Cop Threatened ODB, Rapper’s Cousin Reportedly Claims
60 Second Assassin says ODB fled Jan. 15 arrest fearing for his life.
by
teri vanhorn 1/28/1999
NEW YORK — Ol’ Dirty b*stard has reportedly feared for his life for some time and fled from police officers who pulled him over for a traffic violation Jan. 15 after one threatened to “blow your damn head off,” according to a cousin who was with the rapper at the time.
In an interview with the the city’s alternative weekly paper the
Village Voice, Frederick Cuffie also supported the contention that the Wu-Tang Clan rapper, who has been accused of trying to kill a policeman that night, was unarmed at the time.
Police “figured we had a gun or somethin’,” Cuffie, a member of the Wu-Tang affliate rap group Sunz of Man, was quoted as saying. “But it was no gun. It was nothing but a cellular phone.”
One of the officers involved in the arrest disputed Cuffie’s account Wednesday. “I do not believe that to be true,” said Christopher Roche, of the Brooklyn Street Crimes Unit.
Police claim ODB (born Russell Tyrone Jones) fired shots at them after four officers in an unmarked car pulled him over in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. The rapper was driving a green 1999 Chevrolet Tahoe with one passenger — Cuffie, who goes by the rap name 60 Second Assassin.
ODB has been charged with first- and second-degree attempted murder of a police officer, and second- and third-degree possession of a weapon. He faces a possible life sentence if convicted. Cuffie was not charged in the incident.
As he was leaving jail on Jan. 22, after posting $150,000 bail, ODB told reporters, “I didn’t have no gun. I don’t use guns.”
Cuffie, in a detailed account of the incident in the Feb. 2 issue of the
Voice, is quoted as saying police fired the only shots.
Police Inspector Mike Collins declined to comment on Cuffie’s statements. “The case is still being investigated,” he said.
Collins confirmed, however, that as of Wednesday investigators have yet to find the gun ODB is alleged to have used.
Cuffie was quoted in the
Voice as saying his cousin, who was shot during a robbery in his Brooklyn apartment in June, has long feared for his safety. “He’s been telling friends that somebody is trying to kill him,” Cuffie said.
Cuffie was further quoted as saying, “He’s been telling me that the CIA and the FBI wants [sic] to get him for some reason.”
After ODB and Cuffie were pulled over by police for allegedly driving erratically with the headlights off, an officer approached the sport-utility vehicle with “his gun pointed dead to my head,” the paper quoted Cuffie as saying.
He said ODB opened his door and shouted, “It’s me! It’s Ol’ Dirty!,” after which an officer yelled back, “If you don’t get out of the car, we’re gonna blow your damn head off!”
ODB closed the door and sped off, according to Cuffie. Cuffie said he inititally urged ODB to stop, but then cops opened fire.
“If Dirty hadn’t pulled off I woulda got shot in the head,” he was
quoted as saying.
The rappers fled to the home of an aunt, Cheryl Dixon, Cuffie told the
Voice. When another unmarked police car pulled up to the house, Cuffie hid inside while ODB attempted to flee again by car, but the police rammed his vehicle and apprehended him, Cuffie said.
Cuffie claimed one officer put a gun to Dixon’s head and threatened to shoot her when she attempted to go outside to check on ODB. Police ransacked her home in search of Cuffie and a gun, according to his account. Cuffie eventually surrendered.
“Everyone is comparing this to like a Rodney King situation,” Cathy Jones, president of Sunz of Man’s label, Threat Records, said Wednesday.
Jones said Cuffie suffered “severe emotional distress” from the incident.
“Sixty’s scared to death for his life,” Jones said, minutes after talking to the rapper on the phone. She said he had talked to a
Voice reporter before his lawyer advised him not to discuss the case.
“He doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him,” she said. “He’s extremely stressed out, extremely nervous and frightened as anyone would be in a situation like this. He feels that they tried to kill him. He basically feels that they’ve been set up by police, that’s it’s a conspiracy.”
Jones said the unmarked police car that pulled the rappers over had followed them from a studio, Brooklyn Sounds United Kingdom, where ODB was recording earlier that night.
Ol’ Dirty b*stard and 60 Sec. Assassin appear together on Sunz of Man’s cover of Earth, Wind and Fire’s “Shining Star”, on Sunz of Man’s album
The Last Shall Be First.