Busta's Baldwin, L.I. home, with a luxury Benz in the driveway.
Rap trio sought for NYPD talk
Detectives believe rapper Busta Rhymes was standing next to his bodyguard and saw all when a gunman opened fire outside a star-studded Brooklyn video shoot - killing the hired muscle, sources said yesterday.
The rapper apparently was trying to play peacemaker between two hip-hop factions moments before the bullets started flying, killing 29-year-old Israel Ramirez, who fell at his boss' feet, police sources said. Now cops want to reinterview the 33-year-old rapper, whose real name is Trevor Smith.
"We believe Busta Rhymes may have been on the street when the shooting took place," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said yesterday.
Ramirez's wife, Amelin Fernandez, told the Daily News that Rhymes described the shooting to her during a condolence call.
She said Rhymes told her he was flanked by Ramirez and another bodyguard, and that the shooter was aiming at someone behind the trio.
"It has nothing to do with you, just get out of the way!" the gunman told Ramirez just before opening fire, Fernandez, 26, said Rhymes told her.
Calls to Rhymes' lawyer were not returned yesterday.
In the hours after the shooting, Rhymes told cops he was inside the Greenpoint film studio when the gunfire erupted, sources said.
But now detectives want to question him about accounts placing him smack in the middle of the bloodshed - hoping he'll help them crack the case.
They also want to talk to rapper Tony Yayo and other members of hip-hop star 50 Cent's entourage, G-Unit. Investigators believe the gunman may have taken off in Yayo's car, sources said.
The gunfire exploded just before 12:30 a.m. Sunday, following a shoot that drew rap's elite - including DMX, Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliott and 50 Cent - for Rhymes' "Touch It (Remix)" video.
The beef appears to have started with a war of words inside the Kiss the Cactus studio on Green St. between two rival rap groups, as 500 extras and crew members were at work on the video, a police source said.
Yayo and other G-Unit members started insulting Rhymes' producer, Swizz Beatz, the new head of the Ruff Ryders label, whose artists also include DMX.
Studio security told the men to take their shouting outside, sparking one enraged self-proclaimed ex-con to declare, "Who the f--k are you to tell me to be quiet? I'm on parole, mother-----r!"
Rhymes followed the groups of arguing men outside, trying to calm flaring tempers, police sources said.
But as Rhymes tried to negotiate a peace, eight shots rang out. Ramirez, a father of three, was shot once through the chest.
Yayo, an ex-con whose real name is Marvin Bernard, sped off in his car with other members of 50 Cent's entourage, a police source said.
"No one has said Yayo is the shooter, but whoever did the shooting got into Tony Yayo's car with him and drove away," the source said.
In a cruel twist, Ramirez provided security to 50 Cent at one point in his career and considered G-Unit family, his widow said.
"When I met him, 50 Cent was in the hospital and he was the bodyguard at the time. So he had a relationship with the G-Unit family," Fernandez said.
Yayo denied any involvement in the shooting, his lawyer Scott Leemon said yesterday.
"He is not a suspect. They did not indicate he was a target at all," Leemon said, adding he told the Brooklyn district attorney's office Yayo would not voluntarily answer any police questions about the shooting.
That enraged Fernandez, who said that all the big-name rappers at the shoot - including Rhymes - should cooperate fully with cops. Detectives also want to talk with Swizz Beatz, whose real name is Kasseem Dean, sources said.
"I believe everybody who was at the scene should give their statement," Fernandez said.
Detectives, meanwhile, rejected speculation that Ramirez was targeted because he was guarding Rhymes' jewelry.
"It had nothing to do with jewelry. It had nothing to do with anything other than stupid stuff," a police source said.
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