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Post by Potassium_Pixie on Jan 7, 2015 14:39:55 GMT -6
Anybody think that it will go through?
Tomorrow, Thursday, January 8, Philadelphia golden-age rapper Cool C — real name Christopher Roney — is set to be executed by lethal injection, the result of his 1996 conviction on charges of first-degree murder for the shooting death of Police Officer Lauretha Vaird. The shooting occurred in January of that year, when Roney, then 26, and two other men attempted to rob a Philadelphia PNC Bank branch. Roney shot Vaird, a 43-year-old mother of two, as soon as she stepped through the bank's entrance, making her the first officer killed responding to a call in the city's history.
Cool C, considered a pioneer of the Philadelphia rap scene, emerged at a time when hip-hop was overwhelmingly, almost exclusively, found in New York. With the rap world at large focused on the five boroughs, the mid Eighties were a time when one of the quickest ways to achieve notoriety was to record a dis song targeted at the popular artists of the day.
Cool C did just that with his 1987 debut single, "Juice Crew Dis." Amid the infamous South Bronx vs. Queens feud, Cool C represented Philly's issue with Juice Crew member and Queens resident MC Shan having allegedly turned his back on the Philly scene that gave him his start. Cool C had a style similar to Shan's, which made his reworking of some of Shan's signature lines as disses toward him and Juice Crew members Roxanne Shante and Marley Marl stand out in one of rap's most battle-heavy climates.
Stepping up to Shan made Cool C a hometown hero and garnered the attention of increasingly prominent rap labels. The next year, City Beat, the label that also originally released Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock's "It Takes Two" and Ultramagnetic MC's "Traveling at the Speed of Thought," put out Cool C's next single, "C Is Cool." That and C's self-released follow-up, "Down to the Grissel," were successful enough to land C a deal with Atlantic Records. In 1989 Atlantic released C's debut album, I Gotta Habit, boasting his signature single "Glamorous Life," whose suave boasts and featured females (including a young Jill Scott) landed the video regular rotation in rap outlets.
After one more album, Life in the Ghetto, Cool C formed the group C.E.B. (Countin' Endless Bank) with fellow Philly natives and longtime associates Steady B and DJ Ultimate Eaze. Landing a deal with Ruffhouse Records, they released their self-titled debut in 1993.
The album tanked, and Cool C disappeared from the pages of rap magazines until news about his shooting of Officer Vaird hit three years later (coming as a shock to rap fans as well as Roney's friends and family — his criminal record to that point consisted solely of a 1993 conviction for carrying a .45 without a license). To this day, Roney and his mother maintain his innocence, claiming they were eating together at the time of the robbery, despite a surveillance video, ballistic and forensic evidence, and three eyewitnesses linking him to the murder. It was actually with Steady B (née Warren McGlone) that Cool C and associate Ernest Mark Canty attempted the 1996 heist that led to C's conviction. According to McGlone, Canty had planned the robbery of a Philadelphia PNC Bank the morning of Tuesday, January 2, 1996. While Canty waited in the getaway van, parked in a Rite Aid lot across the street, McGlone and Roney ambushed the employees as they were opening the bank. The man believed to be Roney was seen in a surveillance video aiming a gun at the bank's entrance. Officer Vaird, responding to the silent alarm, was shot by Roney as she entered the building. Assistant District Attorney Roger King argued the element of planning, including the specific pointing of the gun at the doors, was enough evidence to support a first-degree murder conviction.
The death penalty was sought for all three, but Canty and McGlone received life in prison without parole, while on November 1, 1996, Christopher "Cool C" Roney was sentenced to death. He's since been an inmate of Pennsylvania's State Correctional Institution at Greene. Former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell originally slated Roney's death for March 9, 2006, but litigation issues caused it to be indefinitely delayed. Tomorrow, slightly more than nineteen years after the attempted robbery, Roney will be executed.
The rap world's been largely silent for the past two decades regarding Cool C's trial, incarceration and execution. Not even Cool C and Steady B's Overbrook High classmate Will Smith has been asked about or commented on the situation. Days after their arrest, then–Ruff House Records President Joe Nicolo said he was shocked to hear of the story, stating, "Their music wasn't about robbing people or toting guns or knocking off banks, their bravado was in their rhyming ability." The only artist of note to even mention Cool C has been fellow Philly rapper and DJ Kay Slay affiliate WarChyld, who released a Cool C "dedication" Monday in the form of a remake of C's "The Glamorous Life."
To this day, the fallen policewoman, Lauretha Vaird, is remembered as one of Philadelphia's most beloved officers. A mother of two sons — eleven and seventeen at the time of her death — she changed careers from an assistant to special-education teachers at Germantown's Pickett Middle School to serve her city in her mid thirties. The Officer Down Memorial Page created in her honor relates several stories of her heroism and the love she inspired. In 2010, Vaird was honored in Philadelphia's Feltonville neighborhood with a "Celebration of Life" at the Boys and Girls Club, which was also named after her. The Vaird Foundation, founded by fellow officer Kimberly Byrd, runs prospective law enforcement career mentoring and college assistance programs and has given thousands of dollars in college aid.
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Post by whitediamonds on Jan 7, 2015 14:48:15 GMT -6
I cannot say if it will factually be carried out, yet anyone who murders an officer, I sure hope it is carried out.
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Post by whitediamonds on Jan 7, 2015 15:20:59 GMT -6
Nope looks like he got a stay.
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Post by Potassium_Pixie on Jan 7, 2015 15:24:16 GMT -6
Of course he did. Its Pennsylvania. I already knew what would happen. Now there is no way they will do anything, given that any sort of drugs are difficult to come by thanks to the f**ktards that are the EU.
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Post by bernard on Jan 7, 2015 16:04:06 GMT -6
Of course he did. Its Pennsylvania. I already knew what would happen. Now there is no way they will do anything, given that any sort of drugs are difficult to come by thanks to the f**ktards that are the EU. Yeah it's the EU's fault. It couldn't possibly be our responsibility to make our own drugs.
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Post by Potassium_Pixie on Jan 7, 2015 17:13:43 GMT -6
Unfortunately, they got the whole thing rolling. As for making our own drugs, the Supreme Court will not allow us to use compounding drugs in executions.
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Post by whitediamonds on Jan 7, 2015 17:23:02 GMT -6
Of course he did. Its Pennsylvania. I already knew what would happen. Now there is no way they will do anything, given that any sort of drugs are difficult to come by thanks to the f**ktards that are the EU. Yeah it's the EU's fault. It couldn't possibly be our responsibility to make our own drugs. Yeah except those f-tards want to know who makes the drug here so some of those sweeet law abiding ant's can kill them for doing so.
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Post by bernard on Jan 7, 2015 19:02:48 GMT -6
Yeah it's the EU's fault. It couldn't possibly be our responsibility to make our own drugs. Yeah except those f-tards want to know who makes the drug here so some of those sweeet law abiding ant's can kill them for doing so. According to your rules smart bear you shouldn't judge a radical lawbreaking anti until you have been one. Not sure that makes any sense to me but anyway...
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Post by bernard on Jan 7, 2015 19:03:34 GMT -6
Unfortunately, they got the whole thing rolling. As for making our own drugs, the Supreme Court will not allow us to use compounding drugs in executions. Seems like a problem of the USA, for the USA, by the USA. EU has nothing to do with it.
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Post by whitediamonds on Jan 7, 2015 19:14:49 GMT -6
Unfortunately, they got the whole thing rolling. As for making our own drugs, the Supreme Court will not allow us to use compounding drugs in executions. Seems like a problem of the USA, for the USA, by the USA. EU has nothing to do with it. Hey we can agree on this one....
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Post by whitediamonds on Jan 7, 2015 19:16:53 GMT -6
Yeah except those f-tards want to know who makes the drug here so some of those sweeet law abiding ant's can kill them for doing so. According to your rules smart bear you shouldn't judge a radical lawbreaking anti until you have been one. Not sure that makes any sense to me but anyway... Has nothing to do with my rules. I hear you have another name now Tinkerbell.
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Post by Potassium_Pixie on Jan 8, 2015 4:20:25 GMT -6
If anybody cares and since Agave seemed to have jumped ship, here is where Cool C would have met his end for being a cop killer.
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