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- Jun 8, 2006
It started as a simple Twitter beef, 140-character spurts of anger by two young men who grew up together.
But the tough talk exploded out of cyberspace and onto the streets of Harlem, where a college student was gunned down feet from Gov. Paterson's home.
Now tweets sent by victim Kwame Dancy, 22, and accused killer Jameg Blake, 22, could become key evidence in a murder trial, the Daily News has learned.
Dancy's mother, Madeline Smith, is appalled Internet chest-thumping could have led to blood spilled on the sidewalk.
"That's not a reason to shoot somebody," she said last week. "That's crazy. I don't know what's going on with that Twitter thing."
Dancy, who was studying to be a nurse, was killed by a shotgun blast to the neck Dec. 1 across from Lenox Terrace in Harlem, where he grew up with his father.
Blake - who lived on the same floor as Dancy, one floor below Paterson in the luxury high-rise on W. 132nd St. - was arrested two days later.
Charged with murder, he pleaded not guilty Wednesday and was held without bail.
Police sources said the two had a rocky relationship and the Twitter messages they posted - with friends jumping in - only made it worse.
Hours before the shooting, Dancy may have taunted Blake with a tweet: "N--s is lookin for u don't think I won't give up ya address for a price betta chill asap!"
Blake's Twitter account is also full of online disses, though only one tweet mentions Dancy by name: "R.I.P. Kwame" on Dec.3.
A police source said the messages may be subpoenaed to bolster the theory that there was bad blood between the two old pals.
But the Twitter beef wasn't the only strain; Dancy and Blake fought last summer over a girl in front of Lenox Terrace, sources said.
Despite the insults and fisticuffs, when Blake was collared, Dancy's mom was stunned.
"They were good friends, that's the sad part about it," said Smith, who is divorced from Dancy's dad and lives in Brooklyn. "Obviously, I didn't know him like I thought I did. I just want to ask him. 'Why? How could you?'"
She said her son had taken off a semester from Manhattan Community College and was training with the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. He planned to return to school and get his degree.
He had tried to steer Blake - a high school dropout and father of a baby boy - to get his GED.
"They've been friends since they were kids. Kwame would often try to help when [Blake] was going through stuff - and this was his thank you?" Smith said.
Blake's arrest was particularly shocking because he showed up at Harlem Hospital after Dancy was shot and hugged his father.
"Either he wanted to see if he actually killed [Kwame] or he wanted to see if anyone knew he did it," Smith said.
Authorities have a witness who identified Blake as the gunman, and video shows Blake leaving Lenox Terrace around the time of the shooting with a bag large enough to hold a shotgun.
Records also show Blake used his phone around the time and place of the shooting. The murder weapon, a shotgun with a spent shell, was recovered with two shirts in Central Park.
Blake's parents and lawyer Thomas Klein declined to comment.
Meanwhile, Dancy's mom cries every night about her son.
"He said, 'Mommy, I'm going to be a nurse,'" she said. "And look at this - we'll never know how far he would have gone. His dream was snatched from him, over foolishness."
Damn.
Just goes to show some people really really take the internet seriously.
