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Sergeant Galea said the gang started in the corridors and lunchrooms of Brooklyn Technical High School in the Fort Greene section. It is one of the city's so-called elite high schools where an entrance examination is required.''You can be smart and still be bad,'' the sergeant said.The gang pilfered its name from a set of wicked cartoon characters in ''The Transformers,'' which is broadcast Sunday mornings in the New York area on WPIX-TV. The Decepticons have the ability to transform themselves from trucks and cars into missile-spewing robots.Typically, gang members ride the trains into Manhattan, converge at one of the busy subway transfer stations and troop to a school. There, during lunchtime or after classes, they socialize on a nearby street corner and occasionaly mug a ''kid that looks scared,'' Sergeant Galea said. The gang operates almost exclusively during the school week. On weekends, the police rarely hear reports about the gang. An 'Ad Hoc' GangEdward Muir, chairman of the of the United Federation of Teachers school safety committee, described the Decepticons ''as an ad hoc gang'' that appears only rarely. He said the gang members have been quiet this school year. The gang's favorite tactic, he said, is for a dozen or so members to surround a victim and rob him.Dwayne Brewster, an 18-year-old student at Park West High School, said: ''They find little kids, freshmen, who can't defend themselves. A lot of people are afraid of them because they jump people 20 against one. You got to have arms like an octopus to fight them.''They sometimes carry grocery store box cutters, rocks and hammers as weapons, the police said. ''They love hammers,'' said Officer Thomas G. Feeley, who patrols an area of Manhattan's West Side that includes three high schools.Identifying a Decepticon can be a tricky proposition. Decepticons do not wear distinctive gang colors or clothes. They easily blend in with their fellow teen-agers, dressing in the latest teen uniform: radio headsets, expensive leather sneakers and the neck-bending amounts of gold jewelry that have become as popular as saddle shoes once were.Most of the same students who swear that Decepticons are everywhere admit that they have never seen one. Rumored InvasionsSergeant Galea said he has had many meetings with school officials over the last three years where he has heard a common ''hue and cry'' that the Decepticons are coming to a school. When rumors of invasions sweep a school, some parents have ordered their children to stay home.'''We get a lot of reports of the gang doing this or that, but the reports are usually baseless,'' the sergeant said.The police and school officials say teen-agers sometimes call themselves Decepticons just to instill fear in others.''They're not the only ones you got to watch out for,'' a 16-year-old said of the Decepticons as he stood outside Martin Luther King High School on the West Side. ''You always got to watch yourself. They're just the worst.''I'm not afraid,'' he added, his voice laced with youthful machismo. ''Only the strong survive. I'm strong.'' Students Face More CrimeSchool crime is getting worse. A few years ago, Mr. Muir said, students would tell him that they protected their money from muggers by hiding it in their shoes. ''That doesn't do them any good anymore,'' he said. ''Now, they're taking their shoes.''Like fishermen talking about the whopper that got away, students exaggerated the gang's real or imagined exploits with each telling, Sergeant Galea said. The fish stories go on. ''You know the Decepticons have a secret code,'' said Claribel Corona, 16, a Park West student, as she waited in the Union Square subway station. How do you know? she was asked. ''My girlfriend told me,'' she said. How does she know? ''Her brother told her,'' she said. ''Do you know how many people would like to know that code? And what they would give to find out? A lot. Nobody wants to get beat up by the Decepticons.''
