Busta move: Shuns wake, cops

BY RICH SCHAPIRO and ALISON GENDAR DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Busta Rhymes' silence in the slaying of his bodyguard drew the ire of police and the victim's family yesterday as the rapper skipped the wake of the man who may have saved his life.

Detectives believe that Rhymes was just feet away when bodyguard Israel Ramirez was fatally shot early Sunday outside the Brooklyn studio where the rapper taped a star-studded video.

"They're not knocking on our door to talk to us," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said of Rhymes and the many other potential witnesses to the Greenpoint slaying.

Kelly added that investigators also want to talk to another Rhymes bodyguard who was nearby when Ramirez, a 29-year-old father of three, was gunned down.

Rhymes has refused to give cops a full account of the gunplay, and his silence apparently has kept other potential witnesses from coming forward, police sources said.

"They have a code in the industry. You don't talk to cops. If you do, your career tanks," one police source said.

Yesterday, at Ramirez's wake, the brother-in-law of the bodyguard's widow slammed Rhymes and other rap stars at the video shoot for not cooperating.

"You think people making all of this money, they'd leave the ghetto out of them," said Shawn Reynolds, 33, as hundreds of mourners filed into Century Cremation and Funeral Services on Amsterdam Ave. for Ramirez's wake.

"You'd think they're making millions of dollars, they'd learn to be civilized."

Although Rhymes later pledged to Ramirez's family he'd do whatever he could to bring the killer to justice, he initially told widow Amelin Fernandez he wasn't sure he could help, Reynolds said.

"Busta, he was in shock. He was rattled," Reynolds said. "He said, 'I don't know how much I can do because I got five kids of my own,'" Reynolds said.

"How are you going to say that when the husband of the woman you're talking to lost his life trying to protect you?" Reynolds added in disgust.

Police believe Ramirez was killed trying to grab the gunman's weapon as the shooter opened fire feet from the hip-hop star.

Investigators believe the gunfire erupted after ex-con and rap star Tony Yayo and other members of 50 Cent's G-Unit entourage got into a beef with Rhymes' producer, Swizz Beatz, and the dispute spilled into the street.

Yayo is believed to have arrived at the Green St. studio with the gunman, and driven off with him after the shooting. Yayo has said through his lawyer that he will not talk to cops.

Rhymes skipped last night's wake, where sources said NYPD sharpshooters were stationed on roofs surrounding the Manhattan funeral home. The police also had a visible presence on Amsterdam Ave.

The only member of Rhymes' crew, called the Flipmode Squad, who showed up was Baby Sham. Sham said he was not at the studio the night of the filming of a video of Rhymes' "Touch It (Remix)."

"When I got the call it bugged me out. was one of us," Sham said.

Big names such as Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliot and DMX - who all were at the recording studio at one point over the weekend - also were no shows.

"He gave up his life for them. Where are all these people?" asked Ramirez's sister-in-law, Jenny Fernandez, 32. "My nephew's thinking his Daddy's coming home. Daddy's not coming home."