One morning in July 1972, New Yorkers awoke to news of a grisly massacre. Every single member of the feared Yorkville Goonies gang, some 65 young men, had been killed. In apartments, street corners, telephone booths and in their cars, each Yorkville Goonie seemed to have simply stopped breathing sometime in the night. Their bodies bore no signs of trauma or struggle, but autopsies revealed that each had died of asphyxiation. Fiber analysis turned up traces of satin on the face of each victim. There was little doubt: the feared gang “Quiet Storm” had struck again. Quiet Storm was formed sometime in the 1960s, when a group of deaf-mute students from the Murray Abelman School for the Deaf began training in the martial art of ninjutsu, likely to escape persecution by neighborhood toughs. Members adopted a uniform of dark satin garments and light slippers, and communicated solely through a specialized dialect of sign language. They moved stealthily throughout the city, silently decimating competing gangs. As one (rare) survivor reported, he neither saw nor heard anyone approach him, but suddenly felt a satin pillow pressed into his face, preventing him from breathing or calling for help. Over the years the Quiet Storm dispatched hundreds of New York gang members this way, eventually expanding their territory throughout Manhattan.  Citywide anti-gang policing took its toll in the 1980s, and Quiet Storm’s numbers dwindled. Today, they remain small membership and bit of territory in the Long Island City area of Queens. Older, retired members are known to sport the gang’s satin jackets, as in the photo above.

One morning in July 1972, New Yorkers awoke to news of a grisly massacre. Every single member of the feared Yorkville Goonies gang, some 65 young men, had been killed. In apartments, street corners, telephone booths and in their cars, each Yorkville Goonie seemed to have simply stopped breathing sometime in the night. Their bodies bore no signs of trauma or struggle, but autopsies revealed that each had died of asphyxiation. Fiber analysis turned up traces of satin on the face of each victim. There was little doubt: the feared gang “Quiet Storm” had struck again.

Quiet Storm was formed sometime in the 1960s, when a group of deaf-mute students from the Murray Abelman School for the Deaf began training in the martial art of ninjutsu, likely to escape persecution by neighborhood toughs. Members adopted a uniform of dark satin garments and light slippers, and communicated solely through a specialized dialect of sign language. They moved stealthily throughout the city, silently decimating competing gangs. As one (rare) survivor reported, he neither saw nor heard anyone approach him, but suddenly felt a satin pillow pressed into his face, preventing him from breathing or calling for help. Over the years the Quiet Storm dispatched hundreds of New York gang members this way, eventually expanding their territory throughout Manhattan. 

Citywide anti-gang policing took its toll in the 1980s, and Quiet Storm’s numbers dwindled. Today, they remain small membership and bit of territory in the Long Island City area of Queens. Older, retired members are known to sport the gang’s satin jackets, as in the photo above.