Forget nine lives, feline-like 50 Cent has probably used up at least a dozen.
Fiddy, who has been shot nine times and survived, was once again marked for death when a couple of unknown gunmen fired at the rapper and his posse on Wednesday.
The former crack peddler turned superstar rapper was pulling into the parking lot of the Doubletree Hotel in Jersey City just after midnight on Wednesday morning when gunfire erupted.
50 Cent, aka Curtis Jackson, took cover in the hotel lobby say police, dodging at least 10 bullets in the process. Cops recovered three casings from a.45 automatic and seven from a.40-caliber handgun, including one bullet found 200 feet away that shattered the window of a nearby tire store.
No one was hurt and cops are in the process of reviewing a parking-lot surveillance tape for clues to the incident. They’re also interested in talking to Fiddy, who’s currently MIA.
Cops are curious why hotel staff didn’t dial 911 until more than a half hour after the shots were fired at 12:02 a.m. By that time, 50 Cent and crew had hightailed it out of the area in his SUV limo and have remained out of sight ever since.
“There are a lot of questions to be asked, the least of which being: Why did they run? Why was there a delay in calling us?” Jersey City Police Captain Ron Sprofera told New York’s Daily News.
Now, the rapper has five days to turn himself in for questioning or face being issued a possible arrest warrant.
Calls to 50 Cent’s label were not returned.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Jersey City Doubletree says there’s no sinister explanation behind the 911 delay. “It’s clear to us that [the police] needed to be called faster and that in the confusion after the shooting they didn’t call fast enough and we apologize for that.”
According to the Daily News, 50 Cent checked into a Doubletree room rented by his label on Tuesday to shoot a music video. (Note to 50: Dude, you deserve a Four Seasons at least.)
Also working nearby was rival rapper Ja Rule, who was shooting, er, filming a Queen Latifah-produced movie called Cook Out.
Cops have not named Ja Rule or any of his entourage as suspects but the two rappers have been engaged in a very public feud.
Last week, Ja Rule’s friend and label mate at Murder Inc., D.O. Cannon, was murdered in Queens. The shooting came just days after rapper, Shadaha (Jah) Bey, was gunned down a few miles away. Bey was a member of 50 Cent’s crew, G Unit.
While there’s no official connection, the potentially retaliatory murders are fueling fears of an escalating rap war between Murder Inc. and 50 Cent and his mentor Eminem.
