Rapper Is Arrested After Report of Gunshots

A member of the Grammy Award-winning rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, who claimed he was shooting off fireworks in his yard, was arrested early Friday after police were called to the house by neighbors who reported the sounds of gunshots.

Stanley Howse, 24, also known as Flesh-N-Bone, a prolific songwriter and a founder of the quadruple-platinum selling group, was being held on $500,000 bail at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire station. Also being held on the same bail was Howse’s 19-year-old brother-in-law, Jamartik Cole, according to police and the group’s manager and lawyer.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Gary Ballen, the group’s manager. “As I understand it, it was fireworks for the Fourth of July. It just started a little early.”

The arrests, which occurred at about 2 a.m., culminated weeks of tensions between occupants of the rented Spanish hacienda-style house and neighbors, who had complained about loud music and shots being fired day and night.

Police released few details. But, Sgt. Kirk Wilder said, “There were guns. There were explosive devices.”

The men were being held on suspicion of possessing explosives.

A police detective confirmed that the bomb squad was sent to the house in the 22300 block of Lassen Street, near Topanga Canyon Boulevard, shortly before 6 a.m., and spent the morning there.

The group’s advisors said they believed the allegations were excessive and expect that no formal charges will be filed.

“It’s not like he had bombs,” Ballen said. “He had big fireworks.”

He added, “I’d like to know how many people getting arrested this weekend for fireworks will be held on half a million dollars’ bail.”

John K. Pierson, lawyer for the group, said he believed the circumstances surrounding Howse’s arrest “were blown way out of proportion” and that the neighborhood tensions seemed to be racially motivated and stirred by a particular neighbor “who had it out for my client.”

Pierson said Howse moved into the property in April and lived there with his wife, two children and several bodyguards.

The neighborhood, tucked beneath the Santa Susana Mountains in the western San Fernando Valley, is quiet, affluent and predominantly white. Homes sell in the $300,000 range, and don’t often change hands. Many of the residents are older, having lived there for 20 to 30 years.

It was a world away from the street corners of Cleveland’s ghetto, where Howse and other members of the group survived as teenagers by selling crack cocaine.

“They weren’t the first people I would pick. I was wary,” said their Chatsworth landlord, Stephen Liss of North Hollywood. “But they paid the rent, they ran through the proper credit checks, they had a business manager and an attorney.”

A woman who lives nearby described the new neighbors’ living situation as “a crash pad, with a rotating group of people.”

Most of the neighbors who spoke Friday said they had come to fear the rapper and his associates. But Howse’s advisors said their client, as someone who moved in the sometimes violent world of rap music, was often fearful himself. Over time he has received death threats, and his brother, Steve, known to the band’s fans as Layzie Bone, was shot six months ago in Cleveland. But he was wearing a bullet-proof vest at the time and survived.

Stan Howse moved to the Valley, his manager said, partly for security. But in Chatsworth, stories began circulating among the neighbors about guns being fired, and that people staying at the rapper’s house had beaten a puppy to death.

Pierson and Ballen said they knew nothing about any incident involving a puppy. They said they didn’t know about confiscated firearms. But, they added, if there were guns on the property, they were being carried legally and in self-defense.

The fatal shootings of rap artists Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G have left other rappers “justifiably paranoid,” Ballen said.

“These guys grew up harder than anybody--Eazy-E or Dre,” said Ballen. “They came from the Eastside ghetto of Cleveland and they have very, very rough lives. When they are threatened, they fight back with force. It’s something that’s institutionalized in their brains.”

He added that members of the group all wear bullet-proof vests.

Against that backdrop of mutual suspicion, a series of confrontations began at the rented house about a month ago with a neighbor who complained several times about loud music. The complaints soon escalated into two physical confrontations.

Pierson said the neighbor first was thrown off the property. The second, more serious confrontation resulted when, he said, the neighbor came on to Howse’s property and directed racial insults at Howse’s wife.

But the neighbor, who asked not be identified, said he was the victim of a beating in which he was kicked, punched, spat upon and struck with rocks.

No charges have been filed, Pierson said.

Shortly after 1 a.m. on Friday, tensions came to a head when, several neighbors said, it sounded like shots were being fired.

One neighbor, who had not been involved in any of the physical confrontations, said he heard “two explosions followed by a rapid succession of what sounded like gunfire” at about 1:10 a.m.

Afterward, the neighbor said, a man walked into the yard and began shouting profane insults, followed by, “You send anyone over to my house and I’ll fill them full of lead.”

He continued, “As this was going on, all of a sudden I heard sirens coming from Devonshire Division. Then, also the helicopters.”

“They decided to get their Fourth of July started a little early,” he added. “It seems stupid for someone with that kind of wealth to do something like that.”

Now a Grammy Award-winning rap group, the five members of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony honed their smooth harmonies while selling crack on the street corners of Cleveland.

Hoping to launch a musical career, they boarded a bus for Los Angeles in 1993 on a mission to hook up with the late rapper Eric “Eazy-E” Wright, a founding member of the group N.W.A. and owner of Ruthless Records. They eventually got an audition back in their hometown with the rapper, who immediately signed them.

Their music--hard-core rap and rhythm, combined with the smooth harmonies of contemporary R & B--has resulted in hit releases on rap, pop and R & B charts. They generally keep their names and birth dates secret, going only by Layzie Bone, Krayzie Bone, Wish Bone, Bizzy Bone and Flesh-N-Bone. The latter released a solo album on Def Jam earlier this year.

Their debut single, “Thuggish Ruggish Bone,” sold more than 500,000 copies. The group’s debut EP, “Creepin on Ah Come Up” went quadruple platinum, followed by their second album, “E. 1999 Eternal,” which went triple platinum. In 1997, they won a Grammy for best rap performance by a duo or group for their single “Tha Crossroads.”

The group’s double-CD package, called “The Art of War,” is due out soon, as is Flesh-N-Bone’s second solo effort.