16-year-old now accused of four homicides, including killing of rapper YBC Dul, after grand jury indictment

Aiden Waters, the 16-year-old arrested last fall in the killing of West Philadelphia rapper and gang member Abdul Vicks, has been charged with two more homicides and now stands accused of killing four people in five separate shootings last year.

The new charges stem from a grand jury indictment as part of the District Attorney’s Office’s ongoing investigation into gangs and street groups across the city. Police have said Waters is affiliated with a crew of young men from Olney known as “Fastbreak” who have committed a string of shootings to get back at their enemies and as a way to build notoriety online and in the city’s drill rap music scene.

For more than a year, law enforcement has been investigating groups, particularly in Olney and Lawncrest, believed to be responsible for shootings across Northeast Philadelphia, digging through affiliates’ social media posts and cell phone records. Through that work, they came upon Waters and discovered his crimes, said Assistant District Attorney Marty Glynn of the Gun Violence Task Force.

Waters was first arrested in September and charged with helping orchestrate the killing of Vicks, a 25-year-old rapper known as “YBC Dul,” whose gang, YBC, was known for committing multiple shootings across the city.

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But after poring over cell phone data, prison calls, and ballistic and social media evidence, investigators said they also linked Waters to the shooting of six other people.

First, around 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 24, 2024, Glynn said Waters, with Ahnile Buggs, 19, and Naseem Santiago, 17, opened fire on the 5100 block of Hutchinson Street, targeting a group of young men affiliated with Eighth Street and Duncannon Avenue.

Kevin Williams, 43, who was standing up the block, was struck once in the side of the head by a stray bullet, Glynn said. He died within minutes.

Williams, a father of two who was engaged to be married, had nothing to do with Fastbreak’s feud, Glynn said. Williams’ mother, Kim French, said her son grew up in the Logan section of the city, and often returned to that corner of Hutchinson Street to see family and play chess. He was talking with a childhood friend when he was killed.

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About three weeks later, on Feb. 15, Waters, again with fellow Fastbreak members Buggs and Ryan Purcell, went to the 5800 block of Rising Sun Avenue, looking for an enemy as part of their back-and-forth with a crew from Lawncrest, Glynn said.

Using the same gun used to kill Williams, Glynn said, they began firing down the street, striking 20-year-old Kristofer Dowling multiple times. Dowling was walking to pick up a pizza down the street, and was not the intended target, he said.

Dowling’s mother, Ivory, said her son was studying finance at Tennessee State University, but had returned to Philadelphia after experiencing a sickle cell disease flare-up. He was living with his grandmother in the Logan section of the city, working on improving his health and serving at a food bank, his mother said.

He was not affiliated with any gangs, she said, but having grown up in the Lawncrest area, he had friends from childhood who were. Ivory Dowling, a teacher at a Northeast Philadelphia middle school, said she and her son have always shown kindness to people in the neighborhood regardless of their backgrounds or affiliations — and that should not be a reason to kill someone.

Glynn said Olney and Lawncrest have had a long-standing rivalry that heated up in the fall of 2023 and lasted into the spring, leading to multiple homicides and retaliatory shootings. Within hours of Dowling’s killing, he said, there were two shootings in the Olney area that he believes were pay back for Dowling’s slaying. The feud has quieted down after recent arrests, he said.

Buggs, 19, had pleaded guilty to killing Williams and Dowling last fall — as well as for his role in the shooting at a Northeast Philadelphia bus stop last March in which eight high schoolers were injured. He’s awaiting sentencing.

It was the investigation of that bus stop shooting, Glynn said, that helped officials link the Fastbreak members to other shootings through their cell phone location data, and text and social media messages.

About 30 minutes after Dowling was killed, Glynn said, Waters messaged a friend saying that he had just done a “drill,” which is slang for a shooting. His cell phone location data then also placed him at the scene.

And in August, a few weeks before killing Vicks, police said, Waters shot and wounded a 14-year-old and 43-year-old. Then, hours later, they said, he and others shot up a car full of teens, killing 16-year-old Marquise Sanders, and leaving another 16-year-old critically injured.

Ivory Dowling said the new charges confirmed her longtime suspicion that a third person was involved in her son’s death.

“When is it going to stop?” she asked. “It’s not that these kids need something to do. It’s the social media.”

The arrests also bring some comfort to Williams’ heartbroken family. His 13-year-old son no longer lets people hug him and cannot be left alone without going into a panic, French said.

“They really destroyed my family,” she said. “But it brings some peace knowing they’re off the streets and they cannot make another mother feel the hurt I am feeling right now.”