By Tiffany Williams –
A Brooklyn gangbanger who left a trail of blood across the borough will spend the next quarter century behind bars.
Devante James, 29, of East Flatbush — a member of the Mac Balla 59 Brims subset of the Bloods — was sentenced to 25 years in prison after admitting to a string of violent gun crimes, including the cold-blooded killing of a 28-year-old man in Brownsville. Justice Dineen Riviezzo of Brooklyn Supreme Court handed down the sentence, along with five years of post-release supervision, closing the book on one of the borough’s most reckless shooters.
James pleaded guilty in June to first-degree manslaughter and second-degree attempted murder, charges tied to shootings that stretched from Brownsville to Bedford-Stuyvesant between 2019 and 2020. The crimes showed a violent pattern of gang-related mayhem, with James spraying bullets at rivals, blasting innocent bystanders, and even firing into a bodega after being hit with a bottle.
“This defendant terrorized communities with a spree of gang-related violence, taking a life and putting countless others at risk,” District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said after the sentencing. “Gun violence is at record lows in Brooklyn because the NYPD and my prosecutors relentlessly focus on the drivers of crime like this defendant who are responsible for much of the bloodshed. By holding him accountable, we are delivering justice for the victims and continuing the progress that is making our borough safer than ever.”
Prosecutors detailed how James’s violence escalated over time, starting with a shooting in the early hours of August 18, 2019. Around 2:14 a.m., he crept up on a group of men hanging out near Tapscott Street and Sutter Avenue in Brownsville and opened fire, trying to hit a rival Crip. Instead, two innocent men were struck — one in the ankle, the other in the thigh. Both survived, but the attack set the stage for what was to come.
Two nights later, James chased 28-year-old Arsenio Gravesande down Union Street, firing a bullet into his hip. Gravesande was rushed to Brookdale Hospital, where he went into cardiac arrest and later died. That murder cemented James’s reputation as one of the most dangerous shooters on the street, prosecutors said.
Weeks later, during an unrelated police investigation in East Flatbush, officers spotted James ditching a loaded gun near Church Avenue. Testing later tied his DNA to the weapon.
But James wasn’t done. On March 28, 2020, outside a Bedford-Stuyvesant bodega, he got into an argument with another man, who cracked him over the head with a bottle. James responded by pulling a gun and shooting the man in the stomach. The victim survived, but the shooting once again put James on the NYPD’s radar.
Days later, on April 3, 2020, he waved a gun at a bodega employee near Bedford Avenue and Greene Avenue. The worker flagged down nearby cops, who nabbed James and recovered yet another loaded handgun, this time hidden in an open mailbox. Ballistics proved it was the same weapon from the March 28 shooting.
Brooklyn prosecutors said James embodied the kind of violent, trigger-happy gang member whose actions fueled years of bloodshed in Brownsville and Bed-Stuy. But with gun crime falling to record lows in 2025, officials framed his conviction and sentencing as a symbol of progress.
James will be well into his fifties when he gets out of prison — if he makes it that far. For Gravesande’s family, and the neighborhoods James terrorized, the 25-year sentence means one less gunman roaming the streets.