Father and Son Murdered in Brooklyn Hallway

The Langston Hughes Houses in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Image via Google Maps

A father and son profiled in a New York Magazine piece last year on the gangs of Brownsville, Brooklyn, died together — from three gunshot wounds between the two of them — in the 14th-floor hallway of 315 Sutter Avenue, an affordable-housing tower within Brownsville’s Langston Hughes Houses, late Friday night, police said.

“Upon arrival“ around 10:40 p.m., “officers discovered a 25-year-old male with a gunshot wound to the head and another unidentified male with two gunshot wounds to the torso,” the NYPD said in its initial report.

The victims were later identified as Dupree ”Powerful” Dunbar, 47, and his son, Dupris “Bango” Moore, 25.

“RIP to Powerful and his son Darius,” Twitter user ‏@TheNameIsJerald wrote in one of many tributes posted to social media over the weekend.

“Shi*t nasty out here we gotta save us!” Instagram user 5050_showofflingo wrote.

In his summer 2014 New York Nag profile on Brownsville gangs, reporter Eric Conigsberg wrote extensively about Dunbar and another of his sons, Andre Moore. From the piece:

Andre, whose friends call him “ ’Spect,” is one of seven children born to Sharon Moore and Dupree “Powerful” Dunbar. Andre’s mother describes her son as “a good boy” and said that one of his teachers told her she was looking at “a future mathematician.” He fell behind at Frederick Douglass high school, she said, though only because of poor attendance. “All the kids from Howard Houses were picking fights with the boys from Langston Hughes,” she told me. “It made him uncomfortable, and I found out he stopped going.”

According to police officers who have known Andre since he was 12, his involvement in the Wave Gang began at around 17 and quickly escalated. While he was growing up, his father did five stays in prison and was reputedly a gang member. (His convictions over the years have involved weapons possession, robbery, and conspiracy.) One of Andre’s younger brothers also joined the Waves.

“Powerful’s a big influence on that household,” Lieutenant Glassberg says. “He’s O.G., talking about street cred and defending your turf. He wants his boys to be like him.”

A staggering 43 members of the Wave Gang and their rivals, the Hoodstarz — including two of Dunbar’s sons — were taken down in a 2012 NYPD bust called Operation Tidal Wave. Much of the evidence against the alleged gang members included threats and boasts they’d made on social media. (Prompting a wider debate about whether that kind of online banter could hold up in court.)

NYPD detectives are now asking anyone with information in regard to these latest murders to call their Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS.