A 16-year-old has been charged with killing West Philly gang leader YBC Dul and shooting four others

A 16-year-old has been charged with murder in the high-profile killing of a West Philadelphia gang leader and rapper — one of two killings and three shootings police say he committed across North Philadelphia last month.

Aiden Waters, who officials said is affiliated with a street group based out of the Olney section of the city, is accused of killing two people and attempting to seriously injure or kill eight others within just five days in August, according to court records.

Among those police say he killed is Abdul Vicks, a 25-year-old rapper and the head of a West Philadelphia-based gang known as the Young Bag Chasers, or YBC. Vicks, better known as “YBC Dul,” was killed in a drive-by shooting in Olney on Aug. 23.

Police said that Vicks had just picked up a friend and was driving down the 100 block of West Olney Avenue around 3:30 p.m. As he slowed at a stoplight, a white car — which police say had been following Vicks for a few minutes — drove up alongside him and two passengers fired multiple rounds into the vehicle, before speeding off.

Vicks was struck multiple times in the chest and hand. His friend, in a panic, drove back to his house on North Sixth Street, and then, with the help of his uncle, rushed Vicks to Einstein Medical Center. He died just before 4 p.m.

Surveillance footage, fingerprints, ballistic evidence, and jail calls proved crucial in identifying suspects, according to the affidavit of probable cause for Waters’ arrest.

The night Vicks was killed, police said they recovered the shooters’ getaway car on the 6900 block of North 15th Street. The car — which had been stolen in Cheltenham Township a week earlier — had been burned, but detectives recovered ballistic evidence inside, as well as a series of fingerprints along the doors, the affidavit says.

Detectives also recovered video footage of the getaway car, and tracked it to a rear alleyway of a house on the 1700 block of 68th Street — where Waters lives, according to the affidavit — before it proceeded to the lot where it was burned. Video near the lot showed a young man police believe to be Waters get out of the car and attempt to cover his face, the affidavit says.

Investigators are still working to identify the two other people they believe were involved in Vicks’ killing.

Waters’ crime spree began about a week earlier, according to the affidavit, when he paid a friend $100 to steal a car for him in Cheltenham. That car — the white Kia Sportage — was later used as the getaway car in a gunpoint robbery outside Live Casino on Aug. 17, and then, days later, in the killing of Vicks, the records say.

According to the documents, the two other shootings Waters has been charged with unfolded in this way:

Around 9:50 p.m. on Aug. 18, he opened fire on two people on the 500 block of Sentner Street in Lawncrest. A 43-year-old man was struck in the abdomen, and a 14-year-old was shot in the leg. Both survived.

Then, just hours later, around 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 19, police say Waters, with at least one other person, fired more than two dozen rounds into a car full of teens on the 200 block of East Duncannon Street. Two 16-year-olds were shot, including Marquise Saunders, who was struck in the head and killed.

Around 4 a.m., police recovered the shooters’ getaway car, a gray Hyundai Sonata, on the 6500 block of North 10th Street. Investigators were able to determine that a cell phone had connected to the car, and downloaded the data associated with the phone, said Assistant District Attorney Cydney Pope, who is prosecuting the case.

In that way, Pope said, they discovered a series of video calls between Waters and friends who were in jail. During the calls on Aug. 20, Waters discussed the series of crimes, using code words like “scrimmage” to describe the shooting, and “slam dunk” to reference a homicide as if it were a basketball game, according to the affidavit.

“There were two different scrimmages in one day,” Waters told his friend, according to the affidavit. “One slam dunk, and one went in and out.”

For those crimes, Waters has been charged with murder, arson, causing catastrophe, conspiracy, and gun crimes. He also faces eight counts of attempted murder — for the three people who were shot and survived, and the four other teens who were in the car during the Duncannon Street shooting but were not shot.

Police searched Waters’ home on Aug. 31 and recovered two guns, according to the affidavit. On Waters’ bed, police found a 10mm handgun with a red switch — an attachment that turns a gun into an automatic weapon — as well as a laser pointer, extended magazine, and various other accessories, according to the records.

In Waters’ basement, police recovered a 9mm Glock that had been reported stolen, Pope said. A ballistics test of that gun, Pope said, matched the cartridge casings found at the scene of Vicks’ killing and the two other shootings.

Assistant District Attorney William Fritze urged parents to search their kids’ belongings for weapons.

“What’s happening is abnormal,” he said. “Get those guns out of the house.”

Waters remains in custody, held without bail, after being arraigned early Friday morning.

Waters is affiliated with a gang known as “Fastbreak,” Pope said, which is a lesser-known group of teens based in the Olney section of the city. Members are connected to and considered the “little brothers” of a more well-known crew “M24,” affiliated with the area of Mascher to Fourth Streets in Olney.

“We’re putting a full-court press on Fastbreak,” District Attorney Larry Krasner said Friday.

» READ MORE: How an 18-year-old defied the code of silence and helped convict a West Philadelphia gang

The charges come just two weeks after Vicks was killed, a death that shocked many — from young people who listened to his music, to law enforcement who had been monitoring his whereabouts. As a founding member of YBC, a gang based out of the Mantua section of West Philadelphia, Vicks was a main figure in Philadelphia’s drill rap scene. His songs, many of which have racked up more than a million views on YouTube, were known for their vulgar references to shootings and crime — and his lyrics frequently mocked the people police say YBC members have killed. Because of this, he also went by the nickname “Mr. Disrespectful.”

“He had made enemies of basically everybody in the city,” said Pope, the prosecutor. “Our suspect pool was fairly large.”

She said there was little to share about why Fastbreak or Waters wanted Vicks dead, or what rivalry, if any, they had with YBC.

It comes back to the driver of many of the shootings between young people in the city, she said: they were “looking for notoriety.