Police are searching for the gunman who shot and critically wounded a Bronx rapper who, along with a partner, attacked and tried to rob him while livestreaming the beatdown, which was captured on video and shared with the Daily News earlier this month.
In the video, the gunman — later identified by police as 18-year-old John Ramos — can be seen “running for his life” as two men in a rented white Toyota Corolla chase him down Westchester Ave. in Soundview, Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said, describing the July 14 incident.
“The car cuts him off,” Kenny said. “They basically jump out, they corner him, they start to beat him up, they grab him in a bear hug, they throw him to the ground.”
One of the attackers — later identified by police as 27-year-old Raquan Matthews, known in music circles as the drill rapper KashOut4E — punches Ramos in the head and goes through his pockets while his partner films the struggle on his phone, and at one point kicks Ramos in the face.
Somehow, Ramos gets up, pulls a gun from his waistband and shoots at Mathews from over his shoulder, hitting him in the neck, Kenny said. Ramos then shoots at the other attacker, who runs away down Commonwealth Ave.
“As he’s getting ready to walk away [Ramos] shoots Matthews one more time for good measure,” Kenny said.
Soon after the incident, a neighbor who witnessed the scene told The News that it looked like a robbery gone wrong.
“At first I thought they were robbing him,” she said. “One of the guys were saying, ‘Give me my money, give me my money,’ like he owed them. They were kicking him and he was saying, ‘I don’t have no money,’” the neighbor recounted at the time. “He pulled a gun out of nowhere and ‘pow! pow! pow!’ — the guy in the orange went down,” the witness continued.
According to Kenny, the altercation was part of a longstanding rivalry. Matthews and his accomplice have both previously been arrested for robbery and are suspects in multiple robbery patterns, Kenny said.
“He may be a rapper, but his main job is he’s a robber,” Kenny said of Matthews.
Ramos has been arrested twice, once for reckless endangerment as an adolescent offender and once for aggravated harassment.
EMS rushed Matthews to Jacobi Medical Center, where he remains in critical condition, police said. Contrary to what some outlets have reported, he is currently still living, Kenny said.
Police are still searching for Ramos.
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