conversations, which can be taken out of context.”
All but two of the accused pleaded not guilty in Suffolk County court earlier this year. Helen “Pell” Davis

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pleaded guilty. She was sentenced to time served and 15 years probation for burglary, attempted assault,
intimidating a witness, criminal mischief and drug dealing. Her daughter, Karen, pleaded guilty in July and will
be setenced Sept. 21.
Attorneys for the Brown brothers, Karen “Candy” Davis and her son did not return calls for comment. No arrests
have been made in connection with the smoke shop robbery and Sayville home invasion. Both are still under
investigation.
With a total of 14 suspected outlaws sitting in Suffolk jail while facing a laundry list of charges in the alleged
conspiracy to take over the smoke shop, a fragile peace on Poospatuck has returned—for now.
Exactly how this case will affect the tribe’s attitudes toward outside law enforcement remains unclear. The gang
infiltration-tobacco store takeover is just one of several pressing issues confronting the Unkechaug these days.
SMOKED OUT
Relations between the Unkechaug have been touchy since cash-strapped Suffolk, like New York State, renewed
interest in collecting taxes from shops on Poospatuck that sell cigarettes to visitors—taxes the tribe says that
don’t apply due to its sovereign rights.
The tribe has a pending federal lawsuit against the county, the police, Spota and a host of other officials for what
it describes in the complaint as “a pattern and practice of law enforcement that systematically discriminates
against the Unkechaug Indians who reside on the Poospatuck Reservation.” Specifically, the suit alleges that
Suffolk police have conducted what the tribe describes in court documents as a “blockade” outside entrances to
the reservation in December 2008 and April 2010—accusations the county denies.
The county is countersuing the tribe for sales taxes it claims it is owed from the years of tax-free cigarette sales
on the reservation.
Also alleged in the tribe’s suit is that the county and New York City “have taken matters above and beyond the
scope of ordinary litigation with the ultimate goal to discriminate against and destroy the Unkechaug Indian
Nation.” Mayor Michael Bloomberg went so far as to send undercover investigators to Poospatuck to document
what he alleged are the illegal sale of tax-free cigarettes to non-Indians that he and state officials say are being
resold in the city.
The Unkechaug had joined other Indian nations across New York in suing the state in an attempt to block
collection of cigarette taxes on sales to non-Indian customers, but the courts sided with the state, despite prior
attempts that sparked riots on upstate reservations in the early ’90s. Collecting excise taxes on cigarettes made
by tribes, which makes up much of what is sold in tribal smoke shops these days, is a murkier, unsettled issue.
The legal pressure on Poospatuck is evident at the smoke-shop counters. Prices have nearly doubled in recent
months on Native American-brand cigarettes, which make up the majority of butts sold, since Phillip Morris
USA began cutting off wholesalers delivering to shops in an effort to stem alleged bootlegging.
“Due to legal matters with New York State we have been forced to raise our prices,” reads a sign hanging on a
wall in one smoke shop, where a carton of Seneca brand cigarettes made on the upstate reservation have
increased from $25 to $45 since this spring.
Regardless of the outcome of the ongoing cigarette tax controversy, Suffolk authorities would still exercise
jurisdiction over Poospatuck—unlike much of Indian County out west, where the feds are the only force
sporadically supplanting oft-outmanned tribal police. Earning federal recognition, such as Shinnecock did last
year after a 30-year legal battle, would not change that, either.
On many of the 281 federally recognized reservations spread across 34 states, jurisdiction for offenses
committed depends upon whether the suspects and victims are Indians, whether the crime is a felony or a
misdemeanor, and whether the crime violates tribal, state, or federal law. But in New York, which has 10
reservations—four of which are federally recognized—local law enforcement has more involvement on some
native territories, except for some larger upstate reservations. And some upstate native lands attract far more

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police attention than LI tribes.
The 21,000-acre Akwesasne-Mohawk Indian Reservation on the Canadian border in northern New York, for
example, is dubbed “The Black Hole” for incidents of speed-boat-driven drug-trafficking that have frustrated
federal investigators on both sides of the St. Lawrence River. [The federal Drug Enforcement Agency made a $3
million bust there in 2008.]
Poospatuck’s Indian Creek smoke shop is back in business, competing with the other vendors. Boats fill the
docks along the reservation’s riverfront. Having recently wrapped up the annual June tribal meeting, locals now
look forward to the fall festival at Shinnecock.
Despite their differences, both the Unkechaug and Suffolk’s lawmen are happy this latest flare-up on the
reservation has finally faded into the sunset.
“I think they were appreciative that these people, who shouldn’t have been on the reservation, are now gone,
because there only would have been more violence,” says Spota.
Harry Wallace, the Unkechaug’s recently unseated chief, concurs: “I’m glad that the people who were
responsible for that are being brought to justice.”

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attempt/

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