Gunfire Disrupts Music Video Shoot
A star-studded music video being shot by Busta Rhymes at a New York City warehouse was interrupted when gunfire on the street killed the rapper's bodyguard, police said.
Rhymes, Missy Elliot, DMX, Mary J. Blige, and G-Unit members, including Lloyd Banks, were set to start filming on a ninth-floor soundstage when the violence erupted around 1:30 a.m. Sunday outside the industrial building, said police Sgt. Kevin Farrell.
Israel Ramirez, 29, of New York City, was killed with a single shot to the chest, Farrell said. Rhymes, a New York City native whose legal name is Trevor Smith, was not injured.
Some 500 people were gathered for the video project that was to accompany a remix of Rhymes' latest hit single, "Touch It."
It was unclear how many of the celebrities and crew had been outside the building, called Kiss Me Cactus, when the shots were fired.
Shortly before the shooting, a man connected to 50 Cent's G-Unit rap group reportedly had an outburst in the studio that was later quelled by Rhymes.
According to newspaper reports, the altercation began when the video crew members tried to lower the noise level by shooing hangers-on and extras out of the building. That enraged a man wearing a G-unit jacket, witnesses said.
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"I heard shots, and then everybody took off running," a crew member told the New York Daily News, adding that some people first thought the gunfire was part of the video.
Ramirez leaves behind three children, and friends said he had recently bought a house in Miami.
"He used to take me to have dinner and play basketball and go to the beach," his son Israel, 10, told the Daily News. "He used to take me to his friend's house, and we played video games."
The incident was the latest in a string of violence involving rappers, among them Jam Master Jay of Run DMC, who was fatally shot in late 2002, and Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur, who were shot to death in the late 1990s. Those killings remain unsolved.