LOCAL RAPPER SLAIN
Ewing man gunned down in quiet neighborhood early Thursday
EWING » A local rap artist was shot and killed early Thursday morning in what residents describe as a normally quiet neighborhood.
“Cops woke me up around 2:30 this morning,” a man by the first name of Joel told The Trentonian. “They told me it was a shooting and I told them I didn’t know anything and went back to sleep.”
Devon Green, 23, was shot and killed in the carport of his Lanning Street home.
Prosecutors say Green and a friend were sitting outside in the carport when two unknown males walked up the driveway and opened fire.
Green suffered multiple gunshot wounds; he was pronounced dead at the scene. No other injuries were reported.
Residents on the block said they didn’t hear nor see the incident take place.
“It’s normally really quiet out here. Although I’m new, this is the first time I’ve seen any action,” Joel said, adding that he does not know Green nor the other occupants of the home. “I just moved here last December and never really talked to them.”
People who knew Green described him as a “nice” guy who was “always smiling.”
By 11 a.m. Thursday, the news of Green’s death had traveled to Florida, where some of his relatives live.
“I would like the two men and whoever was involved in this senseless killing caught and sent to prison for a long time so this tragedy won’t happen to another family,” Green’s aunt Karen Cribb said. “My 19-year-old son looked up to his big cousin Devon, who was a gentle young man. Devon didn’t go out looking for trouble. He avoided confrontation. I guess that’s why I’m still in shock.”
Green, a graduate of Ewing High School, was honored in 2012 for a business idea he conceived while just a teen and won $250 for the concept.
“Out of the hundreds of entries received from our region, I am proud that Devon was selected for his Teen Alliance Group business idea,” Joanne Ludwig is quoted as saying in a Ewing Public Schools newsletter. “I am very proud of all of my (International Business Practice Firm) students who submitted entries.”
In more recent years, Green gained local notoriety as a rap artist known as Savy G. He was a member of a rap collective from Mercer County called Habitat Music.
Green also had a prolific following on social media. He was known as General Savy G to hundreds of thousands of people who follow a local Snapchat group.
“He will be missed by many people that he allowed to have a peek into his life,” one of his friends who asked to remain anonymous said.
Dating back to 2010, at least one person has been murdered in Ewing each year. Two people were killed in the township in both 2015 and 2016. But so far this year, Green is the only person to be slain in Ewing.
“This is the first murder we’ve had in 2017, and quite frankly, it’s one too many,” Mayor Bert Steinmann said, adding that he hopes the public will help law enforcement find the shooters. “It’s always disheartening when unfortunate things like this occur, and it doesn’t matter if it’s this town or any other town.”
Cribb echoed the mayor’s comments regarding the hunt for suspects.
“Please help capture the cowards who took my nephew’s young, innocent life,” Cribb said.