Rapper Keak da Sneak— real name Charles Kente Williams—has been confined to a wheelchair since his August 2017 shooting in Richmond. He’s headed to prison in April.
“I don’t want anybody to get it He’s looking at me like he knows I’m misconstrued and think I don’t want a super-criminal.’ I went into the gas to do the time and face up to my station, came back out, and he’s parked mistake,” he said. “I mean, I did get by my car. While I’m walking up, he caught with a gun. But right now, I’m asks me if I’m on probation or parole.” not in the greatest health to be in some Williams was on probation from a filthy cell, you know what I mean?” previous firearms conviction, giving Speaking from his home the officer authority to search near Sacramento, Williams his car. The officer found a used a raised voice to gun, which the Amador be audible over the County district wound vacuum attorney later alleged removing bacteria had been stolen. from infected Williams was bed sores on his charged with four backside. One felonies and one is the “size of misdemeanor, a tangerine,” he court records said grimly. He show. All but one Keak da Sneak can’t feel anything of the charges were Bay Area rapper below his knees eventually dropped: and is bound to a felony possession wheelchair. of a firearm while on Though he has a probation. strong support system of friends He requested ankle-monitored house and family, including his wife, Dee arrest as part of his plea bargain— Bowens, his new reality is a difficult Bowens started a Change.org petition one. in hopes of swaying the court—but “I have days where I wake up was denied. He was granted a 60-day crying, man,” he said. “I can’t walk, extension in late January, pushing the you know what I mean? I’m used to beginning of his sentence to April 11. doing things on my own. I’m trying Over the past few months, Williams to get better to where I need less has turned to the media to protest what assistance, but it’s been a real humbling he believes is a lack of compassion from experience.” the court and a lackluster investigation Keak da Sneak is generally credited by the Richmond Police Department into with coining the term “hyphy” on his seemingly targeted shooting. He sees record and helped introduce the Bay his own case as but a symptom of the Area hip-hop movement to national society-wide sickness that also led to the audiences by featuring on E-40’s 2006 February 9 killing of 20-year-old rapper single, “Tell Me When To Go.” He is Willie McCoy, who was reportedly a celebrity in Oakland—and that puts a startled awake while sleeping in his car at mark on his back. His first brush with a Taco Bell in Vallejo and shot 25 times death came in January 2017, when a by officers. stranger trying to rob him and a friend “It seems like it always happens after a nightclub show in Tracy led to like that,” Williams said. “The cops are a struggle and Williams getting shot in always taking us out and then getting the buttocks. off like they didn’t do anything, like No longer able to afford a security they were in the right.” detail like he had at the height of Meanwhile, Williams’ lengthy his popularity, he says he bought a court battle has drained much of his handgun to protect himself. A couple financial resources. Despite the physiof months later, the gun was in his cal difficulty of leaving the house, he’s car when he stopped at a gas station performed semi-regularly since his driving home from a casino in Amador seven-month hospital stay in order to County. That’s when he saw a sheriff’s pay his attorneys and medical fees, and deputy at a stoplight. help support Bowens once he’s locked “I feel somebody eyeballing me, so up. But aside from the occasional I look up and he’s watching me from show, he’s not getting out much. the intersection while I’m pumping my “I’m in a wheelchair and stay in the gas,” he said. “I’m like, ‘Wow, this house all day,” he said. “I’m already on is racial profiling at an all-time high. house arrest.” Ω
“I have my days where I wake up crying, man.”
Photo by Joel Galvan
da Sneak attack A Bay Area rapper living in Sacramento started carrying a gun after he was shot twice. Now he faces prison in a wheelchair. by Howard Hardee
Bay Area rapper Keak da Sneak remembers somebody trying to open the driver-side door of his car at a Richmond gas station one night almost two years ago. What he saw next is burned into his memory: Bright flashes from the barrel of a gun, one after another. “They seemed like they were never going to stop,” he told SN&R in a recent phone interview. Keak put his car in gear and attempted to drive away, but couldn’t move his legs. A bystander pulled him out of the slowly moving vehicle; someone else called an ambulance. 12 | SN&R | 03.28.19
Struggling to breathe and losing consciousness on the pavement, he prayed that God would save his life. Keak—his real name is Charles Kente Williams—survived August 21, 2017, despite being shot eight times and falling into a three-day coma. But he still fears for his life today: In the midst of a grueling recovery from several life-saving surgeries, he’s set to begin a 16-month sentence in state prison next month for a gun charge he picked up about two years ago in Amador County. Having been to prison before, he expects inadequate medical care once he’s incarcerated.