PHILADELPHIA — Nineteen people are expected to be charged in the coming days in connection with a yearslong West Philadelphia gang war that investigators say fueled nearly two dozen shootings — including at least five homicides — across the city, law enforcement officials announced Wednesday.

The defendants include members of the Young Bag Chasers, or YBC, as well as people affiliated with the rival crews caught in a multi-year cycle of retaliation.

Five people were taken into custody Wednesday morning as part of a sweeping investigation by Philadelphia police and prosecutors into the back-and-forth shootings that occurred between 2022 and 2024. Several of those expected to be charged are already behind bars — either awaiting trial or serving sentences for separate crimes.

Officials said investigators linked nearly two dozen shootings to the groups — with a total of 35 victims between the ages of 5 and 42.

The indictment follows a multi-year probe by Philadelphia police and the District Attorney’s Office’s Gun Violence Task Force into YBC and its affiliated groups — including the Young Face Arrangers and Northwest Philadelphia-based crew PNB — as well as rival members from the Parkside Killers and CCK — a trio of allied crews from West and South Philadelphia.

Which cases were solved?

One of the five homicides solved is that of Zyir Stafford, better known as “Booga,” who was shot and killed by YBC members while leaving work at a North Philadelphia McDonalds in December 2023.

Police said he was not involved with the feud, but his brother was affiliated with CCK — and so YBC targeted him.

YBC members mocked Stafford’s death online and in songs. They planned to sell weed out of McDonalds Happy Meal boxes, named albums after him, and filmed music videos inside the fast food restaurants — all attempts to profit off the carnage.

On Wednesday, police said they linked two YBC members to Stafford’s killing: Stephen Weddington, aka Baby Yopp, and Jymir Burbage, aka Lil Mir.

Police also solved the killings of two well-known YBC members.

Tahjae Brooks, 21, a rapper and founding member of YBC known as “Jae100,” was shot and killed in December 2022.

Police said they charged three CCK members with his death: Anthony Lacey-Woodson, or “Pistol P” — who is serving 45 to 90 years in prison for killing three other people — as well as Ronnie Vincent-Quan and Herman “Cherm” Stigall.

Six months later, Brooks’ best friend Kameir Scott, or “T.O.,” was shot and killed on the 600 block of North Preston Street. Markees Muhammad, of the Parkside Killers, has been charged with that crime, prosecutors said.

YBC members were charged in two other homicides.

Weddington and Burbage — as well as Hasin Muse and Tatiana Edwards — have been charged with killing Qaadir Cheeks, a CCK affiliate known as “55Qua” who was killed in May 2024 near 55th and Baltimore.

Weddington was also charged with the murder of Sharif King in Parkside in July 2023, as well as several nonfatal shootings.

Who else was charged?

YBC and CCK have been in a violent, public feud for years that became fueled by retaliatory violence and social media.

Most members of YBC and CCK are aspiring drill rappers who write songs about the ongoing shootings and conflicts, trolling homicide victims and their families and encouraging more violence — and building a social media and music following in the process.

“The same group of people repeatedly were doing shootings, using the same guns ... and bragging about it,” said Assistant District Attorney Anna Walters.

Investigators with the Gun Violence Task Force and police department had been investigating YBC, CCK, and allied groups for at least two years, monitoring their social media pages and music videos, and slowly connecting them to a host of crimes, Walters said.

They used ballistic evidence, phone records, and social media to solve the cases, she said.

One of CCK’s most prominent members — Hasaan Stafford, or Saany Goon — was charged Wednesday with four nonfatal shootings, officials said.

And prominent YBC member Kasim Brown, aka FSdaBender or “Fat Seem,” was charged with three nonfatal shootings. Brown is currently in federal custody, charged with gun crimes.

The indictment comes even as the number of people affiliated with YBC has dwindled in recent years, and the groups’ feuds have quieted. The face of YBC, Abdul Vicks, aka YBC Dul, was shot and killed in August 2024. Many other members are serving decades in prison for murder.

Still, there were dozens of shootings connected to YBC feuds that remained unsolved — including the killings of many of the gang’s members.

Capt. James Kearney, head of the police department’s nonfatal shooting unit, said officers are always working to solve shootings even as years have passed.

“They might have thought they got away with it,” he said. “But they didn’t.”

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