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Press Release

Schuele Shooter Sentenced To Life In Prison

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of New York

CONTACT:      Barbara Burns
PHONE:         (716) 843-5817
FAX:            (716) 551-3051
 
BUFFALO, N.Y. – U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy, Jr. announced today that Roderick Arrington, a/k/a Ra-Ra, 37, of Buffalo, NY, who was convicted following a jury trial of racketeering conspiracy, murder-in-aid-of-racketeering, and related charges, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara to consecutive sentences of life in prison. The defendant was also sentenced to 30 years in prison on two other firearm charges.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Wei Xiang and Paul Parisi, who tried the case, stated that Arrington, a member of the Schuele Boys Gang, killed Quincy Balance, a/k/a Shooter, at the intersection of Northland and Stevens on the East Side of Buffalo on August 30, 2012. Arrington and other Schuele Boys associates believed Balance was involved in the shooting murder of one of their associates on nearby Carl Street four days earlier.  Arrington exacted vengeance by shooting Balance three times as Balance pleaded that he didn’t kill the deceased associate.

The Schuele Boys Gang, which operated in the Schuele Street area of the East Side of Buffalo, was responsible for multiple acts of violence and the distribution of illegal narcotics including cocaine, crack cocaine, and marijuana. Arrington is one of 28 Schuele Boys Gang members and associates arrested in this case. To date, 27 of the 28 defendants arrested have been convicted.

“In accordance with the mandate set by President Trump and Attorney General Sessions to reduce violent crime and make our communities safer, this Office, working with our federal, state, and local partners, is methodically and systematically dismantling the gangs which have terrorized our communities and corrupted our youth for far too long,” said U.S. Attorney Kennedy. “Gang members beware, if you pull the trigger, then the bang that will ring in your ears forever will be that of the steel door slamming on the cell in the federal prison in which you will spend the rest of your life.”

The sentencing is the result of an investigation by the FBI Safe Streets Task Force, under the direction of Special Agent-in-Charge Adam S. Cohen; the Buffalo Police Department, under the direction of Commissioner Daniel Derenda; the Drug Enforcement Administration, under the direction of Special Agent-in-Charge James J. Hunt, New York Field Division; and the New York State Police, under the direction of Major Edward Kennedy. Additional assistance was provided by the Erie County District Attorney’s Office, under the direction of District Attorney John Flynn; the Edinboro University Police Department in Pennsylvania; the West Tennessee Judicial Drug Task Force; the City of McAllen, Texas Police Department; HSI Harlingen, Texas; and the FBI offices in Houston, Texas and Jackson, Mississippi.

Updated December 21, 2017