Why would robbers gun down ‘King of Dance ?
Performer always packed a gun for protection
Rode rick Gallon was looking forward to another weekend of performing his lightning-fast dance maneuvers — the moves that often drew a crowd. He had five dance gigs lined up. Then things started going terribly wrong.
Gallon always kept his gun holstered to his hip, and this time, it got him turned away from a night time house party, according to his dad. Soon after, robbers found Gallon and a teen friend in the parking lot of a nearby closed Fort Lauderdale Walgreens. One robber stole jewelry from the friend while the second robber shot Gallon multiple times.
Gallon’s father, Richard Gallon, is now devastated and troubled by not knowing
who killed his son, the 23-year-old performer known as “StickEm, the King of Dance,” a young man who was constantly worried about his safety.
The Oct. 16killing couldn’t have been over Gallon’s jewelry, his dad figures.
Gallon wore two flashy gold chains and a Rolex watch all worth about $3,500, but the robbers didn’t steal his valuables, his father said.
So was it really a robbery gone bad? Or was someone intentionally coming after the budding dancing and rapstar? “Why y’all didn’t take that?” Richard Gallon asked of his son’s jewelry.
Not knowing why orwho killed Gallon haunts his great-grandmother.
“He was a good, great-grandson,” said Patricia Reeves. “Very amenable. Very quiet. He didn’t bother anybody that I know of.”
Dealing through dance
Roderick Gallon grewup with a dad he could only see behind plexiglas sin a state prison.
Hewas 14 when his father came home after being locked away for 10 years for slinging dope in South Florida.
On the outside, Richard Gallon saw so much of himself in his son. He was proud of his passion and talent and regret ted missing out on so much of his son’s life.
Both natural performers from a family line of performers, the father and son poured their emotions and frustrations into song verses, talking about people robbing, hurting and killing other people — Black people just like them.
As a child in school, Roderick Gallon jumped from his seat and danced after finishing his classroom assignments, prompting teachers to send word home that Gallon’s dancing was distracting.
From prison Richard Gallon often would have conversations on the phone with his son that sounded something like this: “You want to get up and dance in class just because you finished your work? When you get your ass in there, you sit down and do your work. And when the bell rings, run yourself out in the halland dance.” But thatwas a struggle. “Everywhere he goes, he was dancing,” Gallon said. “I mean everywhere.”
Dancing also became an outlet for Roderick Gallon, dealing with his pent-up emotions about growing up poor and around violence. Gallon also dealt with seizures that subsided as he grewolder.
His father encouraged him to keep his stress in check through dance.
“Hewould dance, and hewould dance so hard sometimes it was likehewas fighting with whatever he was dealing with with dance,” Gallon said.
A deadly encounter
Gallon always carried his gun when hew ent out and performed, his father said. He had five shows lined up the weekend he was killed.
At 1:54 a.m. Oct. 16, Gallon was ambushed as he walked back to his car an din an instant the things that haunted him at night— the reason for the gun, the dancing to release stress and the songs about people being unjust to one another — came true when Gallon was killed.
“He knew something like this was going to happen,” Richard Gallon said. “That’s all he had on his mind.”
Fort Lauderdale police already were on their way to the shooting, at the Walgreens at 1W. Sunrise Blvd., even before anyone called 911 to report the robbery.
The killing happened in apart of town equipped with gunshot-detection sensors, devices that are typically installed in areas prone to shootings so police can be quickly alerted.
Surveillance footage from a Sunrise Boulevard Walgreens parking lot, where Gallon and his friend had parked a car to attend the nearby party, shows Gallon ducking behind a car as his friend, a teen in a wheelchair, is held a gunpoint and rob bed of his jewelry.
Footages hows a different robber approaching Gallon and firing a gun. The Fort Lauderdale Police have not released any names of suspects.
Heading to see his son
Richard Gallon’s phone rang in the middle of the night. It was Roderick’s mom. She was in hysterics and could barely get the words out that their son had been shot.
Gallon grabbed a bag, shoved a few things in it and got on the road, stopping once for gas during the more than600-mile drive fromthe Atlanta area to Fort Lauderdale.
He plowed down the highway envisioning what he’d say to the cops when he got pulled over for speeding. That never happened.
Some7 ½ hours later at Broward Health Medical Center, he asked to see his son. Hewas told towait for a detective. That’s all Gallon needed to hear.
“Whenthey tell you to wait, your baby is dead,” Gallon said.
Talent ran in the family
Roderick Gallon was’t just a dancer, he also was a songwriter and singer.
In a video he made recently he is sitting in a car and touches his heart when he says he is going to speak about what he is feeling. He then breaks out in song talking about the stress of living in Section 8 housing and his mom questioning where his money was coming from.
The song, it seems now, is prophetic: It questions why people can’t stick together. “I can’t let anybody harm me or kill me. I probably got to run and escape, back to the city.”
Asked about the song, Gallon’s father said his son sang from the heart about life and what bothered him.
Roderick Gallon founded the company Too Spicy Entertainment. He was the chief operating officer. His father, raised in South Florida but now living in Atlanta, also has his own entertainment company, 3 Kings Entertainment. Richard Gallon, a singer, goes by the stage name King Richard.
Performing tends to run in the family.
Roderick Gallon’s great-grandfather, Steve Gallon, was a wellknown South Florida radio personality who went by Wildman Steve. The title of one of his albums is “Wildman Steve King of Them All.”
Steve Gallon died when Roderick Gallon was 6.
Richard Gallon said he didn’t want his son to follow the same path he did when he was his age: Richard Gallon had once sold dope because he felt there was nothing else for him, he said.
The dad was looking for a brighter future for his son and was looking forward to spending time with him, he said. The two were planning on making a video together over Thanksgiving.
Roderick Gallon was frustrated that his stardom wasn’t happening as quickly as he’d like in South Florida. He told his dad that he’d like to join him in Atlanta and that perhaps could propel his career. On Wednesday, the elder Gallon was at a funeral home finalizing his son’s arrangements.
“I wanted him out of South Florida so he could be who he was supposed to be,” the dad said.