Bystander killed as US rapper is targeted outside Trump resort
Louisiana rapper Young Boy Never Broke Again has been targeted in a shooting in Miami that left a bystander dead and his girlfriend injured.
The rapper, 19-year-old Kentrell Gaulden, was fired on from a Cadillac Escalade as he left Trump International Beach Resort. Kaylyn Marie Long was hit in the shooting, while another bullet grazed a five-year-old child. Members of the rapper’s entourage returned fire, accidentally killing a 43-year-old bystander, Mohamad Jradi.
A Miami police spokesperson, Alvaro Zabaleta, said no one from Gaulden’s party would face charges over the killing, as they were shooting in self-defence.
Gaulden, a father of four, reached the US Top 10 in May 2018 with his debut album Until Death Call My Name. In 2017, he was arrested on an attempted murder charge following a drive-by shooting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was jailed for eight months and eventually given a 10-year suspended sentence. In March 2018, he was arrested for an alleged assault on his then girlfriend, Jania Jackson, who later denied the attack had taken place. He also spent time in a youth detention centre for robbery.
The shooting was just one incident among many in Miami over the weekend. Chart-topping rapper Lil Wayne cancelled his performance at the Rolling Loud festival after refusing a police search on entry. Kodak Black (real name Bill Kapri) who also topped the US chart with his album, Dying to Live, in December 2018, was arrested at the festival on a weapons charge, following a similar charge in April and a number of others before it. His lawyer said the rapper had failed to indicate he was already under indictment, when buying a firearm – Kapri is already facing trial later this year for sexual assault, after he was accused of raping a high school student in February 2016.
Another less prominent rapper, AAB Hellabandz, was killed in a separate shooting on Saturday night, with another person hospitalised. The rapper, originally from Chicago, was wanted in Atlanta for attempted murder and armed robbery.
Police have not yet made any arrests over the attacks, and are attempting to find out if they are related. “There are a lot of unanswered questions,” Zabaleta said.
The attacks come not long after the hip-hop world was shocked by the fatal shooting of Nipsey Hussle in Los Angeles in March. Another shooting, in June 2018, took the life of successful 20-year-old rapper XXXTentacion.