Series: Day One - Article Two

IN DEALERS' WORLD, A WRONG STEP CAN BECOME THE LAST

Rarrick Beaco's explanation for going to the Lafitte public housing complex
in July was to "visit cousin Bill." His real intention, police say, was to
deal $50 bags of weed.

It wasn't the first time Beaco had gone to Lafitte to sell marijuana, a
fellow dealer would later tell police, but that night it became Beaco's
last. A skirmish over turf ended violently; police suspect as many as seven
people took turns shooting and kicking Beaco, 22, even after he fell to the
ground unconscious.

According to New Orleans police, two neighborhood pushers asked Beaco and
his friend what they were doing on Orleans Avenue. Beaco asked whether they
were police.

They said no, but Beaco got angry and pulled a bag of marijuana out of his
pocket to taunt them. He also asked his friend to get his "issue" -- a
street term for his gun -- out of his car.

Beaco and his friend had apparently stepped onto someone else's turf to
conduct business. The posse that attacked them wore baggy blue jeans and
white T-shirts, the "uniform" of the Lafitte Soldiers, a loosely organized
group.

Ashika Roberts, Beaco's older sister, denies the police version of events,
saying the visit to Lafitte was motivated solely by her brother's wish to
see his cousin. Once there, she said, two men asked Beaco whether he wanted
to buy marijuana and, when he said he wasn't interested, the attack began.

He wasn't a gangster and "didn't deserve to go out like this," Roberts said.

Court records show Beaco had two arrests on charges of possession of
marijuana; neither case went to trial. On the day he was killed, he had
been drinking -- the autopsy found a blood-alcohol content of .07 percent,
but no drugs in his system.

Roberts, who lives in Atlanta, is in the military. She specializes in
dental forensics, using dental charts to identify bodies. She has worked in
Lebanon and at ground zero in New York after the Sept. 11 attacks. She
never expected violence to hit so close to home.

"It's just this stereotype everyone has of the black boy who gets killed on
the street, a stereotype of him being ignorant . . . well, that wasn't my
brother," she said.

Beaco, she said, was planning to join her in Atlanta. On July 22, Roberts
talked to her brother and told him she had a room ready and would come for
him soon. That afternoon, she submitted her master's thesis at Augusta
State University on "why young men kill."

Less than nine hours later, Beaco was dead.

Police booked seven people, including a 16-year-old girl, in connection
with Beaco's death. But prosecutors last fall dropped the case, citing
"witness problems." No other arrests have been made.