[Previously, on this case, at WEJB/NSU:
“Seattle: White Devoted Father of 2 Young Children, Civically Engaged Software Engineer, Justin Ferrari, 43, Killed by Black Shooter as He Drives by Casual Gunfight; Dies in His Father's Arms”;
“Seattle: (Bloods?) Suspect in Crossfire Killing of Justin Ferrari Arrested; Seattle Times Refuses to ID Him, but That Has an Upside”; and
“Sabotage in Seattle: Seattle Times Endangers Lives of Witnesses in Justin Ferrari Murder Case, While Hiding Face and Racial ID of Suspect Andrew Jermain Patterson.”]
By Nicholas Stix
On July 30, Andrew J. Patterson, a member of Seattle street gang 31 R.A.C.K.S., pleaded not guilty to the May 24 murder of white Justin Ferrari.
According to court records, Patterson has an arrest record that includes juvenile charges for third-degree theft, residential burglary and criminal trespass. He has never been convicted of a felony as an adult in King County, although he was arrested in April 2011 for possession of a controlled substance. The charge was reduced to misdemeanor criminal solicitation, court records show.
Patterson was due to appear in Auburn Municipal Court on a domestic-violence charge on June 24.
[“Suspect in Madrona dad's slaying pleads not guilty; The man charged with the fatal shooting of Justin Ferrari in May pleaded not guilty Monday in King County Superior Court,” by Jennifer Sullivan, July 30, 2012, 11:57 a.m., Seattle Times]
31 R.A.C.K.S. reportedly stands for “Running After Cash, Killin Suckaz." A video posted below, courtesy of one of the gang’s propagandists, the Seattle Weekly’s Keegan Hamilton, shows the gang members throwing gang signs, driving SUVs and other vehicles, counting a stack of $100 bills, smoking “blunts” (marijuana-filled cigar shells), drinking Hennessy cognac, wearing expensive running shoes and warm-up suits, eating at a restaurant, playing basketball, cursing a lot, filming police passing by, and complaining that they aren’t doing anything, yet that the police are harassing them. (When the police are within earshot, they suddenly start talking in fake choirboy-style, but without any irony.) Meanwhile, one of the gang’s talentless members is “rapping” on the soundtrack.
Seattle Weekly alleged journalists like Matt Driscoll and Keegan Hamilton provide no answers, only smoke screens.
Both lie about the gang, calling it “a group of rappers.”
Driscoll calls the gang, “a group of rappers and hustlers that hang out at the intersection where Ferrari was gunned down.” Hamilton, in particular, goes beyond the call of deception, in providing sophistic cover for the thugs.
The 31 RACKS are hardly the first group of Seattle gangsta rappers to boast about living a thug lifestyle in song, only to end up in trouble for committing real life crimes. On the other hand, not all rappers are criminals, and many use their portrayals of life in the hood to make a point about how inequality and segregation breeds crime in certain neighborhoods. Even 31 RACKS, in their own crude way, express some thoughts about the root of the Central District's increasing violence and drug dealing.
"I'm from Seattle, the crime rate's on the rise," Jones rhymes on "Cold Duo." "We can't get a job, even cookin' fries."
First of all, blacks demand both segregation and “integration.” They demand “integration” of all previously white neighborhoods and institutions. Once they have violently driven out whites, they demand segregation. And when they move into previously black-free neighborhoods, crime always shoots up. Blacks breed crime. Blacks support crime. References to “inequality” and “segregation” are just sophistic dodges. There is no evidence that either has ever caused more crime; if anything, the opposite is true.
And can you imagine a gang member from a crew like 31 R.A.C.K.S. looking for work “cookin' fries”?
And how does the gang get money for marijuana, cognac, clothes, food, vehicles, etc.?
Meanwhile, the shooting is coming into clearer focus. Apparently, it wasn’t about “a bummed cigarette” and “insult,” the media—MSM and “alternative” cover story notwithstanding. It was about a deli customer’s refusal to let a gang-banger extort cigarettes out of him, and the customer then calling the gang-banger a “bitch.”
There wasn’t even an “insult” for the suspect to “retaliate” against, because the insult was the gang-banger’s attempted extortion, in the first place.
The notion that racist, black street thugs spoke wisdom about social reality was a tired cliché already in the 1960s.
The Seattle Weekly is a self-styled “alternative” newspaper owned by the granddaddy of “alt weeklies,” the Manhattan-based Village Voice. The Voice’s selling point used to be that it was on the street, had its ear to the ground, and would report the unvarnished, uncensored truth. I don’t know what it was like in the ‘50s, when it started, but it has for over a generation been a propaganda rag rationalizing black and Hispanic racial supremacy and crime, sexual perversion, totalitarianism, drug abuse, and in recent years has relentlessly published pornography featuring really ugly people.
The upshot is that reading the established “alternative” press will take one ever further away from reality.
Police charge that the gang committed at least one drive-by shooting, leaving one man wounded. Other members of the gang fired dozens of shots onto the grounds of Garfield High School from the roof of a nearby pool at night. One gang member pleaded guilty to a mere misdemeanor in May, and got probation.
People who live in this neighborhood, near Garfield High School, probably remember well an evening in late February when dozens of gunshots echoed across the grounds of the school. Police found the shooters hiding on the roof of Medgar Evers Pool. That was 31 R.A.C.K.S.
Police arrested three men after finding they had handguns in their waistbands, with no concealed-weapon permits. Police say one of the guns was stolen.
What ended up happening to them? Nothing much. A leader of the gang did plead guilty in May, but only to a misdemeanor of carrying a gun onto school grounds. He got probation and no jail time.
[Gun laws should be put to work, by Danny Westneat, July 25, 2012, Seattle Times]
They got no time for felony violent convictions. The wonder was that the gang hadn’t murdered anyone sooner!
Andrew J. Patterson Enters Not-Guilty Plea in Murder of Seattle's Justin Ferrari
By Matt Driscoll
Monday, July 30, 2012, at 11:29 a.m.
Seattle Weekly
Andrew J. Patterson, the 20-year-old Federal Way man accused of firing the shot that killed Seattle's Justin Ferrari, entered a not-guilty plea this morning according to KING 5, in response to the second-degree murder charge facing him. According to reports he remains in King County in lieu of $2 million bail.
In charging documents filed in the case, the King County Prosecutor's Office says Patterson was in a dispute near the King Deli with another individual over a bummed cigarette when he opened fire from across a street. Police say a stray bullet from Patterson's gun struck Ferrari in the head as he was driving through an intersection of East Cherry Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way with his parents and his two young children in the car.
Court documents also allege that Patterson is a member of the 31 R.A.C.K.S., a [street gang] group of rappers and hustlers that hang out at the intersection where Ferrari was gunned down. The R.A.C.K.S., short for "Running After Cash, Killin Suckaz," have several videos available on YouTube that document the group's lifestyle and activities. Police say one of the videos was used by police to identify Patterson.
Prosecutors filed a firearm enhancement with the murder charge, meaning if convicted as charged Patterson would face a sentence of 15 to 23 years in prison.
31 RACKS: Rappers Allegedly Involved in Justin Ferrari Shooting Document Central District Gangsta Lifestyle on YouTube
By Keegan Hamilton
July 23, 2012, at 12:15 p.m.
7 Comments
Last week, King County prosecutors filed murder charges against 20-year-old Andrew J. Patterson for the senseless killing of Justin Ferarri earlier this year in the Central District. Court documents allege that Patterson is a member of the 31 R.A.C.K.S., a group of rappers and hustlers that hang out at the intersection where Ferrari was shot. The R.A.C.K.S., short for "Running After Cash, Killin Suckaz," have posted several videos on YouTube that document their activities, including one that was used by police to identify Patterson.
According to charging documents filed Friday in King County Superior Court, almost immediately after the May 24 shooting SPD gang detectives identified members of 31 R.A.C.K.S. (sometimes spelled R.A.C.K.$., or shortened to 'trey-one' in reference to the neighborhood surrounding 31st Ave and East Cherry Street) as possible suspects.
Specifically, the cops were suspicious about 21-year-old Travonte T. McCoy and 22-year-old Renaldo M. Jones, because they had recently been arrested a few blocks away for illegal firearm possession. The pair are described as "brothers or half brothers," and reportedly live near the intersection where the shooting occurred. Jones matched witness descriptions of the shooter, described a black male in his early 20s with corn rows and diamond stud earrings.
Court documents state that there had been "recent possible gang activity" in front of the King Deli at the corner of East Cherry and MLK, and note that the SPD gang unit had "personal prior contacts" with Jones and McCoy. Researching the R.A.C.K.S., detectives noticed the group often filmed themselves at the same intersection and posted the footage to YouTube.
Witnesses placed Jones and McCoy at the scene of the shooting, part of a group that got into an argument outside the King Deli over a bummed cigarette. When a customer and neighborhood character nicknamed "Crazy John" refused to give them smokes and called a member of their crew a bitch, one R.A.C.K.S. member allegedly pulled a pistol and fired the bullet that struck Ferrari in the head as he was passing by with his parents and young children in a white Volkswagen van.
“Directed and Edited by: ConMan”
After a lengthy investigation, police eventually ruled out Jones as the shooter.
Eyewitness accounts, cell phone records, bus surveillance footage, and other evidence suggest that Patterson was the triggerman. Patterson, nicknamed AP, has previous convictions for assault, firearms possession and burglary. He is identified as a member of the 31 RACKS, and one of the group's videos reportedly helped confirm his identity.
The YouTube video named in court documents is titled "KG's 19th G-Day Weekend March 2012 (Central District 206) 31 RACKS." Nearly 10 minutes long, the clip is billed as "a dose of real Seattle hood shit," that offers "a inside look at the R.A.C.K.$. lifestyle." Patterson makes several cameos in the clip, wearing a Chicago Bulls cap, red shoes, and the stud earrings described by witnesses at the scene of the Ferrari shooting.The R.A.C.K.S. lifestyle apparently includes playing pick-up basketball in the park, counting a stack of cash in front the Catfish Corner restaurant, and "poppin' bottles and matchin bluntz" in Powell Barnett Park near Garfield High School. Another day, the crew loiters on the corner of 28th and MLK, and McCoy-better known by his nickname ConMan-complains when a cop car circles their block a couple times, "It's that Seattle police department, this is every day." Naturally, they respond to the police presence by going to a nearby park to smoke a massive blunt.
A YouTube account for 31RACKSmovement [sic] has posted more than a dozen videos since May. McCoy and Jones (aka N.O.E.) appear to be the most active members, and the most musically-inclined of the group. The pair have a song called "Cold Duo," with a music video that depicts more scenes from the Central District. Jones urges caution for people passing though his neighborhood, rapping "if you do, then it's on, the cops ain't stopping drive-bys."
Another song featuring Jones and McCoy called "This Shit's Dope," is accompanied by a video that shows one R.A.C.K.S. member buying several packages of baking soda, and later shows what appears to be crack cocaine cooking up on a kitchen stove. The video is prefaced with a disclaimer that the events shown are "entirely fictional."
A source with knowledge of local gangs says the 31 RACKS are "a mix" of various Central District gangs, likely affiliated with the Black Gangster Disciples. Members flash the Gangster Disciples' "pitchfork" hand gesture in the YouTube videos, along with a "Middle East" sign that likely refers to the geographic location of 31st and Cherry within Central District.
The SPD public affairs office did not respond to a message inquiring about the 31 RACKS, and plans to address gang activity in the area where Ferrari was murdered. Cell phone numbers for both Jones and McCoy are listed in court documents, but the numbers are no longer in service.
The 31 RACKS are hardly the first group of Seattle gangsta rappers to boast about living a thug lifestyle in song, only to end up in trouble for committing real life crimes. On the other hand, not all rappers are criminals, and many use their portrayals of life in the hood to make a point about how inequality and segregation breeds crime in certain neighborhoods. Even 31 RACKS, in their own crude way, express some thoughts about the root of the Central District's increasing violence and drug dealing.
"I'm from Seattle, the crime rate's on the rise," Jones rhymes on "Cold Duo." "We can't get a job, even cookin' fries."
Follow The Daily Weekly on Facebook and Twitter.
[I commented:
Keegan Hamilton,
Why did you call 31 R.A.C.K.S., a “group of rappers and hustlers,” as opposed to the street gang that it is? (That was a rhetorical question.)
Nicholas Stix]
Gun laws should be put to work
By Danny Westneat
Wednesday, July 25, 2012; page updated at 9:30 p.m.
Seattle Times
Since Seattle erupted into its year of living violently, police and other leaders have said that the root of the problem is about guns more than gangs.
There are too many guns, along with too few gun laws, they say.
Drawing special ire has been the state law that prevents Seattle from drafting its own, stricter gun-control rules than the rest of state.
Well, we now think we know who killed Justin Ferrari, the father of two who was shot randomly while driving through the Central Area. It was a gang member, police allege.
Two leaders of that gang had been arrested only three months before the shooting for illegal possession of guns, yet escaped punishment or got off with a slap on the wrist.
Police say those two were out there on the corner when Ferrari was killed.
The gang is no household name. It's called "31 R.A.C.K.S." — the 31 standing for 31st Avenue in Madrona, the rest for Running After Cash Killin Suckaz. Police say in court documents they hung out at the corner of East Cherry Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, where Ferrari was shot on May 24th.
Andrew Patterson, 20, was charged last week with Ferrari's murder. But witnesses have placed the two other gang members at the scene as well. All three can be seen in YouTube videos highlighting what they call the 31 R.A.C.K.S. "lifestyle," mostly drinking or smoking in parks and warily monitoring police.
People who live in this neighborhood, near Garfield High School, probably remember well an evening in late February when dozens of gunshots echoed across the grounds of the school. Police found the shooters hiding on the roof of Medgar Evers Pool. That was 31 R.A.C.K.S.
Police arrested three men after finding they had handguns in their waistbands, with no concealed-weapon permits. Police say one of the guns was stolen.
What ended up happening to them? Nothing much. A leader of the gang did plead guilty in May, but only to a misdemeanor of carrying a gun onto school grounds. He got probation and no jail time.
Given this, do we need new gun laws? Maybe. But we definitely ought to start enforcing the ones we already have.
I get that it can be tricky to prove a case in court. Sometimes serious charges get converted to lighter ones, because that's all the justice system can get.
But what hope do we have of stemming gun violence if blasting off a bunch of rounds with illegal guns, at 10:20 p.m. at a high school in a crowded city, essentially warrants zero punishment?
Even at the low end of the sentencing range for illegal gun possession, the shooters could have been locked up for 90 days. They weren't even locked up for one.
Patterson wasn't there the night of the Garfield shooting, but he, too, had been arrested previously for illegal gun possession. He also had been ordered by a court in an assault case to carry no guns. He got no punishment either.
As to whether we have a gang problem, the police are the experts on that.
But there have been at least six more shootings this summer within a 10-block radius of the corner where Ferrari was killed. All involved multiple gunshots, and three were drive-bys.
The most recent is typical of what's going on. On July 7, someone drove by at 4:30 a.m. and strafed a dozen .40-caliber bullets into a house on 27th Avenue, hitting a man in the leg in the living room. Three weeks earlier there was another drive-by on the same block, at a house police said is home to a known gang member.
On that one night there were two other shootings nearby that the police say may have been retaliatory.
This sure seems like a gang problem to me. We should call it such, so we can combat it, both with police work as well as renewed violence-prevention programs.
As for more gun laws, I wonder: What's the point if we don't use the ones we have?
Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.
“Suspect in Madrona dad's slaying pleads not guilty
The man charged with the fatal shooting of Justin Ferrari in May pleaded not guilty Monday in King County Superior Court”
By Jennifer Sullivan
July 30, 2012, 11:57 a.m.
Seattle Times
The man charged with the fatal shooting of Justin Ferrari in May pleaded not guilty Monday in King County Superior Court.
Most Popular Comments
Considering the track record of the KCPO, he'll plead guilty to reckless endangerment... (July 30, 2012, by Registered Nic) MORE
Now we will see how solid the case is against this individual, and if he is guilty I ho... (July 30, 2012, by GreenDawg) MORE
That's right, Mr. Patterson, now you've deprived Mr. Ferrari of his life, his family of... (July 30, 2012, by Lashru) MORE
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Andrew Jermain Patterson, charged with killing a Madrona father as he was driving his van through a Central Area intersection in May, pleaded not guilty Monday to second-degree murder.
On May 24, Patterson, 20, had been aiming his gun at a man who had insulted him when the bullet struck Justin Ferrari, a 43-year-old software engineer who was driving with his parents and children, according to the charges. Patterson was arrested July 19 after police said they pieced together bus-surveillance videos, interviews, cellphone records and information from a confidential source. [Not anymore; the Seattle Times outed the source!]
Witnesses told police the suspected shooter had his hair in corn rows and wore a distinctive red jacket with a black design on it, court documents say.
According to court records, Patterson has an arrest record that includes juvenile charges for third-degree theft, residential burglary and criminal trespass. He has never been convicted of a felony as an adult in King County, although he was arrested in April 2011 for possession of a controlled substance. The charge was reduced to misdemeanor criminal solicitation, court records show.
Patterson was due to appear in Auburn Municipal Court on a domestic-violence charge on June 24.
King County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Scott O'Toole said Patterson's next court hearing in the murder case is slated for Aug. 13. Patterson is being held at the King County Jail in lieu of $2 million bail.
If convicted as charged, Patterson faces a sentencing range of 15 to 23 years in prison, according to the prosecutor's office.
Ferrari is among 22 homicide victims in Seattle so far this year, two more than in all of 2011. All but two of the killings have been by gunfire.
Information from Seattle Times archives is included in this report.
Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @SeattleSullivan.
[Thanks to reader-researcher “W” for the foregoing article.
From WEJB/NSU’s Seattle file:
“De-Policing in America’s Cities: Erasing the ‘Thin Blue Line’” ;
“Kristopher Kime, James Paroline, and Edward Scott McMichael: Three Race Murders in Seattle”;
“Race Hustler Alert at Wikipedia! Someone Has been Making Mischief Regarding Maurice Clemmons’ Lakewood Massacre”;
“Seattle: Diversity Trainers Wage War on Policing”;
“Ex-Cons May Gain Affirmative Action Status in Madhouse Seattle”;
“Seattle's Meanest Streets (Updated!)”;
“Seattle Cop Rails Against Affirmative Action Policing”;
“Seattle: Baby-Faced ‘Tuba Man’ Killer, Billy Chambers, Strikes Again”;
“Stone Killer Billy Chambers, Who Murdered Seattle’s Beloved ‘Tuba Man,’ Edward McMichael, is Undercharged Yet Again in His Newest Alleged Crime”;
“War on Competent, White, Male, King County, WA Prosecutor James Konat Continues Apace: NAACP Demands His Dismissal, and He is Removed from Two Murder Cases”;
“Is It Possible for Blacks to Have a Good Time Without Bloodshed? Seattle Reader Asks if ‘Bite of Seattle’ Festival Could Become Blood of Seattle”;
“A Riot in San Francisco, with More to Come! Cop Shoots Innocent Black Honor Student (from Seattle), Kenneth Wade Harding, 19, in the Back; the Brothers are (as Always) on War Footing”;
“Seattle Blacks Believe That They Can Resist Arrest, and Aid and Abet Those Resisting Arrest with Impunity Against White Policemen…”;
“Billy Chambers, Racist Killer of Seattle’s Beloved ‘Tuba Man,’ Edward McMichael, Pleads Guilty, Gets Minimal Sentence, in Attempted Murder of Witness”;
“One of Tuba Man’s Killers Goes to the Big House, but for a Mere 22 Months for Attempted Murder”;
“For Alleged Reporter Levi Pulkinnen at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, There are No Black Murderers of Whites, Only ‘Accused’ Ones”;
“AOL/Huffington Post and AP Manage the Black Air Jordan Riots Story”;
“Seattle: Since Blacks Support Black Criminals, City Needs Surveillance Cameras Everywhere”;
“Seattle: Nameless, Faceless, Raceless Suspect Arrested for Murder of Faceless, Raceless Victim in Belltown”;
“Belltown Murder: Still Raceless and Faceless in Seattle”;
“Cause and Effect? Seattle Reader Writes on Military Academy Diversity and Rape, and the Seattle Air Jordan Riots”;
“Seattle’s Good Nazis Watch Racist Black Mob Attack Couple for 4 Minutes, Without So Much as Calling 911; Racist Blacks Perform for Bus Cameras”;
“Seattle: The Raymel J. Curry Story”;
“WA Wants to Solve Crime by ‘Disappearing’ Videos; ‘Security’ Wants to Watch; Violent, Career Felon, Aiesha Stewart-Baker, 15, Wants Ghetto Lottery”;
“Seattle: Blacks Account for 7.7% of Residents, Yet They Seem to Have Taken the Entire City Prisoner”;
“Seattle Police Have Pushed Down the Crime Rate—Through Discouraging Victims from Reporting Crimes!”;
“Our Man in Seattle Reports an Explosion in Crime in Black Areas and Bus Routes, Accompanied by a Spike in Non-Reporting by Victims”;
“A Washington State Reader Writes on the Trayvon Martin Hoax, a Raceless Shooter, Readers Who Do Reporters’ Work for Them, and Seattle’s Northgate Mall”;
“Seattle: White Devoted Father of 2 Young Children, Civically Engaged Software Engineer, Justin Ferrari, 43, Killed by Black Shooter as He Drives by Casual Gunfight; Dies in His Father's Arms”;
“More Bullet Violence in Seattle”;
“Seattle: (Bloods?) Suspect in Crossfire Killing of Justin Ferrari Arrested; Seattle Times Refuses to ID Him, but That Has an Upside”;
“Sabotage in Seattle: Seattle Times Endangers Lives of Witnesses in Justin Ferrari Murder Case, While Hiding Face and Racial ID of Suspect Andrew Jermain Patterson”; and
“Yamauchi and Ichiro: Japanese Owner Who Refused to Ever Attend a Mariners’ Game Trades Player Who Refused to Ever Learn English.”
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