Troubled by the alarming spike in crime, activist Peter Kerre set up an Instagram page called SafeWalks NYC, designed to provide safe escorts to and from subway stations.
Detectives are said to have long eyed Gavin, but he was never arrested due to lack of evidence.
He is also charged in the 2019 death of the 83-year-old James, discovered dead in her 11th-floor apartment with trauma to her head and torso.
In court documents, prosecutors say he told them he "choked 83-year-old Jacolia James and stomped on her neck three times."
"There is no reasons or excuses that is enough for our family," said Lamarr Crafton, James' oldest grandson. "This community needs public safety. It needs consistency. It needs to trust the good guys to be here."