Just for the record, the word "thug" originates from India. Here is its origin information from this site:
BBC - Religion & Ethics - Thugs
The English word thug, meaning a violent criminal, comes from the Hindi word thag (and originally from the Sanskrit word sthaga), meaning a thief or villain.
The original Thugs were bands of roving criminals in India who strangled and robbed travellers. Originally these gangs committed murder following precise religious rites to honour Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction.
The crime was known as Thuggee, and although it involved a Hindu goddess, there were Muslim Thugs as well.
In the 19th century Thugs were strangling 40,000 people a year but by then many cases of Thuggee were straightforward robbery with no religious significance.
Looks like the hip-hop culture took it on as their own but I can remember that a thug was just any hoodlum black/white, Jew/Gentile.
In my book Romanowski is a classic thug.