Rick Ross Involved in Drive-By Shooting on Las Olas Blvd. (everybody is ok)

As widely reported, Fort Lauderdale resident Rick Ross survived an attempt on his life via drive-by shooting on Las Olas Boulevard early Monday morning, causing the Bawse to engage in evasive maneuvers that ended with his Rolls Royce crashed against the side of the building behind the Floridian. Thankfully everybody is ok.

The police report and most of the media indicated that Mr. Ross resides in Davie, but we’re pretty sure he actually lives in this mansion on Aqua Vista Boulevard in the Las Olas Isles:

Property records show the house is owned in the name of Rick Ross’ mother, and being less than a 2 mile drive from the crime scene this must have been where he was headed after a night of celebrating his birthday at LIV in Miami Beach. It is unclear whether he had actually been dining at the Floridian, but nobody would party in South Beach and then swing by Las Olas at 5 a.m., for food at the Floridian or any other reason before heading out to Davie. So either Ross had just eaten the Fat Cat Breakfast ($360 but serves 2 and includes a bottle of  Dom Pérignon) with his girlfriend before heading to his mansion in the Las Olas Isles or else he was just driving past the Floridian on his way home.

We did our own drive-by of Ross’s house Monday afternoon armed only with a camera, and it was pretty quiet. There were several nice cars parked in the driveway behind the fence, including one tricked-out low rider that was unique to that posh neighborhood, but otherwise not much action. We spied no armed security guards, no gathering of the Maybach Music crew, not even Lil Wayne crooning folk tunes with an acoustic guitar in the front yard. Which is understandable of course, Mr. Rozay may want to chill out for a bit.

Shootings in Fort Lauderdale are not uncommon and a number of them go unsolved, but we predict this one will have a different outcome. First, shootings on Las Olas Boulevard are rare. There was a shooting a few blocks east of the Floridian outside of Mangoes in March 2012, but I cannot remember another over the last several years. Besides maybe the beach, Las Olas Boulevard is the tourism heart of this city, so Mayor Seiler and the FLPD will be very interested in getting to the bottom of this one. Second, Las Olas is a really bad place to stage a drive-by. There must be cameras all over the place recording events taking place outside the art galleries, jewelry stores, etc. Whether these cameras caught the actual shooting or not, there must be footage of the drive-by car somewhere, and it will not be difficult to pick out the car as traffic is light at 5 a.m. Las Olas Boulevard is no Ocean Drive. There is speculation as to whether Chicago-based gang the Gangster Disciples are involved, and that might make sense because a local gang should know better than to fire a volley of a dozen or more rounds on Las Olas Boulevard. FLPD, we hope you bring these jerks from Chicago or elsewhere to justice. To be honest, not all of us at the FTLC are huge fans of the Rick Ross catalogue, but he’s local (not to mention he’s a human being) and a drive-by with bullets spraying the Floridian is total bullshit: ¡Viva Ricky Rozay!