"Cement Shoes" Victim Identified; Cause of Death Not

Peter Martinez, 28, supposedly was a member of a G Stone Crips crew. He was found with his feet buried in cement, the proverbial cement shoes,
Peter Martinez “owed a lot of money,”

REVISE NO. 2
He was identified; the cause of death was not (though one report suggested he may have been choked before his feet were dipped into the concrete). And it looks like it may have been a gangland hit, but one that possibly involved street gangs rather than the Mafia (though the two are known to have worked together in the past.)

Peter Martinez, 28, reportedly was a member of a G Stone Crips crew, supposedly the same one that jailed rap star Bobby Shmurda belongs to.*  Martinez was found with his hands tied behind his back and his feet buried in cement, the proverbial cement shoes, after he washed up on shore near Brooklyn's Oriental Blvd. wrapped in a black plastic big. This past Monday, at about 10:30 a.m., a passing Kingsborough Community College student spotted the body in Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay neighborhood. He alerted authorities.

Martinez had a long arrest record that details 31 arrests. Also, he “owed a lot of money,” his girlfriend was quoted by the Daily News telling investigators. No arrests were yet made.







Although an autopsy was completed on Tuesday, the cause of death was not identified, the News reported. However, he had not been shot or stabbed, officials said, which raises the possibility that he was thrown into the water alive, though some reports said he may have been choked.

In 2011, Martinez was sentenced to two years in prison for identity theft charges committed on Long Island's Suffolk County, according to The News.

He'd been missing for three weeks.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce was quoted earlier this week saying: "This individual was wrapped in plastic bags and his arms were tied behind him and his feet were submerged in concrete.

"Obviously a homicide."

Investigators believe Martinez's feet were dunked in a bucket of cement and left to harden, but the job was "botched," as crime experts and a retired detective told VICE. Cement shoes are more of an exercise in urban legend that an actual method of body disposal in the underworld.

It's believed that the reason the body washed ashore was because air had mixed in with the cement, making the "shoes" lighter in weight.

* The Daily News reported that the rapper had sued the police department on Friday over what he claims was a false arrest. Cops had nabbed Shmurda at a friend's Rockaway Parkway digs on June 3, 2014, allegedly knocking in the door and pillaging the place -- without a warrant. The suit claims that the officers were "chanting the lyrics to his chart-topping songs," and that the gun and drugs weren't his. He also alleges that the arrest gave him a perpetual case of "nervous shock and mental anguish."


Rapper Bobby Shmurda in Brooklyn Supreme Court in Feb. 2015 to learn his gun case had become part of another indictment in Manhattan.


Then, that December 69-count indictment that netted 15 members of the gang GS9, including the rapper.

Shmurda was held on $2 million bail Thursday by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice James Burke. The top count was second-degree conspiracy, which carries a potential prison sentence of up to 25 years in prison.

Shmurda (his real name is Ackquille Pollard) is credited with creating the Shmoney Dance, a so-called "viral sensation" 

A subsequent murder conspiracy arrest reportedly put the rapper in Rikers Island jail for much of 2015.)

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