Queens is once again experiencing chaos, with Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez witnessing it firsthand.
Along Roosevelt Avenue, one of the most notorious prostitution and crime corridors in New York City, the scene looks more like a third-world marketplace than a neighborhood in the United States. Sex workers are once again lining the sidewalks, openly soliciting customers, while vendors grill meat, sell knockoff electronics, and peddle suspected stolen goods in broad daylight, as reported by Fox News.
This stretch of Queens has become a no-go zone for many longtime residents, and they’re fed up with being ignored. Local families say they’ve begged Ocasio-Cortez and Meng to act, but nothing has changed. They’ve even nicknamed the strip the “Avenue of the Sweethearts” due to its reputation, and some say it feels like living inside a “Red Light District.”
“All the criminal activity has reverted to the way it was last year,” local activist and Republican City Council candidate Ramses Frias told Fox News Digital. “Our residents feel like prisoners in their own homes while criminals walk freely, preying on helpless victims.”
According to Frias, violent gangs such as 18th Street and Tren de Aragua are using graffiti to mark their territory and conducting their operations in plain sight.
Following a recent Ocasio-Cortez town hall, Fox News Digital walked Roosevelt Avenue and counted as many as 30 women on one block alone, appearing to offer sex to Friday night partiers, all while children and families passed by.
The prostitution is hard to miss, and so is the split in responsibilities. Most of the alleged sex workers operate on Meng’s side of the strip, while Ocasio-Cortez’s side is packed with vendors selling counterfeit Apple products, tools, and street food, often stored in unlabeled containers under the subway tracks. Health standards appear nonexistent.
Gang activity in AOC’s district has also gotten worse.
Several members of a violent migrant gang have been accused of “unleashing terror” to keep control of a renowned crime strip governed by Ocasio-Cortez.
Eight members of the deadly 18th Street international gang are accused of carrying out a series of violent beatings and stabbings to preserve their control over Queens’ Roosevelt Avenue business district. Prosecutors claimed they also distributed phony passports and counterfeit currencies, traded narcotics and smuggled guns, and extorted companies for rent.
According to a spokeswoman for the United States Attorney’s Office, seven of the eight gang members are in the country illegally. They are all members and affiliates of the 18th Street gang, which was founded in the 1960s by Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles and now has members across the United States, Mexico, and Central America, according to prosecutors.
Their area included the two-mile commercial strip, which has long been a hotspot for crime and illicit prostitution, as highlighted extensively by Fox News Digital.
Locals have compared it to a “Red Light District” or a third-world flea market, as the sidewalks are frequently crowded with women seeking sex and merchants selling stolen or counterfeit items and unregulated hot food.
Fox News reported seeing at least 30 women seeking sex on one block of the strip following Ocasio-Cortez’s last town hall.
The indictment against the gangbangers, released on June 16, comes after a Fox News Digital article in April revealed that neighborhood authorities were concerned about the 18th Street Gang coming in to seize control of the region.
The gang had come in to fill the geographical hole left by gangs like Tren de Aragua, which local officials said had been substantially demolished during a big winter police operation in the area that resulted in hundreds of arrests.
Local authorities had requested assistance from the FBI and the DEA in cracking down on the criminals who, they claimed, had turned their community into a festering “gangland.” The 18th Street gang has been marking their territory across the neighborhood with their gang emblem.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office Christopher Raia said, “Those arrested… acted and behaved with callous and cruel disregard for those around them. Our actions today represent yet another example of the FBI’s commitment to crushing the violent transnational gangs plaguing our communities.”