Though he talks a good game, the criminal career of Ronald Herron, known in the world of gangsta rap as Ra Diggs, an associate of popular Atlanta rapper Waka Flocka Flame, did not end in a carefully plotted and supremely tactical raid, but instead with a discarded cellophane gum wrapper.
As the NY Daily News writes, Herron has been charged in a 23-count racketeering indictment and is facing life in prison if convicted. Police allege that Herron is a kingpin of the Gowanus housing projects drug trade and connected to several murders, some of which he allegedly rapped about.
Herron was finally brought down through the help of snitches, potential evidence in his raps, and a citation for a littering charge. “I stopped hundreds of people in my career and he’s first person who was wearing body armour,” Police Officer Carlos Anchundia testified in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Herron, half of up-and-coming rap duo Murda Team with partner Uncle Murda, was not carrying a firearm when stopped by Officer Anchundia, but received a summons for tossing the gum wrapper on the ground outside of the Gowanus Houses, with a subpoena later issued for his body armour.
He landed on federal radars in 2000 after he was shot by a drug rival in Gowanus, Brooklyn, and allegedly ordered his associates to kill the gunman two days later. He later rapped: “I don’t respect the shooter because he shot me in the legs and two days later he was dead, the little n-gga / See, if he was smart he would have shot me in the head because I can get ya shot from my hospital bed“.
Watch: Waka Flocka Flame feat Ra Diggs & Uncle Murder – Live By The Gun
