Ex-con caught with ghost gun, drugs in Bronx works with anti-gun youth group: sources

Rocco Parascandola, Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News
Updated ·4 min read
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A man accused of carrying a ghost gun and a bag of crack when he was caught fare-beating at a Bronx subway station works with a city funded anti-violence group that tries to steer youth away from guns and gangs, the Daily News has learned.

Jermaine Greene, who was arrested trying to slip through an open exit door into the Fordham Road station in University Heights at about 5:45 p.m. on March 28, is a member of Bronx Rises Against Gun Violence (BRAG), law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case said.

Run by Good Shepherd Services, BRAG promotes safer streets where violence is not accepted and uses “credible messengers” — ex-cons who have either been in gangs or lived lives of violence — to monitor areas of the Bronx where violence flares up and deescalate the clash through conflict mediation.

Greene, 42, is an ex-con who spent nearly 14 years in prison for a 2004 Delaware murder. Green had been an outreach worker with BRAG since 2022.

“Bronx Rises Against Gun Violence is aware of the arrest of one of its staff,” a BRAG spokesperson said Tuesday. “We take this matter seriously and are conducting a comprehensive internal inquiry to ensure the safety, welfare and trust of our program participants and the communities we support.”

When he was caught trying to slip through the exit door, cops ran Greene’s name, finding that he had two open warrants, police said. They also quickly discovered an untraceable ghost gun and a plastic bag of crack on him, cops said.

“He apparently didn’t get the memo that the NYPD is hyper-focused on transit safety,” NYPD Transit Chief Michael Kemper said on X. “He also didn’t get the memo that law-abiding New Yorkers are fed up with open lawlessness at the turnstiles.”

Greene was charged with weapon and drug possession and fare evasion, and was ordered held on $10,000 bail. Attorney William Schwarz, who represented him at his arraignment declined to comment on the arrest.

The Bronx district attorney’s office, which has worked with BRAG’s publicly funded violence interrupters in the past, declined to comment on Greene’s links to the group, citing the pending case.

BRAG and the group’s credible messengers play a major role in Mayor Adams “Blueprint to End Gun Violence” that was unveiled in 2022. The anti-violence group is also considered a “community partner” of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice and the Mayor’s Office of Community and Mental Health.

The group works in the Bronx’s 46th, 47th and 52nd precincts in Fordham, University Heights, Wakefield, Williamsbridge and Norwood.

Greene is not the first BRAG member to run afoul of the law.

In January, the former director of BRAG, Michael Rodriguez, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Jan. 4 in Orange County after pleading guilty to narcotics and conspiracy charges.

Rodriguez was arrested after a two-year investigation in Middletown, N.Y. that identified him as the main supplier for two notorious drug dealers in the county, investigators said at the time.

At the time of his arrest, Bronx DA Darcel Clark said the charges against Rodriguez were both “shocking and disturbing.”

“[Rodriguez] has attended anti-violence events and peace marches portraying himself as someone who cares about stopping the violence in our community,” Clark said in a statement. “These charges are the exact opposite of the good work cure-violence groups are doing.”

Greene’s arrest came just hours after Mayor Adams announced that the city will soon begin using weapon detection scanners at train stations to help bring down a recent uptick in violence.

He was arrested for domestic murder on April 19, 2004, after he killed a loved one in Delaware, police said. He was convicted of murder and was released from prison in 2018. He moved back to New York shortly afterward.

“Don’t think he was going to visit his parole officer tonight,” NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell joked on X.

Even before moving to Delaware, Greene was convicted of robbery in the Bronx in 1999 and served three years in prison before being released, court records show.

Word of Greene’s connections to BRAG comes as violence interrupters throughout the city have complained that they are being harassed, abused and arrested by the NYPD as they try to deescalate tense situations on the streets and steer youngsters away from a life of crime and gangs.