Had a very nice T-day with the family, I hope yours was the same, and Happy Hols to you!
Post-Dispatch 11/29/2003
Just 18 hours after a Pine Lawn police officer fatally shot 17-year-old Kyle Dismukes on Thursday, tragedy struck again: A friend of the young rap artist was wounded in a drive-by shooting two houses down from Dismukes' home. Labaron Bass, 24, a rap artist who recorded music with Dismukes, was shot in the back by someone in a pickup about 8 p.m. Thursday, police said. He had been walking with a few friends on the 6200 block of Bailey Place in Hillsdale. He was recovering Friday at a hospital.
Hillsdale police Detective Sgt. Robert Kelly, who is investigating the shooting of Bass, said the shootings appeared to be unrelated. Enraged friends and relatives of Dismukes and Bass insisted on a connection. Bass' girlfriend, Nicole Taylor, said she thinks Bass' shooting was in retaliation because a group of men had attacked a police officer after Dismukes' shooting. The attack could not be verified Friday.
"I just think whoever it was knew exactly what he was doing," said Bass' sister Tammy Stewart, 22, who lives a block away on the 6200 block of Greer Avenue in Pine Lawn. About Kelly, she said: "He seems nice. He said he was going to find out who did this."
Stewart pointed to two seemingly intractable problems in her neighborhood, which straddles the tiny, mostly low-income cities of Hillsdale and Pine Lawn: Too many people in the area are involved in crime. And, to her, police seem to believe that everyone who lives there is involved in crime. It adds up to mistrust between people and police, she said.
Police in Pine Lawn and St. Louis County refused Friday to discuss Dismukes' shooting or identify the shooter. Each department said the other was responsible for releasing the name. St. Louis County police historically review homicides and police shootings in several smaller municipalities.
The officer said he had stopped Kyle Dismukes' car for a traffic violation about 1:45 a.m. Thursday but that Dismukes, 17, grabbed his arm as he approached the driver's window and sped away, with the officer clinging to the door. The officer said he could not break free and fired into the car with his free hand after he was dragged for some distance, including when Dismukes made a U-turn. Police said they found a handgun in Dismukes' car.
Dismukes' sister Bridget Torrence, 31, said Friday that she often worried about her brother. "But I never would have guessed police killed him," she said. "I always figured it was going to be the kids he was with." link to story