Ruggles shooting rapped up
Suspect, 15, appears in local music video
The 15-year-old boy prosecutors allege shot and seriously injured a person at the T’s Ruggles Station in Roxbury Monday appeared in a local rap video bragging about street violence.
“(Victim) we caught was at the station, he got finned down, broad day / Li’l bro caught him lackin’, he got ran down,” are some lyrics included in a local rap video released to YouTube the day of the shooting. “Luckily he ain’t die and the news is actin’ like it was a man down.”
A law enforcement source told the Herald that one of the many members of the posse surrounding the rapper in the video — who is at one point flashing a wad of bills during a scene in a playground — is the person arrested by MBTA Transit Police Wednesday in connection with the shooting.
The teen was arraigned on the shooting charge at Suffolk Juvenile Court that day and ordered held without bail by Judge Peter Coyne for a dangerousness hearing scheduled for next Wednesday.
This marks the third juvenile arraigned for charges of violence in Boston this week, following the arraignments of two 13-year-old boys Monday in connection with a string of recent violent incidents downtown.
“We cannot have bullets flying at busy transit stations or people victimized by serial attacks. We and other agencies make services available at every opportunity for kids and families who are struggling,” said Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden in a statement following Wednesday’s arraignment. “But public safety is essential, and in these cases our approach had to acknowledge the threats posed by these juveniles.”
The video in which the youth appears is rife with overt references to running down those who “diss” the rapper on the streets, including that the rapper and friends almost “doubled up” by laying out two others who didn’t die from the attacks.
The video both begins and ends with a word often used as a derogatory word for women and includes rather extreme misogynistic content that alludes to girls and women on the streets as being practically the property of whatever boy or man claims them.
“I can take a (expletive)’s (derogatory word for women) easy, it’s like magic / Soon as I get through wit’ your (same derogatory word), you can have it,” the lyrics go. “She know I ain’ cuffin’ on her (expletive), I’m a savage.”
It’s the latest in what appears to be a growing trend of bragging about street rivalries and the violence perpetrated in those rivalries that often winds up as evidence in the cases of those involved.
The Herald has reported on multiple cases — including the federal cases of Jaiir “JC” or “Chino” Coleman and Phillips “PHON C” Charles, who worked together in a drug distribution conspiracy that involved fully-automatic weapons out of their hometown of Malden — where investigators have used overt references to alleged crimes as evidence against the defendants.