Man lured, then killed in N.Y. had past trouble in LV

NEW YORK — Someone wanted Brandon Lincoln Woodard dead — bad enough to lure him to a midtown Manhattan block for what looked like a professional hit.

But who shot Woodard in the back of the head and why remained a mystery Tuesday as police studied security video of the gunman and delved into Woodard’s checkered past, which included run-ins with the law in both Los Angeles and Las Vegas, for clues.

The slaying of a 31-year-old visitor from Los Angeles “certainly appears to have been planned,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Based on the video, New York Police Department detectives suspect Woodard was lured into the Monday ambush shortly after he checked out of a hotel on nearby Columbus Circle, Kelly said.

The killer had arrived at least 30 minutes before the gunfire erupted in a normally safe neighborhood.

After Woodard got there, he checked his phone and walked back and forth as if looking for an address, police said. When the shooter approached, Woodard appeared to look back at him for a split second. He looked away again after “showing no sign of recognition,” Kelly said.

A security photo — released to seek the public’s help in identifying the gunman — shows him reaching into his pocket for a pistol moments before he fired a single round. Afterward, the shooter left Woodard in a pool of blood, slipped into a waiting Lincoln sedan and was driven away.

Ballistics evidence pointed to a possible lead: The 9 mm semiautomatic used to kill Woodard was the same weapon used to last month to shoot up the outside of a home in Queens where nobody was hurt.

Authorities in Los Angeles and Las Vegas confirmed that Woodard had a history of run-ins with the law in both places.

Woodard had been due back in court on Jan. 22 after his arrest by sheriff’s deputies in West Hollywood in April on a felony cocaine possession charge. He had pleaded not guilty.

Woodard was issued a misdemeanor battery summons in September 2004 after a backstage scuffle with a security officer at a concert at the Mandalay Bay resort on the Strip.

The records show Woodard failed to appear in Las Vegas Justice Court in October 2004. He was arrested in April 2008 in Las Vegas, based on the warrant. After pleading guilty, he was given credit for time served and released.