Brooklyn rapper has a tattoo that says ‘good intentions’ — but the gun in his hand said death; NYPD says he admits street execution
The upbeat tattoo on an aspiring Brooklyn rapper’s arm was at odds with the gun in his hand.
Murder suspect Javier Oates, 19, was held without bail Thursday at a Brooklyn Criminal Court appearance where a prosecutor said the defendant confessed to the cold-blooded slaying of a fellow teen outside a local deli and admitted ditching the murder weapon in his mother’s backyard.
Oates, who spoke of his inked-on message “Do it with good intentions” in a recent podcast, was taken into custody for gunning down fellow 19-year-old Ethan Holder on the street in broad daylight after the victim left his job at a nearby city school, prosecutors charged.
“The defendant made statements the police captured in a video interview and he made admissions of firing three shots at the decedant,” said Assistant District Attorney Aaron Gauthier, adding Oates also steered police to the .380 caliber murder weapon.
“This is a serious crime, no doubt about it,” said Judge Simiyon Haniff. “There’s a dead young boy and you are the alleged cause of that.”
The suspect’s family declined to speak after the hearing where he was arraigned on murder and weapons charges in the street shooting. But Oates, an aspiring rapper known as Suavve Porter, spoke of his “good intentions” tattoo in the podcast.
“That’s just the way I live life,” explained Oates. “I feel like I have a lot more work to do. I’m just humble with it.”
Holder was executed by a lone gunman while walking home from his job as a paraprofessional at Public School 203 in Flatlands, police said, although authorities had yet to explain why Holder was targeted. The young victim survived for a day after the Tuesday afternoon shooting.
Roy Holder, father of the shooting victim, struggled to make sense of the murder after deciding to keep his son’s memory alive by donating his organs for transplant.
“An amazing kid, always smiling,” said the devastated dad. “He was trusting of everyone. Enjoyed working with kids, special needs kids ... He was just a really good human being. We’re heartbroken. Can’t understand the why.”
Holder’s mother said earlier that her son had just started his new job last month and believes he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
According to police, Holder was walking along the street when a passing car made a quick U-turn, with the gunman exiting the vehicle to fire five shots at the helpless target. Video showed the victim was shot in the head and the left arm before collapsing in the deli’s entrance.
The video captured a man wearing a red hoodie, red sweatpants and a jacket running to the waiting vehicle to make his getaway, police said.
Police took Oates into custody as “a person of interest” before he was charged in the killing.
“It doesn’t even make sense,” a 21-year-old friend of the victim told the Daily News about the shooting. “Nobody understands.”
In a text, the friend told The News that she recognized the suspect before adding that Holder and accused killer Oates “didn’t run around the same crowd at all.”
In the podcast interview, the accused killer expressed his love of life and learning, describing himself as “a student.”
“If you come from love, you know how to love,” he declared. “If you don’t come from love, you not gonna know how to love. I’m just a solid dude, so if you do right by me, I’ma do right by you.”
The victim’s friend was outraged by the comments: “How can you say something like that, then turn around and do something like this ... (to) somebody that you don’t know?”
