east boston

Portrait Emerges of Slain East Boston Shootout Suspect Kirk Figueroa

Kirk Figueroa seemed to bounce around the country trying on different lives

He seemed to bounce around the country trying on different lives - gangsta rapper, bounty hunter, military veteran, and religious family man.

The many faces of Kirk Figueroa.

The emerging portrait of the man who opened fire on Boston Police on Wednesday night is as confusing as it is conflicting.

He was a constable who allegedly told people he was a Boston Police officer.

"He told me he was a constable and that he had powers to arrest anybody in any jurisdiction," explained Diego, Figueroa's roommate, an NBC employee. "And I think he just kind of saw himself as above the law, in a way."

The cop wannabe supposedly ran a private security firm in Miami, San Francisco and here in Boston.

"He was secretive. Very secretive," Diego said. "Drapes over his window. Door always locked, door always closed. He would disappear for weeks at a time."

The website for his firm heralds an 8-year military career in the Army Reserves, military police battallion, though the Army says he never took basic training and was given a "hardship discharge" after just five months.

He also served a one-week stint as a corrections officer.

And there was a failed attempt to become a private eye in Florida - denied because of a criminal past.

He also had a criminal history.

According to court documents, Figueroa tried to torch his own car with a gallon of gasoline and open flame. A week later, he was arrested for lying to police about being a private detective, even brandishing a badge.

There was a failed marriage to a woman from his old New York neighborhood. In a divorce filing last year, she claimed he deserted her and that he was abusive and cruel.

"Gave me black eyes," she wrote. "chocked (sic) me, pulled out my hair, verbally humiliated me..."

His roommate in East Boston tells necn Figueroa angrily accused their third roommate of being an Islamic radical, but someone later claimed in a social media post under one of his aliases that he had been reborn "...as a baby into the Nation of Islam." Those aliases? Muhummed Isa Al Mahdi, kham menkaure hotep, Solomon, Fox and Kocoa Xango.

necn tried to find out more about Figueroa from the people who may have known him best, but his brother said they've been estranged and his mother is in mourning.

His wife did not call us back. Figueroa was killed in the shootout before their divorce was finalized.

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