Zaire Paige Not Only Played a Movie Killer, He Became One in Real Life.

December 21, 2011 11:23 AM

Zaire Paige had a breakout role in Antoine Fuqua's movie, Brooklyn's Finest. He was seen as a rising star. But, it all went away when he murdered a gang rival and was sentenced to 107 years in prison.

BONUS: Quotes from Wire cast members Hassan Johnson (Wee-Bey) and Michael K. Williams (Omar).

SECOND BONUS: Here is a printable version of the article.

posted by reenum (22 comments total)

Things not to do in court when being sentenced? Curse at the judge. Otherwise you might end up like 22-year-old Zaire Paige who was sentenced to 107 years yesterday after telling judge Vincent Del Giudice: "With all due respect and from the bottom of my heart, suck my dick."

The judge reportedly took the jab in stride, responding "I respectfully decline your offer. You are a danger to all civilized members of society" before handing down the sentence.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 11:32 AM on December 21, 2011

I feel bad for people who bust their ass in acting school, only to be usurped by the real thing when openings to portray criminals come up. And it's hard enough for blacktors to get work as it is.
posted by Renoroc at 11:44 AM on December 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, unrepentant murder will put the kibosh on your acting career.
posted by cmoj at 11:46 AM on December 21, 2011 [5 favorites]

Paige got away, but not before the officers had cuffed one of his wrists. The handcuffs can be seen in a "Smack" video he made soon after that was later uploaded to YouTube as "Brownsville Brooklyn Crips."

Wielding the handcuff like a badge of honor, Paige can be heard saying, "At the end of the day, we fuckin' B.K. machines. But we straight Crip." For a brief moment, Robert Crawford appears to Paige's right, his face visible just above his shoulder, standing like a brother in arms ready for battle.

What a dumbass.
posted by delmoi at 11:48 AM on December 21, 2011 [2 favorites]

You can't fix stupid. And a small part in a big movie doesn't fix what went wrong in a bad childhood. This is the sad story of a million black men, minus the movie.
posted by shoesietart at 11:56 AM on December 21, 2011 [3 favorites]

This kid is obviously not stupid. He's just not interested in living a life inside the law.
posted by clockzero at 12:01 PM on December 21, 2011

Things not to do in court when being sentenced?

Good find, Mr. Fab. Kind of a striking detail to be left out of the VV story.
posted by Edgewise at 12:12 PM on December 21, 2011

Without trivializing the matter this is exactly what Dave Chappelle was talking about with "when keeping it real goes wrong."
posted by 2bucksplus at 12:17 PM on December 21, 2011 [4 favorites]

Throwing your life away is stupid.
posted by shoesietart at 12:19 PM on December 21, 2011 [2 favorites]

What are you in for, cybercriminal? Hacking the sun? Freaking a planet? Technomurder? No. A century ago I told a man to kiss me on the peanus
posted by a_girl_irl at 12:29 PM on December 21, 2011

tsk, tsk
posted by telstar at 12:33 PM on December 21, 2011

And it's hard enough for blacktors to get work as it is.

What you talkin' 'bout Willis?
posted by Elmore at 12:48 PM on December 21, 2011

Good find, Mr. Fab. Kind of a striking detail to be left out of the VV story.

I've always had a soft spot for really absurd gallows-type humor. It cracks me right up. It reminded me of the other story I had heard about someone addressing the court and dropping a bomb second before sentencing.

[Herbie] Sperling had been on the wrong side of the law all his life, starting as a gopher when he was just a boy of seventeen, for infamous Mafioso, Vito Genovese...

...When found guilty at his final trial for drug dealing, the presiding judge asked Sperling if he wanted to address the court. ‘Yes, Your Honour‘ Sperling said. ’If you think I'm going to beg for mercy, you've got another think (sic) coming. You're all a bunch of fucking fascist cocksuckers, you can all go to hell, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you…’ (source)

posted by Mister Fabulous at 12:57 PM on December 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

I shake my head. It's naive to think that you can take a criminal, even if he's talented and smart, and by giving him a part in a movie, turn his life around. I'd say it would be a 10% chance. Too many people like the "thug life" to give it up, even if they could make a go of an acting career. And let's be real, one part in a movie doesn't make a career.

If you've never done an honest day's work in your life, you're probably going to be bored and disappointed by what honest work actually is. Some of these guys are just hardwired by the adventure and the high of being criminals. I guess that's part of what all of this is.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 1:06 PM on December 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

A thousand pities. It's funny - when I read that story, I think about what it must do to a kid to see his friends die in front of him, to see the bodies after violent death, as happened to this boy. I think about the men I've known who've grown up in rough circumstances, and how the need to seem "tough" can cause them to hide their real feelings and to speak cruelly out of fear - how there's a realistic fear of being seen as weak, as a victim. How there's so much false performance of a toxic masculinity, and how this leads people to crime and violence.

I think about the way people who grow up in bad circumstances can have so much more inside them than they can put into words, especially to a middle class reporter, so that what they say seems ridiculous or callow or so much less than they are.

In situations like this, when it's so easy to call a boy - just a baby, really, I say from my vantage point in my thirties - an unrepentant murderer, I am reminded, strangely enough, of GK Chesterton's short story, The Chief Mourner of Marne. Now, I don't much like Chesterton for all kinds of reasons, but this passage has always stayed with me since I was a little girl:

"There is," said Father Brown dryly; "and that is the real difference between human charity and Christian charity. You must forgive me if I was not altogether crushed by your contempt for my uncharitableness today; or by the lectures you read me about pardon for every sinner. For it seems to me that you only pardon the sins that you don’t really think sinful. You only forgive criminals when they commit what you don’t regard as crimes, but rather as conventions. So you tolerate a conventional duel, just as you tolerate a conventional divorce. You forgive because there isn’t anything to be forgiven.... Go on your own primrose path pardoning all your favourite vices and being generous to your fashionable crimes; and leave us in the darkness....to console those who really need consolation; who do things really indefensible, things that neither the world nor they themselves can defend... Leave us with the men who commit the mean and revolting and real crimes; mean as St. Peter when the cock crew, and yet the dawn came."
posted by Frowner at 2:13 PM on December 21, 2011 [4 favorites]

" I would like to direct this to the distinguished members of the panel: You lousy cork-soakers. You have violated my farging rights. Dis somanumbatching country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin iceholes... like yourselves."
— Roman Moroney
posted by Senor Cardgage at 2:34 PM on December 21, 2011

It's naive to think that you can take a criminal, even if he's talented and smart, and by giving him a part in a movie, turn his life around. I'd say it would be a 10% chance. Too many people like the "thug life" to give it up, even if they could make a go of an acting career.

Although it worked out pretty well for Danny Trejo actually.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 2:54 PM on December 21, 2011

"you've got another think (sic) coming"
posted by Rat Spatula at 3:28 PM on December 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

What are you in for, cybercriminal? Hacking the sun? Freaking a planet? Technomurder? No. A century ago I told a man to kiss me on the peanus

and also a murder, during which other people were injured.
posted by dubold at 3:49 PM on December 21, 2011

Don't know if it was linked in the voice article or elsewhere but here is the crip video featuring Zaire Paige starting at around 0:47
posted by Ad hominem at 6:59 PM on December 21, 2011

Err more like 0:40
posted by Ad hominem at 7:02 PM on December 21, 2011

This kid is obviously not stupid. He's just not interested in living a life inside the law.

Successfully living a life outside the law requires a lot more intelligence then living a life inside the law. This kid didn't have what it took to be a criminal. So he was living beyond his abilities.

I shake my head. It's naive to think that you can take a criminal, even if he's talented and smart, and by giving him a part in a movie, turn his life around.

Depends on why he's a criminal. Lots of people break the law because they need money, or want more of it then they've got. If you give them a job, they no longer need the cash.

What are you in for, cybercriminal? Hacking the sun? Freaking a planet? Technomurder? No. A century ago I told a man to kiss me on the peanus

What on earth is that from? The only reference on google is this thread and this tweet. WTF?
posted by delmoi at 3:42 AM on December 22, 2011